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The Girlhood of Queen Louisa 239

III paying a visit of grateful acknowledgment, two or
three years after his wife's death. Although, in the days
of her youth, German national culture was already
emancipating itself from a foreign ascendancy, educa-
tion in royal and princely families, and in the upper
classes of society at large, continued to seek its models
preferentially outre-Rkin. In her later years, Queen
Louisa often lamented that the instruction received by
her in her youth had been more French than German;
and Jean Paul had it on the testimony of her eldest
sister that their mother had set the example by practically
suppressing the use among them of the native tongue.
Even at Berlin, the exaltation of German over French
had proved merely one of the reforming whims of
Frederick William II, and now, towards the close of his
reign, he was as completely under French domination
in his literary tastes as had ever been the case with his
uncle. For the rest, there is documentary proof that,
before the date of her marriage, Louisa's acquaintance
with the French language had proceeded about as far
as her real acquaintance with. German, and no further;
English she did not even begin to learn till a year or
two later. As a matter of course, serious gaps were left
in her historical and general knowledge, which she is
afterwards foimd striving with pathetic energy to fill;
and it is plain enough that, though at a later date
she took an eager interest in the Pestalozzian ideas of
education, her own mental training, and that of her
sisters, had been conducted on a more antique system.
