Woman's Tales of 1813 Horrors.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 21 August 1914, Page 8

Woman's Tales of 1813 Horrors.

POSEN "GRANDMOTHER" WHO

SAW THE MARCH INTO

RUSSIA

A great event was celebrated recently, in the little village of Dormowo, in Posen, nothing less than a human being's existence prolonged to the 120 th year. The woman honoured saw Napoleon's "Grand Army" on the march into Russia, and afterwards looked out upon the Cossacks galloping past her house. As a Leipzig writer says : '-'There is something almost weird and awesome about such an experience. Some time ago I. went for further Information to her parish priest, ETerr Propst Lukowski, and the good man answered my inquiries with the utmost cordiality, whilst he himself thoroughly examined the old lady as to her recollections, and induced her nearest relations to do the same. The result of all this is the following narrative :— "Hedvig Stayme, for such is her name, is proved to have been born on October 15, 1794, in the district of Pleschen, not far away from the Russian frontier, where her father kept a small inn. She was, therefore,- fairly grown up when she witnessed the march of the French Army in 1813. What sticks in her memory is the red and blue of the soldiers' uniforms. It sounds almost like a fairy tale to hear in this year of grace 1913 a little old woman talk of the scenes she witnessed in 1813. Beranger's grandmother seems to step out of the pages of ' Souvenirs dv Peuple ' and sit in our midst. " The behaviour of the soldiers, who juust have belonged to the right wing of the army,' commanded by Jerome Bonaparte, is described by the old lady as being thoroughly gentlemanly ; the only thing she has against them is that "the fellows would not eat black bread.' Her mother had to kill her hens, and the rest of the poultry to satisfy their wants. "Whether, later oh, when the retreat took place, any French soldiers came through the village she cannot remember, anqi, considering its geographical position, it is not very liUely. But she still thinks with horror of the Russians, who made the whole countryside tremble in their shoes. To escape the^ rapacity of the Cossacks her father fled with two horses and all his cattle to the neighbouring forest, where the poor beasts had to subsist on a diet of heather. For days the daughter had to take out food to her father there. Throughout the whole district the people suffered the utmost privations. This is "the extent of the recollections of the only person now living- in Germany who remembers the horrors of 1813. ' Grandmother,' as she is called in the village of Durmowo, which was once in Poland, in spite of her great age, still keeps guard over her flock of geese.