rout was, that a little farther on, at
Buntzlau, their officers met them, surprised at yet having troops to
lead. This was what my comrade told me, to say nothing of the distrust
which we were obliged to have of our allies, who at any moment might
fall on us unprepared to receive them. He told me how Marshal Oudinot
and Marshal Ney had been beaten: the first at Gross-Beeren, and the
other at Dennewitz. This was sad indeed, for in these retreats the
conscripts died from exhaustion, sickness and every kind of hardship.
The veterans of Spain and Germany, hardened by bad weather, could alone
resist such fatigue.

"In a word," said Zebede, "we had everything against us--the country,
the continual rains, and our own generals, who were weary of all this.
Some of them are dukes and princes, and grow tired of being forever in
the mud instead of being seated in comfortable arm-chairs; and others,
like Vandamme, are impatient to become marshals, by performing some
grand stroke. We poor wretches, who have nothing to gain but being
crippled the rest of our days, and who are the sons of peasants and
workingmen who fought to get rid of one nobility, must perish to create
a new one!"

I saw then that the poorest, the most miserable are not always the most
foolish, and that through suffering they come at last to see the
sorrowful truth. But I said nothing, and I prayed God to give me
strength and courage to support the hardships the coming of which these
faults and this injustice foretold.

We were between three armies, who were uniting to crush us; that of the
north, commanded by Bernadotte; that of Silesia, commanded by Bluecher;
and the army of Bohemia, commanded by Schwartzenberg. We believed at
one time we were going to cross the Elbe, to fall on the Prussians and
Swedes; at another, that we were about attacking the Austrians toward
the mountains as we had done fifty times in Italy and other places.
But they ended by understanding our movements, and when we seemed to
approach, they retired. They feared the Emperor especially, but he
could not be at once in Bohemia and Silesia, and so we were forced to
make horrible marches and countermarches.

All that the soldiers asked, was to fight, for through marching and
sleeping in the mud, half rations and vermin had made their lives a
misery. Each one prayed that all this might end one way or the other.
It was too much for human endurance; it could not last.

I, myself, at th