Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred in and near Leipzig Immediately Before, During, and Subsequent to, the Sanguinary Series of Engagements Between the Allied Armies of the French, from the 14th to the 19th October, 1813Shoberl, Frederic
History
Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred in and near Leipzig Immediately Before, During, and Subsequent to, the Sanguinary Series of Engagements Between the Allied Armies of the French, from the 14th to the 19th October, 1813
"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:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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