five hundred and
twenty thousand, and that among our enemies were two old French
generals, Moreau and Bernadotte. Every one can read that in books, but
we did not yet know it, and we were sure of victory, for we had never
lost a battle. The ill-feeling of the people did not trouble us: in
time of war peasants and citizens are in a manner reckoned as nothing;
they are only asked for money and provisions, which they always give,
for they know that if they made the least resistance they would be
stripped to the last farthing.

The day after we got this important news there was a general
inspection, and twelve hundred of the wounded of Lutzen were ordered to
rejoin their corps. They went by companies with arms and baggage, some
following the road to Altenbourg, which runs along the Elster, and some
the road to Wurtzen, farther to the left.

Zimmer was of the number, having himself asked leave to go. I went
with him just beyond the gate, and there we embraced with emotion. I
stayed behind, as my arm was still weak.

We were now not more than five or six hundred, among whom were a number
of masters of arms, of teachers of dancing and French elegance--fellows
to be found at all depots of wounded. I did not care to become
acquainted with them, and my only consolation was in thinking of
Catharine, and sometimes of my old comrades Klipfel and Zebede, of whom
I received no tidings.

It was a sad enough life; the people looked upon us with an evil eye;
they dared say nothing, knowing that the French army was only four
days' march away, and Bluecher and Schwartzenberg much farther.
Otherwise, how soon they would have fallen upon us!

One evening the rumor prevailed that we had just won a great victory at
Dresden. There was general consternation; the inhabitants remained
shut up in their houses. I went to read the newspaper at the "Bunch of
Grapes," in the Rue de Tilly. The French papers were there always on
the table; no one opened them but me.

But the following week, at the beginning of September, I saw the same
change in people's faces as I observed the day the Austrians declared
against us. I guessed we had met some misfortune, and we had, as I
learned afterward, for the Paris papers said nothing of it.

Bad weather set in at the end of August, and the rain fell in torrents.
I no longer left the barracks. Often, as seated upon my bed, I gazed
at the Elster boiling beneath the falling floods, and the trees, an