p; and in a no-time
Berlin was itself again. That same evening, Saturday, Lacy took the
road, with extraordinary velocity, towards Torgau Country, where the
Reichsfolk, in Hulsen's absence, are supreme; and, the second evening
after, was got 60 miles thitherward. His joint dominion had been of
Two days. On the morning of Sunday, 12th, went Tottleben, who had
businesses, settlements of ransom and the like, before marching.
Tottleben, too, made uncommon despatch; marched, as did all these
invasive Russians, at the rate of thirty miles a day; their Main Army
likewise moving off from Frankfurt to a safer distance. Friedrich was
still five marches off; but there seemed not a moment to lose.

The Russian spoilings during the retreat were more horrible than ever:
"The gallows gaping for us; and only this one opportunity, if even
this!" thought the agitated Cossack to himself. Our poor friend Nissler
had a sad tale to tell of them; [In Busching, _Beitrage,_ i. 400,
401, account of their sacking of Nussler's pleasant home and estate,
"Weissensee, near Berlin."] as who had not? Terror and murder,
incendiary fire and other worse unnamable abominations of the Pit. One
old Half-pay gentleman, whom I somewhat respect, desperately barricaded
himself, amid his domestics and tenantries, Wife and Daughters
assisting: "Human Russian Officers can enter here; Cossacks no, but
shall kill us first. Not a Cossack till all of us are lying dead!"
[Archenholtz, ii. 150.] And kept his word; the human Russians owning it
to be proper.

In Guben Country, "at Gross-Muckro, October 15th," the day after passing
Guben, Friedrich first heard for certain, That the Russians had been in
Berlin, and also that they were gone, and that all was over. He made two
marches farther,--not now direct for Berlin, but direct for Saxony AND
it;--to Lubben, 50 or 60 miles straight south of Berlin; and halted
there some days, to adjust himself for a new sequel. "These are the
things," exclaims he, sorrowfully, to D'Argens, "which I have been in
dread of since Winter last; this is what gave the dismal tone to my
Letters to you. It has required not less than all my philosophy to
endure the reverses, the provocations, the outrages, and the whole scene
of atrocious things that have come to pass." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_
xix. 199; "22d October."] Friedrich's grief about Berlin we need not
paint; though there were murmurs afterwards, "Why did not he start
sooner?" which he cou