The illustration of Queen Louise’s flight to Memel (present-day Klaipeda, Republic of Lithuania) was created by the Prussian genre painter, decorator, illustrator, and professor at the Weimar School of Fine Arts, Woldemar Friedrich, and was published in 1896 in the book “Queen Louise. 50 Drawings for Old and Young”.
On July 12, 1806, the treaty establishing the Confederation of the Rhine was concluded in Paris. Napoleon significantly expanded his sphere of influence in the German lands. Prussian units lacked coordination and therfore suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Jena and the Battle of Auerstedt. The reserve army at Halle was defeated, and almost all the fortified cities surrendered without a fight. On October 27, 1806 Napoleon entered Berlin in triumph. Frederick William III and Louise were not far from the battlefield. In the chaos following the defeat, they were forced to flee. Louise with her children, her personal physician Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, and Countess von Voss made their way to Königsberg with numerous stops at Auerstedt, Weimar, and Blankenhain. While she was there, she fell seriously ill with “nervous fever”, as typhus was called at the time. While Louise was ill, Napoleon and his army marched toward Königsberg. Hufeland suggested that the queen should stay there, but she refused:
