them on a run, for the sooner we
reached them the less time they would have for firing.

We entered the city at three places, marching through hedges, gardens,
hop-fields, and climbing over walls. The marshals and generals
followed after. Our regiment entered by an avenue bordered with
poplars, which ran along the cemetery, and, as we debouched in the
public square another column came through the main street.

There we halted, and the Marshal, without losing a moment, despatched
the Twenty-seventh to take a bridge and cut off the enemy's retreat.
During this time the rest of the division arrived, and was drawn up in
the square. The burgomaster and councillors of Weissenfels were
already on the steps of the town-hall to bid us welcome.

When we were re-formed, the Marshal-Prince of Moskowa passed before the
front of our battalion and said joyfully:

"Well done! I am satisfied with you! The Emperor will know of your
conduct!"

He could not help laughing at the way we rushed on the guns. General
Souham cried:

"Things go bravely on!"

He replied:

"Yes, yes; 'tis in the blood! 'tis in the blood."

The battalion remained there until the next day. We were lodged with
the citizens, who were afraid of us and gave us all we asked. The
Twenty-seventh returned in the evening and was quartered in the old
chateau. We were very tired. After smoking two or three pipes
together, chatting about our glory, Zebede, Klipfel and I went together
to the shop of a joiner and slept on a heap of shavings, and remained
there until midnight, when they beat the reveille. We rose; the joiner
gave us some brandy, and we went out. The rain was falling in
torrents. That night the battalion went to bivouac before the village
of Clepen, two hours' march from Weissenfels.

Other detachments came and rejoined us. The Emperor had arrived at
Weissenfels, and all the Third corps were to follow us. We talked only
of this all the day; but the day after, at five in the morning, we set
off again in the advance.

Before us rolled a river called the Rippach. Instead of turning aside
to take the bridge, we forded it where we were. The water reached our
waists; and I thought, as I pulled my shoes out of the mud, "If any one
had told me this in the days when I was afraid of catching a cold in
the head at M. Goulden's, and when I changed my stockings twice a week,
I should never have believed it. Well, strange things happen to one in
t