Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/99

Rh The New-year's Day of 1759 approached, as desirable and pleasant to us children as any preceding one, but full of import and foreboding to older persons. To the passage of the French troops people certainly had become accustomed; and they happened often, but they had been most frequent in the last days of the past year. According to the old usage of an imperial town, the warder of the chief tower sounded his trumpet whenever troops approached; and on this New-year's Day he would not leave off, which was a sign that large bodies were in motion on several sides. They actually marched through the city in greater masses on this day, and the people ran to see them pass by. We had generally been used to see them go through in small parties; but these gradually swelled, and there was neither power nor inclination to stop them. In short, on the 2d of January, after a column had come through Sachsenhausen over the bridge, through the Fahrgasse, as far as the police guard-house, it halted, overpowered the small company which escorted it, took possession of the before-mentioned guard-house, marched down the Zeil, and, after a slight resistance, the main guard were also obliged to yield. In a moment the peaceful streets were turned into a scene of war. The troops remained and bivouacked there until lodgings were provided for them by regular billeting.

This unexpected, and, for many years, unheard-of, burden weighed heavily upon the comfortable citizens; and to none could it be more cumbersome than to my father, who was obliged to take foreign military inhabitants into his scarcely finished house, to open for them his well-furnished reception-rooms, which were generally closed, and to abandon to the caprices of strangers all that he had been used to arrange and keep so carefully. Siding as he did with the Prussians, he was now to find himself besieged in his own chambers by