“But the heavens soon clouded became.  For the sake of the mast’ry
Strove a contemptible crew, unfit to accomplish good actions. 
Then they murder’d each other, and took to oppressing their new-found
Neighbours and brothers, and sent on missions whole herds of selfÄseekers
And the superiors took to carousing and robbing by wholesale,
And the inferiors down to the lowest caroused and robb’d also. 
Nobody thought of aught else than having enough for tomorrow. 
Terrible was the distress, and daily increased the oppression. 
None the cry understood, that they of the day were the masters. 
Then even temperate minds were attack’d by sorrow and fury;
Each one reflected, and swore to avenge all the injuries suffer’d,
And to atone for the hitter loss of hopes twice defrauded. 
Presently Fortune declared herself on the side of the Germans,
And the French were compell’d to retreat by forced marches before them. 
Ah! the sad fate of the war we then for the first time experienced. 
For the victor is kind and humane, at least he appears so,
And he spares the man he has vanquish’d, as if he his own were,
When he employs him daily, and with his property helps him. 
But the fugitive knows no law; he wards off death only,
And both quickly and recklessly all that he meets with, consumes he. 
Then his mind becomes heated apace; and soon desperation
Fills his heart, and impels him to all kinds of criminal actions. 
Nothing then holds he respected, he steals It.  With furious longing
On the woman he rushes; his lust becomes awful to think of. 
Death all around him he sees, his last minutes in cruelty spends he,
Wildly exulting in blood, and exulting in howls and in anguish.

“Then in the minds of our men arose a terrible yearning
That which was lost to avenge, and that which remain’d to defend still. 
All of them seized upon arms, lured on by the fugitives’ hurry,
By their pale faces, and by their shy, uncertain demeanour. 
There was heard the sound of alarm-bells unceasingly ringing,
And the approach of danger restrain’d not their violent fury. 
Soon into weapons were turn’d the implements peaceful of tillage,
And with dripping blood the scythe and the pitchfork were cover’d. 
Every foeman without distinction was ruthlessly slaughter’d,
Fury was ev’rywhere raging, and artful, cowardly weakness. 
May I never again see men in such wretched confusion! 
Even the raging wild beast is a better object to gaze on. 
Ne’er let them speak of freedom, as if themselves they could govern! 
All the evil which Law has driven farback in the corner
Seems to escape, as soon as the fetters which bound it are loosen’d.”