Going on a Sad Errand. 821 



We started at midnight. Miss Runkel was with me, and 

 also ]\Irs. vun Berenhorst, who did not know that her son was 

 killed, believing him only to be wounded. 



At Forbach we went in an excellently well-arranged hospital 

 train sent from Wurtemberg, and slept in beds, of which there 

 were two hundred in the train for severely wounded, besides 

 accommodation for fifty more slightly wounded. 



Prince Alfred, not having found me in Saarbrucken, arrived 

 just before we started from Forbach, and as he did not succeed 

 in detaining me, he resolved to accompany and assist me. 



We arrived on the 23rd in Remilly, which was crowded to 

 excess with troops and with wounded, and we could not find 

 any other shelter for the night than in a railroad car, in which 

 not only cattle, but also sick soldiers, had been conveyed, and 

 which was in a most horridly filthy state. We succeeded, how- 

 ever, in procuring some mattresses, with which we covered the 

 bottom of the waggon. In this abominable place Prince 

 Alfred, Professor Busch, Dr. von Kuhlewetter, Mrs. von 

 Berenhorst, Miss Runkel and myself, and the old valet-de- 

 chambre of Alfred, passed the night ! 



The next night we remained in a little chateau, near Covny, 

 belonging to a Madame de Wendel, and on the 25th we 

 arrived in Ars-sur-Moselle, where I obtained a room in the 

 house of the apothecary, and at once ordered zinc coffins to be 

 made. The man who first had accepted the order, bribed by 

 the price offered, became however afraid after reflection, and 

 refused to attend to it, fearing that the French, if they returned, 

 as was confidently expected, would hang him, because he had 

 made coftins for Prussian officers. I was therefore obliged to 

 use compulsion, to remain in '"is workshop and watch him 

 whilst he unwillingly made the coffins for my dear Felix and 

 Florentine, which was indeed a very melancholy task. 



Professor Busch was quartered in a very fine large house, 

 situate in a beautiful garden in Jouy-aux-Arches, opposite Ars, 

 on the other bank of the Moselle. We went there in the even- 

 ing and succeeded in finding a room in the same house. When 

 next day I went on foot to Ars with Prof. Busch, we met Col- 

 onel von Berenhorst with his daughter-in-law, Avho had heard 

 that she also was a widow, for poor young Berenhorst was not 

 only wounded, but killed on the iSth, not lar from St. Privat, 



