Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig | Page 3

to from 14 to 10,000. Consider too the state of the
circumjacent villages, to the distance of 10 miles round, all completely
stripped; in scarcely any of them is there left a single horse, cow, sheep,
hog, fowl, or corn of any kind, either hay or implements of agriculture.
All the dwelling-houses have been burned or demolished, and all the
wood-work about them carried off for fuel by the troops in bivouac.
The roofs have shared the same fate; the shells of the houses were
converted into forts and loop-holes made in the walls, as every village
individually was defended and stormed. Not a door or window is any
where to be seen, as those might be removed with the greatest ease, and,
together with the roofs, were all consumed. Winter is now at hand, and
its rigours begin already to be felt. These poor creatures are thus
prevented, not only by the season, from rebuilding their habitations, but
also by the absolute want of means; they have no prospect before them
but to die of hunger, for all Saxony, together with the adjacent
countries, has suffered far too severely to be able to afford any relief to
their miseries.

"Our commercial house, God be thanked I has not been plundered; but
every thing in my private house, situated in the suburb of Grimma, was
carried off or destroyed, as you may easily conceive, when I inform
you that a body of French troops broke open the door on the 19th, and
defended themselves in the house against the Prussians. Luckily I had a
few days before removed my most valuable effects to a place of safety.
I had in the house one killed and two wounded; but, a few doors off,
not fewer than 60 were left dead in one single house.--Almost all the
houses in the suburbs have been more or less damaged by the shower of
balls on the 19th."
That these pictures of the miseries occasioned by the sanguinary
conflict which sealed the emancipation of the Continent from Gallic
despotism are not overcharged is proved by the concurrent testimony of
all the other accounts which have arrived from that quarter. Among the
rest a letter received by the publisher, from the venerable count
Schönfeld, a Saxon nobleman of high character, rank, and affluence,
many years ambassador both at the court of Versailles, before the
revolution, and till within a few years at Vienna, is so interesting, that I
am confident I shall need no excuse for introducing it entire. His
extensive and flourishing estates south-east of Leipzig have been the
bloody cradle of regenerated freedom. The short space of a few days
has converted them into a frightful desert, reduced opulent villages into
smoking ruins; and plunged his Miserable tenants as well as himself
into a state of extreme Want, until means can be found again to
cultivate the soil and to rebuild the dwellings. He writes as follows:--
"It is with a sensation truly peculiar and extraordinary that I take up my
pen to address you, to whom I had, some years since, the pleasure of
writing several times on subjects of a very different kind: but it is that
very difference between those times and the present, and the most
wonderful series of events which have followed each other during that
period in rapid succession, the ever-memorable occurrences of the last
years and months, the astonishing success which rejoices all Europe,
and has nevertheless plunged many thousands into inexpressible misery;
it is all this that has long engaged my attention, and presses itself upon
me at the moment I am writing. In events like these, every individual,

however distant, must take some kind of interest, either as a merchant
or a man of letters, a soldier or an artist; or, if none of these, at least as
a man. How strongly the late events must interest every benevolent and
humane mind I have no need to tell you, who must more feelingly
sympathize in them from the circumstance that it is your native country,
where the important question, whether the Continent of Europe should
continue to wear an ignominious yoke, and whether it deserved the
fetters of slavery, because it was not capable of bursting them, has been
decisively answered by the greatest and the most sanguinary contest
that has occurred for many ages. That same Saxony, which three
centuries ago released part of the world from the no less galling yoke of
religious bondage; which, according to history, has been the theatre of
fifteen great battles; that same Saxony is now become the cradle of the
political liberty of the Continent. But a power so firmly rooted could
not be overthrown without the most energetic exertions; and, while
millions are now raising the shouts of