On Sunday, the 14th of August, after luncheon, we followed the Minister to Herny. He had taken up his quarters in a whitewashed peasant’s house, a little off the High Street, where his window opened upon a dung-hill. As the house was pretty large we all joined him there. Count Hatzfeldt’s room also served as our office. The King had his quarters at the parish priest’s, opposite the venerable old church. The village consisted of one long wide street, with some good municipal buildings. At the railway station we found everything in the wildest confusion, the whole place littered with torn books, papers, &c. Some soldiers kept watch over two French prisoners. For several hours after 4 P.M. we heard the heavy thunder of cannon in the direction of Metz. At tea the Minister said: “I little thought a month ago that I should be taking tea with you, gentlemen, to-day in a farmhouse at Herny.” Coming to speak of the Duc de Grammont, the Count wondered that, on seeing the failure of his stupid policy against us, he had not joined the army in order to expiate his blunders. He was quite big and strong enough to serve as a soldier. “I should have acted differently in 1866 if things had not gone so well. I should have at once enlisted. Otherwise I could never have shown myself to the world again.” I was frequently called to the Minister’s room to receive instructions. Our illustrated papers were to publish pictures of the charge at Spichernberg, and also to deny the statement of the _Constitutionnel_ that the Prussians had burnt down everything on their march, leaving nothing but ruins behind them. We could say with a clear conscience that we had not observed the least sign of this. It was also thought well to reply to the _Neue Freie Presse_, which had hitherto been well disposed towards us, but had now adopted another policy, possibly because it had lost some subscribers who objected to its Prussophile tone, or perhaps there was something in the rumour that the Franco-Hungarian party intended to purchase it. The Chancellor, in giving instructions respecting another article of the _Constitutionnel_, concluded as follows: “Say that there never was any question in the Cabinet Council of a cession of Saarbrücken to France. The matter never went beyond the stage of confidential inquiries, and it is self-evident that a national Minister, inspired by the national spirit, could never have dreamt of such a course. There might, however, have been some slight basis for the rumour. A misunderstanding or a distortion of the fact that previous to 1864 the question was raised whether it would not be desirable to sell the coal mines at Saarbrücken, which are State property, to a company. I wanted to meet the expenses of the Schleswig-Holstein war in this way. But the proposal came to nothing, owing to the King’s objections to the transaction.”