"When I saw these men creeping out of the little gate, I thought, 'What the devil! are these councillors? they are a fine lot!' The councillors looked a little respectable, but the burgomaster was up to the knees in cow-dung, and must have been fetched from clearing away the dung in the stable. Hereupon, Major von Benkendorf asked whether they were the councillors? They answered: 'Yes, and what did we desire?' The Major asked whether this was not the highroad to Nuremberg? They said, 'Yes.' 'Why then were the gates closed and barricaded, and we not allowed to pass through?' Then the president of the council answered: 'They were commanded by their government not to let any troops pass through, therefore they must keep the gates closed; they must do what their master commanded them.' But Major von Benkendorf repeated his former words, and said to them: 'They must open to us, and that quickly, for that we must march further; and if they did not open, we would do it ourselves.' The president of the council answered this, and said: 'We might do as we liked, but he could not open the gates to us.' But the dung-bespattered burgomaster then began: 'Nay! if you wish to march further, you can do so by the back road.' I thought to myself, 'If thou couldst but kill that cursed dirty fellow!' The Major then forthwith called to me, and desired that all the carpenters of the whole division should be summoned; which was done in a moment. Hereupon he asked once more whether they would amicably open the gate? if not, he would have them immediately hewn open. They might now see that we ourselves would open the gates if they did not prefer preserving them whole. "The Major thought they would resolve to open them, but they said they would not, and we might do what we liked. Hereupon the Major called out: 'Proceed carpenters! hew the gates down!' Thereupon the carpenters set to work. When the knocking and cracking began, it was well worth seeing how the councillors, among whom was the Burgomaster, and the frightened barber-Lieutenant, began to ran, as if carried off by the devil. In a moment both gates were hewn down, and the whole detachment marched with trumpets, drums, and fifes, into the city. "As we marched in through the gates, the good barber-Lieutenant, and the shoemaker-Ensign, with their men, presented arms, and saluted both the officers of our detachment. "Here we stopped, just as we were; everyone was hungry and thirsty. We officers made the citizens fetch us something to drink, and stood looking at and questioning one another. The snow was lying on the ground, and our men began to be impatient. I went to the inn where the Lieutenant-Colonel was in consultation with his officers; they were deliberating, and I could not speak with them. The citizens were already beginning to kindle their lights, and it did not appear how the affair was to end.