TWO:But there was another picture which met the eye of the king very different in its aspect. We know not whether it at all touched his heart. It was that of the poor peasants, with their mothers, their wives, their children, hurrying from their hamlets in all directions, in the utmost dismay. Grandmothers tottered beneath the burden of infant children. Fathers and mothers struggled on with the household goods they were striving to rescue from impending ruin. The cry of maidens and children reached the ear as they fled from the tramp of the war-horse and the approaching carnage of the death-dealing artillery.Again, on the 5th of July, he wrote: I write to apprise you, my dear sister, of the new grief that overwhelms us. We have no longer a mother. This loss puts the crown on my sorrows. I am obliged to act, and have not time to give free course to my tears. Judge, I pray you, of the situation of a feeling heart put to so severe a trial. All losses in the world are capable of being remedied, but those which death causes are beyond the reach of hope.
