Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was Queen of Prussia as the wife of King Frederick William III. The couple's happy, though short-lived, marriage produced nine children, including the future monarchs Frederick William IV of Prussia and William I, German Emperor.
Her legacy became cemented after her extraordinary 1807 meeting with French Emperor Napoleon I at Tilsit – she met with him to plead unsuccessfully for favorable terms after Prussia's disastrous losses in the War of the Fourth Coalition. She was already well loved by her subjects, but her meeting with Napoleon led Louise to become revered as "the soul of national virtue". Her early death at the age of thirty-four "preserved her youth in the memory of posterity", and caused Napoleon to reportedly remark that the king "has lost his best minister". The Order of Louise was founded by her grieving husband four years later as a female counterpart to the Iron Cross. In the 1920s, conservative and nationalist German women founded the Queen Louise League.
Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1776–1793)
Duchess Luise Auguste Wilhelmine Amalie of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was born on 10 March 1776 in a one-storey villa, just outside the capital in Hanover. She was the fourth daughter and sixth child of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and his wife Princess Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt. Her father Charles was a brother of Queen Charlotte and her mother Frederike was a granddaughter of Louis VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. Her maternal grandmother, Princess Maria Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, and her paternal first-cousin Princess Augusta Sophia of the United Kingdom served as sponsors at her baptism; her second given name came from Princess Augusta Sophia.At the time of her birth, Louise's father was not yet the ruler of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and consequently she was not born in a court, but rather in a less formal home. Charles was field marshal of the household brigade in Hanover, and soon after Louise's birth he was made Governor-General of that territory by his brother-in-law George III, Elector of Hanover. The family subsequently moved to Leineschloss, the residence of Hanoverian kings, though during the summer they usually lived at Herrenhausen.
File:Schadow-Prinzessinnen.jpg|thumbnail|left|175px|The famous Princesses Monument statue of Louise, with her sister Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz by Johann Gottfried Schadow.
Louise was particularly close to her sister Frederica, who was two years younger, as well as with their only brother George. Louise and her siblings were under the care of their governess Fräulein von Wolzogen. The poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described Luise and Friederike of Mecklenburg-Strelitz as “heavenly visions, whose impression upon me will never be effaced”. When Louise was only six years old, her mother died in childbirth, leaving a permanent mark on the young duchess. She would often give away pocket change to other children who experienced similar losses, stating "she is like me, she has no mother". After Duchess Friederike's death, the family left Leineschloss for Herrenhausen, sometimes called a "miniature Versailles". Duke Charles remarried two years later to his first wife's younger sister Charlotte, producing a son, Charles. Louise and her aunt and new stepmother became close until Charlotte's early death the year after their marriage, also from childbirth complications. The twice widowed and grieving duke went to Darmstadt, where he gave the children into the care of his mother-in-law and Louise's grandmother, the widowed Princess Maria Louise.
Education
Marie Louise preferred to raise her grandchildren simply, and they made their own clothes. A new governess from Switzerland, Madame Gelieux, was appointed, giving the children lessons in French; as was common for royal and aristocratic children of the time, Louise became fluent and literate in the language, while neglecting her own native German. She received religious instruction from a clergyman of the Lutheran Church. Complementary to her lessons was an emphasis on charitable acts, and Louise would often accompany her governess when visiting the houses of the poor and needy. Louise was encouraged to give out as much as was in her means, although she often got into trouble with her grandmother for donating too much for charity. From the age of ten until her marriage at 17, Louise spent most of her time in the presence of her grandmother and governess, both well-educated and refined. When only nine years old, Louise was present when the poet Friedrich Schiller read from the first act of "Don Carlos" for the entertainment of the assembled court, thus sparking her love for German as a literary language, especially works of Schiller. Louise loved history and poetry, and not only enjoyed reading Schiller, but also came to like the works of Goethe, Paul, Herder and Shakespeare, as well as ancient Greek tragedies.In 1793, Marie Louise took the two youngest duchesses with her to Frankfurt, where she paid her respects to her nephew King Frederick William II of Prussia. Louise had grown up into a beautiful young woman, possessing "an exquisite complexion" and "large blue eyes," and was naturally graceful. Louise's uncle, the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, hoped to strengthen ties between his house and Prussia. Consequently, on one evening carefully planned by the duke, seventeen-year-old Louise met the king's son and heir, Crown Prince Frederick William. The crown prince was twenty-three, serious-minded, and religious. She made such a charming impression on Frederick William that he immediately made his choice, desiring to marry her. Frederica caught the eye of his younger brother Prince Louis Charles, and the two families began planning a double betrothal, celebrating a month later, on 24 April 1793 in Darmstadt. Frederick and Louise were subsequently married on 24 December that same year, with Louis and Frederica marrying two days later.
