clothes. But the worst of all was when we were beaten, and flying
through the mud--hussars, dragoons, and such gentry on our tracks,--we
not knowing when we saw a light in the night whether to advance or to
perish in the falling deluge.

Zebede told me all this in detail; how, after the victory of Dresden,
General Vandamme, who was to cut off the retreat of the Austrians, had
penetrated to Kulm in his ardor; and how those whom we had beaten the
day before fell upon him on all sides, front, flank, and rear, and
captured him and several other generals, utterly destroying his _corps
d'armee_. Two days before, on the 26th of August, a similar misfortune
happened to our division, as well as to the Fifth, Sixth, and Eleventh
corps on the heights of Lowenberg. We should have crushed the
Prussians there, but by a false movement of Marshal Macdonald, the
enemy surprised us in a ravine with our artillery in confusion, our
cavalry disordered, and our infantry unable to fire owing to the
pelting rain; we defended ourselves with the bayonet, and the Third
battalion made its way, in spite of the Prussian charges, to the river
Katzbach. There Zebede received two blows on his head from the butt of
a grenadier's musket, and was thrown into the river. The current bore
him along, while he held Captain Arnauld by the arm; and both would
have been lost, if by good luck the captain in the darkness of the
night had not seized the overhanging branch of a tree on the other
side, and thus managed to regain the bank. He told me how all that
night, despite the blood that flowed from his nose and ears, he had
marched to the village of Goldberg, almost dead with hunger, fatigue,
and his wounds, and how a joiner had taken pity upon him and given him
bread, onions, and water. He told me how, on the day following, the
whole division, followed by the other corps, had marched across the
fields, each one taking his own course, without orders, because the
marshals, generals, and all mounted officers had fled as far as
possible, in the fear of being captured. He assured me that fifty
hussars could have captured them, one after another; but that by good
fortune, Bluecher could not cross the flooded river, so that they
finally rallied at Wolda, where the drummers of every corps beat the
march for their regiments at all the corners of the village. By this
means every man extricated himself and followed his own drum.

But the happiest thing in this