Two hundred and eighty-two houses were destroyed and thoroughly plundered in Berlin by the Austrians; the Saxons had devastated the royal palace in Charlottenburg, and the whole town.  Should not the Russians also leave a memorial of their vandalism?  They did so in Schoenhausen, the pleasure-palace of the consort of Frederick the Great, who had left it a few days previous, by express command of the king, to take up her residence in Magdeburg.  Eight Russian hussars forced themselves into the palace, and, with terrible threats, demanded the king’s plate.  Only the castellan and his wife, and a few of the royal servants, had been left behind to protect the place, and the only answer they could make to the furious soldiers was, that the booty which they were in search of had been carried with the royal party to Magdeburg.  This information excited their fury to the highest pitch.  Like the Saxon dragoons of Charlottenburg, they devastated the Schoenhausen palace, stripped the castellan and his wife, and, with shouts of wild laughter, whipped them and pinched their flesh with red-hot tongs.  And, as if the sight of these bloody and torn human bodies had only increased their desire for blood and torture, they then attacked the two servants, stripped them of their clothes, cut one to pieces like a beast, and threw the other on the red-hot coals, roasting him alive, as formerly the warriors of her Most Christian Majesty of Spain did those whom, in the pride of their civilization, they denominated “the wild heathen."[1]

[Footnote 1:  The account of all these cruelties and this vandalism is verified in the original, by reference to Von Archenholz:  “History of the Seven Years’ War,” pp.194-198.—­TRANSLATOR.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV.

THE CADETS.

The day following the occupation of Berlin, a strange and singular procession moved down the Linden Street through the Brandenburg Gate, and took the road to Charlottenburg.  Bruehl’s dragoons and De Lacy’s chasseurs rode on each side of the line, which would have excited laughter, if pity and sorrow had not overcome the comical element.  It was a procession of children decked in uniform, and having nothing military about them but their apparel, nothing manly but the dress-sword at their side.

This singular little regiment was the “Corps of Cadets,” which had been made prisoners of war by the Austrians and Saxons.

The commandant, Von Rochow, did not imagine that the enemy would carry his hard-heartedness to such an extent as to consider these lads of tender age as part of the garrison, and make them prisoners of war in consequence.  None of these boys exceeded the age of twelve years (the larger and older ones having been drafted into the army to supply the want of officers), and he presumed that their very helplessness and weakness would be their security, and therefore had omitted