approaching.  Carbineers, with cuirasses and helmets polished like mirrors, lay without boots and stockings in wheelbarrows, to which a peasant had harnessed himself with his dog, and thus transported the heroes.  Few of the horses were yet able to carry the knapsack, and much less the rider.  The men were therefore obliged to drag the jaded beasts by the bridle through the deepest morasses, and thought themselves fortunate when at last the animals dropped to rise no more.  Compared with these endless caravans, a band of strolling players might be considered as the triumphant procession of a Roman emperor.  All these men were proceeding to Erfurt and Mentz.

These, and similar scenes which we had daily witnessed, were a natural consequence of the French system of supply, and the prodigious bodies of troops, which bore no proportion to the resources of a small tract of country.  Attempts had been made, but without success, to find other provinces abounding in grain and forage.  The fertile fields of Silesia and Bohemia were beyond their reach.  The angel with the fiery sword vigilantly guarded the avenues to them against the fallen children of Adam.  It was now absolutely necessary to devise some expedient; and to the French all means were alike.  Some rice had been procured by way of the Elbe and the Rhine.  The stocks in the warehouses of the tradesmen of Leipzig were now put in requisition, and sent off to the army; and I shrewdly suspect that no part of them was paid for.  These, however, were but small privations; to relieve the general want required no less a miracle than that by which 4000 men were fed with five small loaves.  The valuable stores in the city magazine had not yet been discovered.  But where is the door, however strong, through which their eagle eyes would not at last penetrate?  The flour was soon spied out, and forthwith destined for the hungry stomachs of the French.  The barrels were rolled away with incredible expedition, and conveyed to the bakehouses.  Each baker was supplied with two a day, which he was obliged to make up with all possible dispatch into bread, and to carry to the Cloth-hall.  Here the loaves were piled up in immense rows, and sent off to the famishing army.  From morning till night nothing was to be seen but waggons loading and setting out.  Not a morsel, however, was given to the soldiers quartered upon the citizens; their superiors well knew that the patient landlord had yet a penny left in his pocket to help himself out with.  Thus the fine magazine was stripped; and its valuable contents, which would have kept twenty years longer without spoiling, and had been preserved with such care, were dissipated in a moment.  You may easily conceive how severe a misfortune this loss proved to the city, and how keenly it was felt, when you know that we were in a manner besieged for several weeks, and that not a handful of flour was to be had even at the mills themselves.