On the fourteenth of October, our battalion was detached to reconnoitre the village of Aken. The enemy were in force there and received us with a scattering artillery fire, and we remained all night without being able to light a fire, on account of the pouring rain. The next day we set out to rejoin our division by forced marches. Every one said, I know not why:
"The battle is approaching! the fight is coming on!"
Sergeant Pinto declared that he felt the emperor in the air. I felt nothing, but I knew that we were marching on Leipsic. The night following, the weather cleared up a little, millions of stars shone out, and we still kept on. The next day, about ten o'clock, near a little village whose name I cannot recollect, we were ordered to halt, and then we heard a trembling in the air. The colonel and Sergeant Pinto said:
"The battle has begun!" and at the same moment, the colonel, waving his sword, cried:
"Forward!"
We started at a run, and half an hour after saw, at a few thousand paces ahead, a long column, in which followed artillery, cavalry, and infantry, one upon the other; behind us, on the road to Duben, we saw another, all pushing forward at their utmost speed. Regiments were even hastening across the fields.
At the end of the road we could see the two spires of the churches of Saint Nicholas and Saint Thomas in Leipsic, rising amidst great clouds of smoke through which broad flashes were darting. The noise increased; we were yet more than a league from the city, but were forced to almost shout to hear each other, and men gazed around, pale as death, seeming by their looks to say:
"This is indeed a battle!"
Sergeant Pinto cried that it was worse than Eylau. He laughed no more, nor did Zébédé; but on, on we rushed, officers incessantly urging us forward. We seemed to grow delirious; the love of country was indeed striving within us, but still greater was the furious eagerness for the fight.