army had long since been obliged to abandon the Elbe. No wonder then
that this point should have been guarded with the utmost care. It
required commissaries and inspectors, such as those who had the control
over our store-houses and granaries, to complete the master-piece, to
reduce that Leipzig, which had once patiently sustained, without being
entirely exhausted, the burdens of a war that lasted seven years--to
reduce it, I say, in six months, to so low an ebb, that even the opulent
were in danger of perishing with hunger; that reputable citizens could
no longer procure the coarsest fare; and that, though their hearts
overflowed with pity and compassion, they were absolutely incapable of
affording the slightest relief, not so much as a crust of bread, to the
sick and wounded soldier. It is impossible to give you any idea of the
dexterity and rapidity with which the French soldiers will so totally
change the look of a village, a field, or a garden, that you shall not
know it again, how well soever you may have been acquainted with it
before. Such was the fate of Leipzig, and of the beautiful environs of
our inner city-walls.

You must know that the bread and forage waggons of a great French army
are destined merely, as they pass through the villages, to receive the
stores collected from all the barns, cellars, lofts, and stables, which
are taken by force from the wretched husbandman, who is beaten, cut, and
mangled, till he puts-to his last horse, and till he carries his last
sheaf of corn and his last loaf of bread to the next bivouac; and then
he may think himself fortunate, if he is suffered to return home without
horses or waggon, and is not compelled to accompany the depredators many
miles without sustenance of any kind. In all other armies, whether
Russians, Prussians, Austrians, or Swedes, when the troops are not drawn
out in line of battle opposite to the enemy, in which case it is
necessary to send back the carriages into the rear, care is always taken