ame in as customers. No Frenchman was allowed to make his way into
that backroom on any pretext, and if one did succeed in showing his
nose there, he could never get a morsel to eat, or a drop to drink, let
him implore, or swear, as much as he liked. Moreover, the room was
always as silent as the grave, and we all blew such stifling clouds out
of our pipes that the place soon became so full of the exhalation that
a Frenchman would be very soon smoked out, like a wasp, and usually
went growling and swearing out of the door like one. As soon as he did,
the window would be opened to let the reek out, and we would be
restored to our peace and comfort again. The life and soul of those
meetings was a well-known talented and charming writer: and I remember
with great pleasure how he and I used to get upstairs to the upper
story of the house, look out of the little garret window into the
night, and see the enemy's bivouac fires shining in the sky. We used to
say to each other all sorts of wonderful things which the shimmer of
those fires, combined with the moonlight, used to put into our heads,
and then go down and tell our friends what we imagined we had seen. It
is a fact that one night one of our number (an advocate) who was always
the first to hear any news, and whose reports were always reliable
(heaven knows whence he derived his information), came in and told us
the decision which had just been come to by the council of war
concerning the expedition of Count von der Lobau, exactly as I have
repeated it to you. It is likewise true that as I was going home about
midnight, while the French battalions were falling-in in profound
silence (no _generale_ being beaten) and beginning their march over the
bridge, I met ammunition waggons, so that I could have no doubt of the
accuracy of his information. And lastly, it is the fact that, on the
bridge, there was a grey old beggar lying, begging from the French
troops as they crossed, whom I could not remember having seen in
Dresden before. Last of all it is the fact, and the most wonderful of
all, that when, much interested and excited, I reached my own quarters,
on climbing up to the top story I _did_ see a fire on the Meissner
Hills, which was neither a watch fire nor a burning building. The
sequel showed that the Russians must have known that night all about
the attack intended to be made on the following morning, inasmuch as
they concentrated troops which had been at a considerabl