Now could I well understand I was born but for misfortune, for some weeks before the engagement happened I heard some lower officers of Götz's army that talked of our war: and says one, "Without a battle will this summer not pass: and if we win, in the next winter we shall surely take Freiburg and the Forest-towns: but if we earn a defeat we shall earn winter quarters too." Upon this prophecy I laid my plans and said to myself, "Now rejoice thee, Simplicissimus, for next spring thou wilt drink good wine of the Lake and the Neckar and wilt enjoy all that the troops of Weimar can win." Yet therein I was mightily deceived, for being now of those troops myself, I was predestinated to help lay siege to Breisach, for that siege was fully set afoot presently after the Battle of Wittenweier, and there must I, like other musqueteers, watch and dig trenches day and night, and gained naught thereby save that I learnt how to assail a fortress by approaches, to which matter I had paid but scant attention in the camp before Magdeburg. For the rest, I was but lousily provided for, for two or three must lodge together, our purses were empty, and so were wine, beer, and meat a rarity. Apples, with half as much bread as I could eat, were my finest dainties. And 'twas hard for me to bear this when I reflected on the fleshpots of Egypt, that is, on the Westphalian hams and sausages of Lippstadt. Yet did I think but little on my wife, and when I did so I did but plague myself with the thought that she might be untrue to me. At last was I so impatient that I declared to my captain how my affairs stood and wrote by the post to Lippstadt, and so heard from Colonel Saint André and my father-in-law that they had, by letters to the Duke of Weimar, secured that my captain should let me go with a pass.