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Miscellaneous Travels of J.w. Goethe, Ed. by L.d. Schmitz (v. 25)
Miscellaneous Travels of Jw Goethe Ed by Ld Schmitz - v. 25 Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Volume: v. 25 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1880 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than... more » a million books for free. Excerpt: The next day the mystery was solved. The French had fixed on this night for an attack upon all our posts, and had drawn the whole of their troops from the entrenchments, and collected them for the attack. Our attacking party, on approaching the entrenchment with the greatest caution, found therefore neither firing nor resistance of any kind; they got into the redoubt, and found it unoccupied, except by a single cannonier, who was greatly astonished at their visit. During the general discharge of the guns, when they alone were left unmolested, they had plenty of time to destroy the walls and retire. This general attack had no further effect; and the lines which had been taken by surprise recovered their composure when day broke. The 16th of June. The long-talked-of siege, which had been kept secret from the enemy, was approaching at last; it was rumoured that the trenches were to be opened tonight. It was very dark, and some of us rode along the well-known path to the redoubt at Weissenau. We saw nothing, heard nothing ; but our horses suddenly started, and we perceived directly in front of us a scarcely distinguishable column of troops. Austrian soldiers, dressed in grey, with grey fascines on their shoulders, were marching along silently, the rattling of their shovels and hatchets against one another, alone intimating that something was moving near us. A more extraordinary and ghost-like scene can scarcely be conceived; they seemed to appear for a moment, then to vanish, but appeared again when looked at attentively, yet never became any more distinct. We remained on the spot till they...« less