All the Storks, grown and children, liked their new Nest in KÖnigsberg.

It was a city, and there was more to amuse one than in Memel. But life still had its troubles both for them, for the Queen, and for Prussia.

One day Marianne was standing with the children on the bridge of Kantstrasse. They were looking down at the Fish Market and laughing at the fish women from the Baltic as they sold their fish. There were Dutch vessels in the Pregel, and queer sailors, and Marianne told the twins to look at the queer signs hanging on the houses on the bank. "When the Poles were here," she explained, "each man painted the sign of his trade and swung it from his house. See, that was a shoemaker, there was a tailor."

While they talked, people were passing along Kantstrasse by the dozens, professors going to and fro, town people, soldiers, sailors or fishers from the Baltic.

Presently along came Franz.

When he saw the little group he smiled and joined them.

While they watched the scene he told them a dreadful story of Napoleon, of something which had helped bring on the war.

"It roused all Prussia," he said.

It was the story of the bookseller, Palm of Nuremberg.

In that quaint old town where they make the toys of the world, where the famous Albrecht DÜrer once lived and drew and painted, had lived a certain honest young man named Palm, and his young wife, Anna. He was a bookseller, and respected by everybody.

One day he received a package of books by mail which he was to sell in his shop. The name of the book was "Germany in Her Deepest Degradation," but it was anonymous.

Herr Bookseller Palm placed the books in his shop as requested.

A little later he was arrested by order of Napoleon and threatened with death unless he revealed the name of the author.

Palm had one answer. The books had been sent him without a name, and that was all he knew.

There was much more, but Franz first told how Palm, who had hidden, was arrested by a trick. A man pretended to be in great trouble from which only Palm could save him. The kind bookseller came forward to see the messenger, was seized, dragged off, and shot without proper trial, though the women of the town appeared before the judges clamouring for mercy, and his poor young wife implored his life from Napoleon's officers. Only a good Roman Catholic priest supported him to the end, although Palm was a Lutheran. "Shot down like a dog!" cried Franz hotly.

Marianne's tears fell when she heard of the suffering of the wife, of Palm's goodness, his belief in God, and his bravery in refusing to give the name of the author.

"How I hate Napoleon!" cried Marianne. "Oh, if I were a man and able to fight him!"

Those were stormy days in KÖnigsberg.

The Stork's Nest was thronged with students and professors, all full of talk and bitter against Napoleon.

Ludwig stayed there always now, and he was prime mover in a great plan among the students, and so when Pauline was betrothed to him many professors and students came with congratulations.

"I shall never marry," said Marianne, quite positively.

Everybody laughed, but she was herself very serious.

"My heart is with my country," she said.

In the evenings all the family gathered again about the big table, but instead of reading they listened now to talking.

"Stein will save our land," said Ludwig one evening. "God be praised! The King no longer opposes him, but is guided by his counsel."

"But will Napoleon permit him to remain?" The Professor looked anxious.

Ludwig shrugged his shoulders.

"At all events," he said, "our King's conduct is noble. He had given up everything, plate, wealth, all he has, to help with this debt to Napoleon. The future is God's, not ours."

As for the Queen, all Prussia sang praise of her nobility in going to Tilsit.

Marianne had been once to Memel on a visit to her uncle Joachim, who was happy now with Rudolph at home again, and had been to Court and had seen Queen Louisa before she herself moved to KÖnigsberg.

She had been reading a wonderful book called "Leonard and Gertrude."

"I wish," she told Marianne, "that I could get into a carriage and start off to Switzerland and find the author."

His name was Pestalozzi, and he was full of new ideas of how to educate children.

But what pleased Marianne was the news that the Queen was soon to come to KÖnigsberg.

"But our dear Queen is not well," said the old Countess to Marianne. "Since her visit to that monster she lies awake at night and weeps and often suffers a pain in her heart, though in public she smiles and is always an angel."

