[Footnote 40]: The narrator is Adelbert von Chamisso. His letter of 22nd Nov., 1806, is one of the most valuable relics of that true-hearted man. The concluding words deserve well to be remembered by Germans. "Oh, my friends, I must atone by a free confession for the secret injustice that I have done this brave, warlike people. Officers and soldiers, in the harmony of a high enthusiasm, cherished only one thought: it was, under the pressure of external and internal enemies, to maintain their old fame, and not a recruit, not a drummer-boy would have fallen away. Indeed, we were a firm, faithful, good, stout soldiery. Oh, if we had but had men to lead us."
[Footnote 41]: The following is taken from an autobiography which he left in manuscript for his children. The editor has to thank the family of the deceased for it.
[Footnote 42]: In the old Prussian Rhine country stones were beginning to be used for the chaussées.
[Footnote 43]: The three officers were, Lieutenants von Blücher, von Lepel, and von Treskow; the three Prebendaries, von Korff, von Bösclager, at Eggermuhlen, and von Merode.
[Footnote 44]: Ministerial decrees setting aside the course of justice.
[Footnote 45]: Vinke had succeeded Stein as First President.
[Footnote 46]: Alliance of students in Germany.
[Footnote 47]: In the number of 247,000 soldiers the volunteers are not included, because they in general consisted of those who were not native Prussians. Beitzke's calculation, which we here take because it is lowest, undoubtedly includes the Landwehr, and the squadrons which, in the course of the campaign, were formed on the other side of the Elbe; there are, therefore, about 20,000 men to be abstracted from his amount. But as his reckoning only comprehends, the strength of the army in the field, which up to the battle of Leipzig was almost entirely gathered from the old Prussian territory, his figures may be considered rather too low than too high. In 1815, the proportion of soldiers to population was still more striking. East Prussia contributed then seven per cent, of its inhabitants, each seventh man was sent to the war; there remained scarcely any but children and old people in the country, very few from 18 to 40.
The amount of the population is reckoned according to the last official census of 1810. Prussia, after the peace of Tilsit, had been obliged to cede New Silesia to Poland, and thus since 1806 had lost more than 300,000 men. No increase, therefore, of the population can be assumed up to the spring of 1813. The chief fortresses, also, were in the hands of the French, and their inhabitants should be deducted from any calculation of the efforts of the people. According to the proportion of 1813, Berlin as at present, could bring into the field an army of from 23,000 to 25,000 men; Leipzig, four battalions; and the Dukedom of Coburg-Gotha seven battalions, amounting to 1000 men.
[Footnote 48]: Schlosser, "Erlebnisse inns Sachsischen Landpredigers," from 1806 to 1815, p. 66. The foreign nations, Portuguese and Italians, were more moderate.