f this movement, for every
one thought only of the queen, and looked anxiously through the closed
coach windows.

"The queen! It is the queen!" exclaimed the people, greeting the beloved
lady in the most rapturous manner. All arms were raised in sign of
respect, and every voice uttered a welcome of "Long live the queen!"

The carriage window was lowered, and Louisa's beautiful face appeared;
but she looked pale and afflicted; her eyes, generally so radiant,
seemed dimmed and tearful; yet she tried to smile, and bowed repeatedly
to her enthusiastic friends, who rushed impetuously toward her, and, in
their exultation, forgetful of the rules of etiquette, seized the reins
and stopped the horses.

"We want to see our queen! Long live our Queen Louisa!" cried thousands
of voices. Those who stood nearest the carriage, and beheld her
countenance, fell on their knees in the fervor of their love, and eyes
that never before had wept were filled with tears; for she seemed as an
angel of sorrow and suffering. She rose, and, leaning out of the coach
door, returned the affectionate greetings of her faithful subjects, and,
weeping, stretched out her arms as if to bless them.

"Long live the queen! Long live Louisa!" they cried, and those who held
the horses, in order to stop the carriage, dropped the reins, rushed
toward the coach door, threw up their hats, and joined in the welcome
cry. The coachman, profiting by this movement, drove onward. The people,
whose desire had been satisfied in having seen their queen, no longer
resisted, and permitted the carriage to roll away.

Louisa closed her coach window, and, sinking back upon the cushions,
exclaimed in a heart-rending tone, "Alas! it is perhaps the last time
that they thus salute me! Soon, perhaps, I shall be no longer Queen of
Prussia!" She buried her face in her hands, and sobbed aloud.

"Do not weep," whispered Madame von Berg, the queen's intimate friend,
who was sitting by her side, "do not weep. It may be a dispensation of
Providence that the crown shall fall from your head for a moment, but He
will replace it more firmly, and one day you will again be happy."

"Oh, it is not for the sake of my own majesty, and for my little worldly
splendor, that I am lamenting at this moment," said the queen, removing
her hands from her face. "I should gladly plunge into obscurity and
death if my husband and my children were exempted from humiliation, and
if these good people, who lov