"Down with Napoleon!" called out the parrot. "Upstart! Villain! Monster! Down with the Emperor!"

The old Countess gave him a cracker.

"Pretty Polly," she said. "But now be quiet."

"Upstart! Villain!" repeated Polly.

Then the Countess complained to Marianne of all the noise of the Royal children and of the conduct of the Maids of Honour.

"One night when our dear Queen was ill the noise was dreadful. It woke her from a doze and I went out to see who was making it. And what did I find?"

The old lady shook with offended dignity.

"Why, the Maids of Honour, my child, flirting and laughing with the generals! I spoke to the King, but, my dear Marianne, what good can it do? Etiquette has gone entirely out of fashion! The Maids of Honour will have their ways, will laugh, talk, and behave in a way most unseemly. But never mind, we shall soon come to KÖnigsberg."

It was deep winter when the royal family arrived. The people of Memel were sad, indeed, to see them depart, and the King wrote them a letter.

"I thank my brave citizens of Memel for their true and steadfast attachment to my person, my wife, and my whole house. Memel is the only town in my dominions which has escaped the worse calamities of the war, but it has proved itself capable of enduring them and ready, if called on, to resist the enemy. I shall never forget that Divine Providence preserved to us an asylum in this town and that its people evinced the warmest and most constant attachment to us."

The people of KÖnigsberg on their part were delighted. Immediately they elected the Crown Prince rector of their famous University.

"On the sixth of March," they said, "we will confer this honour on him, give a grand fÊte, and have a torch-light procession."

The Crown Prince, who was thirteen now, thought this very fine, and for a few days walked about with dignity, but then he grew tired of such stiffness and joined Prince William and his friend Rudolph von Auerswald, Carl von Stork, and little Prince Carl, in their battles against the mice and rats in the old castle.

On February the first all the bells of this old city of the King rang out most joyfully.

"We have a new little sister," the Royal children told Rudolph and Carl.

"Her name," said the King, "shall be Louisa, for her mother."

"It is because I love thee so dearly," he said to the Queen, "that I have named our youngest little daughter, Louisa."

Tears started to the Queen's eyes.

"May she, dear Fritz, indeed grow up to be thy Louisa."

"I am weary," the King said, "of lords and ladies. It is the people of Prussia who have been my friends and helped me. Therefore, it is they who shall be sponsors at the baptism of my daughter."

So there came men to represent every class of the Prussian people, and they sat down to as fine a feast as the King's pocketbook would permit him to give them.

The Queen, who was not well, lay on a sofa and received all the godfathers of the tiny Louisa, and the baptism took place there, and not in the church, because of the cold weather.

The Countess von Voss brought the baby to the Princess William and gave it its name of Louisa Augusta Wilhelmina Amelia for its mother.

The court ladies all wore round skirts and tunics, and the Queen gave the old Countess a handsome set of ornaments, but they all wept bitterly for the little girl whose blue eyes had opened on so cold and cruel a world as Napoleon and winter had made East Prussia.

When all sat at the banquet one of the godfathers arose and addressed the tiny Louisa, whose blue eyes stared at him in wonder.

"Louisa Wilhelmina," he said, "god-child of the people, thou art a gentle mediator between the King and us. Mayst thou live to stand a full-grown blooming virgin amongst thy brothers and sisters; may then thy royal house be flourishing in renewed glory. Meanwhile, dark hours will pass like storm-birds over thy head—thou wilt hear the rushing of their wings, but it will not frighten thee. Thou, sweet one, wilt smile, feeling nothing but thy childish happiness and the charm of life. Loving arms will hold thee safely, high above the precipice on the edge of which we stand. May the future smile on us through thee. In thee we see thy father's love to us, and by thy bright eyes may the people speak comfort to the King, saying, 'We are thine, thou art our lord and master: be strong and true to thyself. Trust not in thy councillors and thy servants, for they are not all full of courage, nor all of one mind. What they have done and what they have left undone has brought us near to ruin. Trust thine own judgment, thine own heart, and we will trust in thee. We are all thine, master, be strong and true to thyself.'"

