Every time I saw one of these men taken up, I thanked God that I was not reduced to that condition, and, thinking that the same thing might befall me, I said to myself: "You do not know how many balls and slugs have been near you, or you would be horrified." I was astonished that so many of us had escaped in the carnage, which had been far greater than at Lutzen or even at Leipzig. The battle had only lasted five hours, and the dead in many places were piled two or three feet deep. The blood flowed from under them in streams. Through the principal street where the artillery went, the mud was red with blood, and the mud itself was crushed flesh and bones. It is necessary to tell you this, in order that the young men may understand. I shall fight no more, thank God, I am too old, but all these young men who think of nothing but war, instead of being industrious and helping their aged parents, should know how the soldiers are treated. Let them imagine what the poor fellows who have done their duty think, as they lie in the street, wanting an arm or a leg, and hear the cannon, weighing twelve or fifteen thousand pounds, coming with their big well-shod horses, plunging and neighing. Then it is that they will recall their old parents who embraced them in their own village, while they went off saying: "I am going, but I shall return with the cross of honor, and with my epaulettes." Yes, indeed! if they could weep and ask God's pardon, we should hear their cries and complaints, but there is no time for that; the cannon and the caissons with their freight of bombs and bullets arrive--and they can hear their own bones crack beforehand--and all pass right over their bodies, just as they do through the mud. When we are old, and think that such horrible things may happen to the children we love, we feel as if we would part with the last sou before we would allow them to go. But all this does no good, bad men cannot be changed, while good ones must do their duty, and if misfortune comes, their confidence in the justice of God remains. Such men do not destroy their fellows from the love of glory, they are forced to do so, they have nothing with which to reproach themselves, they defend their own lives and the blood which is shed is not on their hands. But I must finish my story of the battle and the removal of the wounded. I saw sights there which are incredible; men killed in a moment of fury, whose faces had not lost their horrible expression, still held their muskets in their hands and stood upright against the walls, and you could almost hear them cry, as they stared with glazed eyes, "To the bayonet! No quarter!" It was with this thought and this cry that they appeared before God. He was awaiting them, and He may have said to them, "Here am I. Thou killest thy brethren--thou givest no quarter? None shall be given thee!"