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Updated: June 27, 2025
I have told you, and I repeat it, Never shall my hand sign a humiliating Peace. Friedrich had marched from Lubben, after three days, settling of affairs, OCTOBER 20th; arrived at Jessen, on the Elbe, within wind of Wittenberg, in two days more. "He formed a small magazine at Duben," says Archenholtz; "and was of a velocity, a sharpness," like lightning, in a manner!
I saw how much the Emperor suffered from the necessity of listening to such remonstrances, notwithstanding the respectful language in which they were couched. For two entire days his Majesty remained undecided; and how long these forty-eight hours were! Never did abandoned cabin or bivouac present a more mournful sight than the sad chateau of Duben.
The King, himself in the vanguard as usual, has watched with eager questioning eye the courses of Daun's advanced parties, and by what routes they retreat; discerns for certain that Daun has no views upon Duben or our little Magazine; and that the tug of wrestle for Torgau, which is to crown this Campaign into conquest of Saxony, or shatter it into zero like its foregoers on the Austrian part, and will be of death-or-life nature on the Prussian part, ought to ensue to-morrow.
We therefore left Eilenburg, where the Emperor parted with the King of Saxony and his family, the Duke of Bassano, the grand park of artillery, and all the conveyances, and directed our course towards Duben. Blucher and Bernadotte had retired, leaving Berlin uncovered.
On this the army marched to Duben, to oppose a junction so prejudicial to the interests of the King. Here arriving, a battalion of Croats was found, who were all either taken or put to the sword. At this place the King formed a magazine: it seemed the most convenient post because it is a peninsula and nearly surrounded by the Mulde.
And yet, in spite of the obvious danger from the great mountain bastion of Bohemia that stretched far away in his rear, the Emperor kept his troops spread out from Königstein to Hamburg, and ventured on long and wearying marches into Silesia, and north to Düben, which left his positions in Saxony almost at the mercy of the allied Grand Army.
He crossed OCTOBER 26th, no enemy within wind at all; Daun at Torgau in his inexpugnable Camp, Reichsfolk at Duben, making towards Leipzig at their best pace. And is now wholly between Elbe and Mulda; nothing but Mulda and the Anhall Countries and the Halle Country now to rear of him. At Jonitz, next march southward, he finds the Eugen-Hulsen people ready.
Thus he sat for a while, in deep dejection: and, as often before, his only wish was, that God would give him grace whereby when his hour was come, he might die piously and tranquilly. It was past midnight when he sought his bed and extinguished his light. And the buckets at the well go up and go down. About the same hour, in Duben Forest, the rustic Christopher was rising from his bed.
His Majesty yielded with a full conviction of the evil which would result; and I heard him at the end of a conversation with the marshal which had lasted more than an hour, utter these words, "They would have it so." The Emperor on his march to Duben was at the head of a force which might be estimated at one hundred and twenty-five thousand men.
I saw how much the Emperor suffered from the necessity of listening to such remonstrances, notwithstanding the respectful language in which they were couched. For two entire days his Majesty remained undecided; and how long these forty-eight hours were! Never did abandoned cabin or bivouac present a more mournful sight than the sad chateau of Duben.
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