ble clouds of pandours and hussars
that hovered everywhere around.

No sooner were we arrived in Silesia, than the King's body guard were
sent to Berlin, there to remain in winter quarters.

I should not here have mentioned the Bohemian war, but that, while
writing time history of my life, I ought not to omit accidents by which
my future destiny was influenced.

One day, while at Bennaschen, I was commanded out, with a detachment of
thirty hussars and twenty chasseurs, on a foraging party. I had posted
my hussars in a convent, and gone myself, with the chasseurs, to a
mansion-house, to seize the carts necessary for the conveyance of the hay
and straw from a neighbouring farm. An Austrian lieutenant of hussars,
concealed with thirty-six horsemen in a wood, having remarked the
weakness of my escort, taking advantage of the moment when my people were
all employed in loading the carts, first seized our sentinel, and then
fell suddenly upon them, and took them all prisoners in the very farm-
yard. At this moment I was seated at my ease, beside the lady of the
mansion-house, and was a spectator of the whole transaction through the
window.

I was ashamed of and in despair at my negligence. The kind lady wished
to hide me when the firing was heard in the farm-yard. By good fortune,
the hussars, whom I had stationed in the convent, had learnt from a
peasant that there was an Austrian detachment in the wood: they had seen
us at a distance enter the farmyard, hastily marched to our aid, and we
had not been taken more than two minutes before they arrived. I cannot
express the pleasure with which I put myself at their head. Some of the
enemy's party escaped through a back door, but we made two-and-twenty
prisoners, with a lieutenant of the regiment of Kalnockichen. They had
two men killed, and one wounded; and two also of my chasseurs were hewn
down by the sabre, in the hay-loft, where they were at work.

We continued our forage with more caution after this accident: the horses
we had taken served, in part, to draw the carts; and, after raising a
contribution of one hundred and fifty ducats on the convent, which I
distributed among the soldiers to engage them to silence, we returned to
the army, from which we were distant about two leagues.

We heard firing as we marched, and the foragers on all sides were
skirmishing with the enemy. A lieutenant and forty horse joined me; yet,
with this reinforcement, I durst not ret