with wild screams into
the royal stables, driving away the safeguard of four-and-twenty men,
which General von Tottleben had placed there for their protection, and
with shameless insolence defiling the Prussian coat-of-arms pictured
on the royal carriages. They then drew them out into the open street,
and, after they had stripped them of their ornaments and decorations,
piled them up in a great heap and set them on fire, in order to add
to the fright and terror of the bewildered citizens by the threatening
danger of conflagration.

High blazed the flames, consuming greedily these carriages which had
once borne kings and princes. The screams and fright of the inmates
of the nearest houses, and the crackling of the window-glass broken by
the heat were drowned by the joyous shouts of the Austrians who danced
round the fire with wild delight, and accompanied the roaring of the
flames with insulting and licentious songs. And the fire seemed only
to awaken their inventive powers, and excite them to fresh deeds of
vandalism. After the fire had burnt out, and only a heap of ashes told
of what were once magnificent royal vehicles, the Austrians rushed
back again into the building with terrific outcry, to the apartments
of the royal master of the horse, Schwerin, in order to build a new
bonfire with his furniture, and fill their pockets with his gold and
silver ware.

In the royal stalls a great uproar arose, as they fought with each
other for the horses that were there. The strongest leaped on them and
rode off furiously, to carry into other neighborhoods the terror and
dismay which marked the track of the Austrians through Berlin. Even
the hospitals were not safe from their brutal rage. They tore the sick
from their beds, drove them with scoffs and insults into the streets,
cut up their beds, and covered them over with the feathers. And all
this was committed not by wild barbarians, but by the regular troops
of a civilized state, by Austrians, who were spurred on, by their
hatred of the Prussians, to deeds of rude cruelty and beastly
barbarity. And this unlucky national hatred, which possessed the
Austrian and made him forgetful of all humanity, was communicated,
like an infectious plague, to the Saxons, and transformed these
warriors, who were celebrated for being, next to the Prussians,
the most orderly and best disciplined, into rude Jack Ketches and
iconoclastic Vandals.

In the royal pleasure-palace at Charlottenburg,