The superintendent at the same place, Andreas Pochmann, was, when an orphan, carried off with two little brothers by the Croats. He escaped with his brothers in the night. Later, when a Latin scholar, he was again taken prisoner by the soldiers, was made an officer's servant, and then a musketeer. But he continued to study in the garrison, and found among his comrades students from Paris and London, with whom he kept up his Latin. Once, when a soldier, he was lying sick by the watch fire, under his sleeve was the powder pouch, with a pound and a half of powder, the flames reached the sleeve and burnt half of it; the powder pouch was unconsumed. When he awoke he found himself alone, the camp was abandoned, and he had not a penny of money. Then he found two thalers in the ashes. With this he struck across to Gotha; on the way, he turned off to Langensalza, to a lonely small house near the walls: an old woman received the wearied man, and laid him on a bed. It was the plague nurse, and the bed was a plague bed, for the malady was then raging in the city; he remained unhurt. His life, like that of most of his cotemporaries, was full of wonderful escapes, sudden changes, and unexpected succour, of deadly perils, penury, and frequent changes of place. These times must be accurately observed, in order to understand how, just at a period when millions were brought to ruin and destruction, there was fostered in the survivors a deep belief in that Divine Providence, which, in a wonderful way, encompassed the lives of men.