Kurzbeschreibung von: The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: To Berlin pursne the enemy in every direction, and our columns made a vast number of prisoners. The King of Prussia only reached Berlin by way of Magdeburg with great difficulty, and it is even asserted that the Queen was on the point of falling into the hands of our advanced guard. Augereau's corps crossed the Elbe near Dessau. It would take too long to recount the disasters of the Prussian army; it must be sufficient to say that of the troops which had marched against the French not one battalion escaped: they were all captured before the end of the month. The fortresses of Torgau, Erfurt, and Wittenberg opened their gates to the conquerors, who marched on Berlin. Napoleon halted at Potsdam and visited the tomb of Frederick the Great; then he went on to Berlin, where, contrary to his practice, Davout's corps marched at the head of the procession, an honour which it well deserved, for it had done the most fighting of all; Augereau's corps followed, and then the Guard. II/DCNCH BATTLE OF JENA. CHAPTER XXVII My first feeling on returning to Berlin, which I had left not long before a brilliant capital, was one of sympathy with a patriotic population thus brought low by defeat, invasion, and the loss of relations and friends. The entry of the ' noble Guard, ' however, disarmed and prisoners, aroused in me very different sentiments. The young officers who had sharpened their sabres on the steps of the French Embassy were now humble enough. They had begged to be taken round, not through, Berlin; not caring to be paraded in view of the inhabitants who had been witnesses of their old swagger. For this very reason the Emperor gave directions to the troops guarding them to march them through the street in which the French Embassy stood. This little bit of revenge was n...