We made our troops camp, and did all we could to provide them with healthy amusements during the pause in hostilities. We organised sack races and merry-go-rounds beneath a carefully balanced tun full of water, the contents of which would deluge clumsy competitors. Our cares were not, however, all for the men; we looked after ourselves too, and had many a pleasant water picnic or fishing expedition on the picturesque Elster, in which some of the people of the country, including various charming ladies, took part.
Thus slipped by the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th of June. The Staff were all quartered in the fine manor house of Lubbenau, belonging to the Countess of Schoenberg, who did the honours of her house most gracefully, and we had some delightful open-air fetes, dancing on lawns or in arbours bright with flowers, with noble and bourgeois dames.
During the spring of 1813 public feeling in Germany was so bitter against the domination of the French, that a secret association was formed, to which nearly all the young fellows in the universities belonged.
The name given to this association by its members was Tugendbund, or the League of Virtue. The handsome young husband of the Countess of Schoenberg who entertained us so kindly was one of the most ardent partisans of the Tugendbund, and whilst we were enjoying the society of his family in his beautiful home of Lubbenau, he was making every preparation to wage war to the knife with us as soon as the armistice ended. Owning a large fortune, he had just levied a regiment of hussars numbering 1,500 men and horses.
To leave no doubt as to the spirit animating his troop, he made his men wear black uniforms, whilst their shakos were surmounted by black plumes and decorated with a badge representing a death’s head with its long teeth resting on two crossed bones. Every member of the regiment had to swear never to surrender and to make no prisoners.
I could not find an image of the count that Lejeune refers to.
Also the merry-go-round referred to is some kind of game about getting a stick through a small ring, but I’m not 100% sure what version of the game soldiers would quickly build during an armistice in 1813.
