It is but justice to admit that Davoust displayed great activity in the defence, and began by laying in large supplies.

—­[Vandamme fought under Grouchy in 1815, and died several years afterwards.  This killing him at Hamburg is one of the curious mistakes seized on by the Bonapartists to deny the authenticity of these Memoirs.]—­

General Bertrand was directed to construct a bridge to form a communication between Hamburg and Haarburg by joining the islands of the Elbe to the Continent along a total distance of about two leagues.  This bridge was to be built of wood, and Davoust seized upon all the timber-yards to supply materials for its construction.  In the space of eighty-three days the bridge was finished.  It was a very magnificent structure, its length being 2529 toises, exclusive of the lines of junction, formed on the two islands.

The inhabitants were dreadfully oppressed, but all the cruel measures and precautions of the French were ineffectual, for the Allies advanced in great force and occupied Westphalia, which movement obliged the Governor of Hamburg to recall to the town the different detachments scattered round Hamburg.

At Lubeck the departure of the French troops was marked by blood.  Before they evacuated the town, an old man, and a butcher named Prahl, were condemned to be shot.  The butcher’s crime consisted in having said, in speaking of the French, “Der teufel hohle sie” (the devil take them).  The old man fortunately escaped his threatened fate, but, notwithstanding the entreaties and tears of the inhabitants, the sentence upon Prahl was carried into execution.

The garrison of Hamburg was composed of French, Italian, and Dutch troops.  Their number at first amounted to 30,000, but sickness made great-havoc among them.  From sixty to eighty perished daily in the hospitals.  When the garrison evacuated Hamburg in May 1814 it was reduced to about 15,000 men.  In the month of December provisions began to diminish, and there was no possibility of renewing the supply.  The poor were first of all made to leave the town, and afterwards all persons who were not usefully employed.  It is no exaggeration to estimate at 50,000 the number of persons who were thus exiled.  The colonel commanding the gendarmerie at Hamburg notified to the exiled inhabitants that those who did not leave the town within the prescribed time would receive fifty blows with a cane and afterwards be driven out.  But if penance may be commuted with priests so it may with gendarmes.  Delinquents contrived to purchase their escape from the bastinado by a sum of money, and French gallantry substituted with respect to females the birch for the cane.  I saw an order directing all female servants to be examined as to their health unless they could produce certificates from their masters.  On the 25th of December the Government granted twenty-four hours longer to persons who were ordered to quit the town; and two days after