Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Luise Auguste Wilhelmine Amalie; 10 March 1776 – 19 July 1810) was Queen of Prussia as the wife of King Frederick William III.

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.

[17] Consequently, on one evening carefully planned by the duke, seventeen-year-old Louise met the king's son and heir, Crown Prince Frederick William.

[19] 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.

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.

[5][20] 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.

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.

[28] She also became a fashion icon, for instance starting a trend by wearing a neckerchief to keep from getting ill.[29] 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.

[33] 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.

[38][39] Knowing the temperament of the king, Hardenberg appealed directly to the queen for desired reform – wisely as it turned out, as Frederick William viewed the demands to remove his trusted advisers in the Kabinett as a "mutiny" similar to the Fronde.

After a small incident concerning an anti-French pamphlet occurred, King Frederick William was finally pressured by his wife and family to break off his uneasy peace and enter the war against the French emperor.

[41] The Prussian Army began mobilizing, culminating in the October 1806 Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, which was a disaster for Prussia, as the ability of its armed forces to continue the war were effectively wiped out.

[42] Napoleon himself occupied Berlin, causing the king, queen and the rest of the royal family to flee, despite Louise's illness, in the dead of winter to Memel in the easternmost part of the kingdom.

[2][43] On the journey there, there was no food or clean water, and the king and queen were forced to share the same sleeping arrangements in "one of the wretched barns they call houses", according to one witness traveling with them.

"[47] As the king felt that her presence might put Napoleon in a "more relaxed mood"; Louise reluctantly agreed to meet the emperor at Tilsit, but only to save Prussia.

[37] The queen recognized that her adopted country depended on her for moral strength, and as a consequence Louise regained her old sense of optimism, often taking time to prepare their eldest son for his future role as king.

"[51] By 1808 it was still considered unsafe to return to Berlin, and the royal family consequently spent the summer near Königsberg; Louise believed that the hard trials of her children's early lives would be good for them: "If they had been reared in luxury and prosperity they might think that so it must always be.

"[8] In the winter of 1808, Tsar Alexander I invited the king and queen to St. Petersburg, where she was treated to sumptuously decorated rooms; "Nothing dazzles me anymore", she exclaimed on her return to Germany.

[8][54] Returning to a much different Prussia than she left, a preacher observed that "our dear queen is far from joyful, but her seriousness has a quiet serenity... her eyes have lost their former sparkle, and one sees that they have wept much, and still weep".

[2][56] Frederick William did not remarry until 1824, when he entered into a morganatic marriage with Countess Auguste von Harrach, explaining "Womanly companionship and sympathy have become necessary to me, therefore I must marry again.

"[17] According to Christopher Clark, Louise was "a female celebrity who in the mind of the public combined virtue, modesty, and sovereign grace with kindness and sex appeal, and whose early death in 1810 at the age of only thirty-four preserved her youth in the memory of posterity.

"[5] Her reputation as a loving and loyal supporter of her husband became crucial to her enduring legacy; the cult that eventually surrounded Louise became associated with the "ideal" feminine attributes: prettiness, sweet nature, maternal kindness, and wifely virtue.

[2][58] Its purpose was to be given to those women who had made a significant contribution to the war effort against Napoleon,[59] though it was subsequently awarded to future members of the House of Hohenzollern unrelated to the French emperor, such as her granddaughter-in-law, Empress Victoria of Germany, and her great-granddaughter, Queen Sophia of Greece.

[61] Despite having actively supported the National Socialist movement since its early stages all through their accession to power in 1933, the Queen Louise League was nonetheless disbanded by the Nazis in 1934, as they viewed it as a hostile organization.