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i2 Ten Years of my Life. 



have found it in my heart to kill a Frenchman. I resolved to 

 keep it, and Professor Busch taught me how to feed it with 

 soaked peas, which I took iq my mouth. Alfred, who had an 

 uneasy foreboding, urged the Professor to stuff the little 

 nuisance to death ; but the good Professor did not, neither 

 did I, and the Prince fed it himself out of his own mouth. 

 It was an intelligent thing. Every morning it came on my 

 bed, and if I were still asleep it gently pecked my eyelids or 

 face to awaken me. 



But to return to the battle. Professor Busch, the other 

 doctors, and myself, tried hard to be permitted to go to the 

 Verbandplatz, but we were told that we could not, as we would 

 have to pass through a cross-fire. Moreover, we were ordered 

 to keep as quiet as possible, and to comply promptly with the 

 directions given, to move so many paces to the right or left, 

 or forward or backward, as was required by the movements of 

 the troop^. 



Standing near the bushes in the dale we saw the staff of 

 General von Manteuffel, at a distance before us, on an emi- 

 nence. Looking round towards us, and seeing through the fog 

 only indistinctly my carriage and our mounted servants, he 

 believed us to belong to the reserve artillery lor which he had 

 sent, and the officers jokingly said that he had mistaken Miss 

 Runkel, who had remained on her seat in the carriage, for the 

 Protzkasten (caisson). 



The battle lasted from eleven o'clock a.m. until six o'clock 

 p.m., and we all felt exceedingly hungry, for since our cofi'ee 

 at six in the morning we had eaten nothmg. As our march of 

 that day was so very short we had not taken anything to eat 

 with us. By great favour we got at last some black bread and 

 a slice of raw bacon, and I feasted on it with delight. 



At last the fight was over; I am afraid we, had to make a 

 retrograde movement, but I had my quarters at Moreuil in a 

 cap store, called au bon diable. 



After a battle, we were of course always very busy. At 

 eight o'clock next morning I went to the hospital established 

 in the school-house, where I found some old nuns, who assisted 

 me in dressing the wounds of an officer and ten private 

 soldiers, after which I drove with Alfred, Professor Busch, and 

 Dr. von Kiihlewetter, to see another hospital in Sains, where 

 we found many wounded from the battle, and others who had 



