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Moreau had already sent two divisions of his army, under Ferino and Desaix, across the Rhine at Huningen and Breisach, and covered their retreat with the third by taking up a strong position at Schliesgen, not far from Freiburg, whence, after braving a first attack, he escaped during the night to Huningen.
The fight that day had cost them two thousand troops, and the Bavarians twelve hundred, but as the latter had lost half their infantry in the first day's fighting the French were still superior in numbers. During the night Turenne had all the wounded of both nationalities carried to Breisach.
Everybody besieged it, most people captured it; the majority of them lost it again; nobody seemed able to keep it. Whom he belonged to, and what he was, the dweller in Alt Breisach could never have been quite sure. One day he would be a Frenchman, and then before he could learn enough French to pay his taxes he would be an Austrian.
The following is Fanfaro's narrative: It was about the middle of December, 1813, that a solitary horseman was pursuing the road which leads through the Black Forest from Breisach to Freiburg. The rider was a man in the prime of life. He wore a long brown overcoat, reaching to his knees, and shoes fastened with steel buckles.
But their true friend was not strong enough to hold together what other people wished to separate. The lovely, highly respected Counselor's daughter was no longer permitted to meet Hans. Her father forbade her one day, saying that Hans was not only poor but was not even a native of the town. His ancestors were Hollanders who had wandered into Breisach.
In May the Bavarian army, numbering eight thousand foot and seven thousand horse, marched to besiege Freiburg, five leagues from Breisach, and Turenne followed with all his force, which now numbered ten thousand men.
He walked so majestically that one could see, at the very first glance, that he was no ordinary person, but one upon whose shoulders an invisible weight rested. Handsome, tall and noble, just as one would picture the highest type of man a king from head to foot. Here, in the little village of Breisach, as he named it, Emperor Maximilian liked to rest from the cares of his Empire.
It was a feeble and ill-conceived effort to snatch a political advantage out of a forbidding military situation. German reinforcements swept up from Colmar and Neu Breisach, and on the both the French were back within a few miles of the frontier, leaving their sympathizers to the vengeance of their enemies. More legitimate though not more successful was the French thrust in Lorraine.
She lived lonely in her little home. It was now the fifth year since Hans' departure, and long ago his letters had ceased to come, because her father had forbidden any correspondence. Hans had no friends in Breisach through whom he could communicate. But such uncertainty gnaws. Marie was tired of waiting very tired. One afternoon she seated herself at her desk and started to write her last wish.
On a sudden he was captive to the enthusiasm of the mountains, and hastened along the valley of the Rhine by Alt Breisach and Basle, unrepelled by a thousand difficulties, to Swiss farmhouses and lonely villages, solemn still, and untouched by strangers.
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