_Wednesday, February_ 15_th._--In this frame of mind, after waiting from five till three for horses at Diepenau, I again got into the carriage; where to go, however, I really knew not. There were only three roads to choose. If I went to Minden, which was only ten miles distant, I could indeed get there and pass the Weser by the bridge; but then they were unanimously agreed that the road from Minden to Hanover was not practicable, or to be attempted. I would have gone north to Nienburg, and have passed the Weser by _that_ bridge, but it was impossible; the Weser had inundated the road, overflowed the bridge, left holes big enough to hold a house in the highway; and there were at this time more than two hundred carts belonging to the peasants which could not get out of the town. The last resource was to go on straight to Stolzenau, and attempt, at all events, to cross by boat to Leese on the eastern side. I embraced this last proposal in consequence of the courier's advice, and followed his waggons. While I was meditating on so many vexatious circumstances, and going slowly along the pavé in the village of Diepenau, unsuspicious at that moment of any immediate accident or danger, the postilion turned the carriage short round a corner and flung it into a deep ditch. By a good fortune, however, which never totally abandoned me, the chaise just being in equilibrium, and a peasant running up came just at the instant it was tumbling over, and supported it with the greatest difficulty with his hands till more assistance arrived. I must own, I thought myself lost, and do assuredly believe that, if the chaise had fallen over, the violence must have broken it in pieces, and both myself and my valet would in all probability have been cut most miserably, or been possibly killed on the spot. I jumped out of the carriage the instant I could. I drew my hanger, and, in the transports of my resentment, I should most assuredly have made the postilion remember, as long as he lived, his carelessness; but the fellow was gone far beyond my reach long even before I could get out. The villagers helped out the chaise, and happily no material injury was done it. This provoking accident filled up the measure of my vexations. To have my life and limbs every moment in extreme danger--to suffer by roads, by villany, by heedlessness, by water, by a train of obstacles which increased instead of diminishing--the river Weser before me, and yet to be passed--I lost all patience, I believe I shed tears of anger and sorrow. "In the name of Heaven!" I said to myself, "am I destined to perish in one of these confounded ditches? And is this message, for which I so eagerly wished, to be the last I shall ever carry?"