long been put in requisition by French commissaries, and had been chiefly applied to the provisioning of the French garrisons of Wittenberg and Torgau.  As this was the king’s property, it was perhaps but right to demand it for the fortresses which were to defend the country.  The stores possessed by the magistrates were purchased in those years when a scarcity of corn prevailed in Saxony.  To afford some relief the government had imported great quantities from Russia, by way of the Baltic and the Elbe.  The magistrates of Leipzig had bought a considerable part of it, that they might be able to relieve the wants of the citizens in case a similar calamity should again occur.  It was ground and put into casks, each containing 450 pounds.  They had in their magazine 4000 such casks, which had been left untouched even in the year 1806, and were carefully preserved, to be used only in cases of extreme necessity.  This was certainly a wise and truly paternal precaution.  So valuable a store would have been sufficient to protect the city from hunger for a considerable time.  As the French army behaved all over Saxony as though it had been in an enemy’s country, and consumed every thing far and near, the most urgent want was the inevitable consequence.  They forgot the common maxim, that the bread of which you deprive the citizen and the husbandman is in fact taken from yourself, and that the soldier can have nothing where those who feed him have lost their all.  The country round Dresden was already exhausted.  Soldiers and travellers coming from that quarter could scarcely find terms to describe the distress.  They unanimously declared that the country from Oschatz to Leipzig was a real paradise, in comparison with Lusatia and the circle of Misnia, as far as the Elbe.  Of this we soon had convincing proofs.  It was necessary to pick out a great number of horses from all the regiments, and to send back numerous troops of soldiers to the depots.  Don Quixote’s Rosinante was a superb animal compared with those which returned to Dresden.  Most of them had previously perished by the way.  Here they covered all the streets.  The men sold them out of hand, partly for a few groschen.  A great number were publicly put up to auction by the French commissaries; and you may form some idea what sorry beasts they must have been, when you know that a lot of 26 was sold for 20 dollars.  After some time the whole of the horse-guards arrived here.  They were computed at 5000 men, all of whom were unfit for service.  How changed! how lost was their once imposing appearance!  Scarcely could troops ever make so ludicrous, so grotesque, and so miserable a figure.  Gigantic grenadiers, with caps of prodigious height, and heavy-armed cuirassiers, were seen riding upon lean cows, which certainly did not cut many capers.  It was wonderful that the animals shewed no disposition to decline the singular honour.  Their knapsacks were fastened to the horns, so that you were puzzled to make out what kind of a monstrous creature was