But the people of KÖnigsberg had other things to think of than tiny Louisa.

All the patriots of Germany came to and fro, among them Schleiermacher, who had refused to remain in Halle when Napoleon took the city from Frederick William. He believed that Austria and England would join in throwing off Napoleon.

"Now," he said, "while Napoleon is in Spain, let us do what we can."

For, all over Germany, the French army were still masters, driving people from their homes, burning villages, doing all that Napoleon permitted.

"Now," cried Schleiermacher.

"Now," cried Ludwig Brandt.

"Now," cried all the students of the University.

So in that summer in KÖnigsberg was founded a secret society called the "Tugendbund," or "League of Virtue," whose purpose was to spread patriotism throughout Germany. Members sprang up everywhere, agents went to and fro, and the watchword was "Secresy."

Nevertheless, Napoleon heard of it.

"Dismiss Stein," he ordered the King, "he is the founder. He shall not remain as Prussian Minister."

Then he put a price on this great man's head, and he was forced to flee for his life to Prague in Bohemia. He had done his best for his country and, therefore, Napoleon wished to be rid of him. But it was untrue that he founded the "Tugendbund."

"I am heartily tired of life," he wrote, "and wish it would soon come to an end. To enjoy rest and independence it would be best to settle in America, in Kentucky, or Tennessee; there one would find a splendid climate and soil, glorious views, and rest and security for a century—not to mention a multitude of Germans—the capital of Kentucky is called Frankfort."

But the Prussians refused to be conquered.

"We will outwit Napoleon, who has declared that the Prussian army can consist only of forty-two thousand soldiers," they cried, and they drilled soldiers, sending set after set home, always keeping the army at forty-two thousand, but training every man and boy of Prussia.

Otto von Stork refused to return home, but while he drilled away with the rest he sent letters telling of the dreadful times of the Berliners, how they had no food, how even the once rich lived like beggars, how there was no wax for candles, and how Napoleon had robbed the city of all he could lay his hands upon.

So another unhappy year for Prussia passed away and brought in 1809.

The Queen's pink cheeks had faded to white, her eyes showed that their blue had been washed with tears, and about her mouth were lines of sorrow.

"If posterity," she wrote, "will not place my name amongst those of illustrious women, yet those who are acquainted with the troubles of these times will know what I have gone through and will say, 'She suffered much and endured with patience,' and I only wish they may be able to add: 'She gave being to children worthy of better times and who by their continual struggles have succeeded in attaining them.'"

Sometimes she talked this way to the Crown Prince and little William, and their eyes would glow and they would promise that they would do great things for Prussia.

When she went through KÖnigsberg streets, in the warm days when the flowers were in bloom, it was the joy of all the little children to offer her nosegays. Never did she decline one, and she always had a smile for everybody.

One day came news of Otto which startled his father and sent his mother weeping to bed. Major Shill, a brave Prussian soldier, refused to stop fighting against Napoleon, and became a great hero of Prussia, though on the 30th of December, 1808, while the King and Queen were in St. Petersburg on a visit to the Czar Alexander, the Emperor had withdrawn his soldiers from Prussia, and the Brandenburg Hussars and a cavalry regiment under this Major Shill entered Berlin.

When Napoleon began again to fight the Austrians Major Shill departed from Berlin against the French without a declaration of war, angering the King, but attracting a thousand to his banner.

Among them was Otto von Stork.

"Do not grieve, my dear parents," he wrote; "never shall I lay down my arms until Napoleon is defeated."

But what were a thousand men?

The end came quickly.

Ludwig brought the news to the Professor.

"Shill is killed," he said; "shot while fighting in the streets of Stralsund. Twelve of his officers have been taken and shot by the French, the others sent to the galleys."

"Otto! Otto!" cried poor Madame von Stork; "Richard, Ludwig, where is my Otto?"