Crown Princess of Prussia (1793–1797)
In the events leading up to her marriage, Louise's arrival in Berlin, the Prussian capital, caused quite a sensation, and she was greeted with a grand reception by the city's joyful citizens. When she broke protocol and stopped to pick up and kiss a child, Prussian writer Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué remarked that "The arrival of the angelic Princess spreads over these days a noble splendor. All hearts go out to meet her, and her grace and goodness leaves no one unblessed." Another wrote "The more perfectly one becomes acquainted with the Princess the more one is captivated by the inner nobility, and the angelic goodness of her heart."Louise's father-in-law King Frederick William II gave the couple Charlottenburg Palace, but the crown prince and his new wife preferred to live at Paretz Palace, just outside Potsdam, where Louise kept herself busy with household affairs. Paretz was far from the bustle of court, as the couple were most content in the "rural retirement" of a country life. The marriage was happy, and Louise was well-beloved by the king, who called her "the princess of princesses" and gave her Oranienburg Palace. The crown princess saw it as her duty to support her husband in all his pursuits, and the couple enjoyed singing together and reading from Shakespeare and Goethe. Louise soon became pregnant, giving birth to a stillborn girl on 1 October 1794 at the age of eighteen. Nine healthy children would follow in quick succession, though two died in childhood: Crown Prince Frederick William, Prince William, Princess Charlotte, Princess Frederica, Prince Charles, Princess Alexandrine, Prince Ferdinand, Princess Louise, and Prince Albert. The couple also used the Crown Prince's Palace in the capital.
Louise's charitable giving continued throughout her life, and on one occasion, while attending a harvest festival, she purchased presents and distributed them to local children. On her first birthday after her marriage in Berlin, when King Frederick William II asked his daughter-in-law what she desired for a present, Louise replied she wanted a handful of money to let the city's people share her joy; he smilingly gave her a large quantity for the task.
Queen consort of Prussia (1797–1810)
On 16 November 1797, her husband succeeded to the throne of Prussia as King Frederick William III after the death of his father. Louise wrote to her grandmother, "I am now queen, and what rejoices me most is the hope that now I need no longer count my benefactions so carefully." The couple had to abandon their solitude at Paretz and begin living under the restraints of a royal court. They began a tour of the country's eastern provinces for two purposes: the king wanted to acquaint himself with their new subjects, and despite the unusualness of a consort accompanying the king further than the capital, Frederick William wanted to introduce the queen as well to their people. Louise was received everywhere with festivities. For the first time in Prussian history, the queen emerged as a celebrated public personality in her own right, as she occupied a much more prominent role than her predecessors. Louise's presence on her husband's eastern journey was a break from the traditional role of the consort – importantly however the queen's power and enduring legacy did not stem from holding a separate court and policy than her husband's, but rather the opposite: she subordinated her formidable intelligence and skill for her husband's sole advantage. She also became a fashion icon, for instance starting a trend by wearing a neckerchief to keep from getting ill.After her husband's accession, Louise developed many ties to senior ministers and became a powerful figure within the government as she began to command universal respect and affection. The queen went out of her way to stay informed about political developments at court, and from the very beginning of his reign the new king consulted Louise on matters of state. Frederick William was hesitant and cautious, and hated war, stating in 1798, "I abhor war and... know of nothing greater on earth than the preservation of peace and tranquility as the only system suited to the happiness of human kind". In keeping with the later foreign policy of his father's, Frederick William favored neutrality during the early years of the conflict with the revolutionary French First Republic, which evolved into the Napoleonic Wars ; he refused the various pressures to pick a side in the War of the Second Coalition. Louise supported this view, warning that if Prussia were to side with the coalition powers of Austria, Great Britain, and Russia, it would lead to dependence on the latter power for military support. She foresaw that because Prussia was by far the weakest of the great powers, and it would not have been able to ensure it benefited from the results of such an alliance. French aggression caused the king to eventually consider entering the wars, but his indecision prevented him from choosing a side, either France or the coalition powers. He consulted the many differing opinions of Queen Louise and his ministers, and was eventually compelled into an alliance with Napoleon, who was recently victorious from the Battle of Austerlitz.
Baron vom Stein, a member of the bureaucracy, having abhorred the country's former neutrality, sought to reform the organization of the government from favor-based cronyism into a responsible ministerial government. He prepared a document for the king detailing in strong language what administrative reforms were needed, such as establishing clearer lines of responsibility among ministers; this work however never reached Frederick William, as Stein passed it first to General Ernst von Rüchel, who in turn passed it onto the queen in the spring of 1806. Though Louise agreed with its contents, she thought it "too violent and passionate" for the king, and consequently helped suppress it.