On the 16th of August, at 9.30 A.M., we started for Pont à Mousson. On the excellent high road to that town we passed through several villages with fine buildings, containing the public offices and schools. The whole way was brightened by detachments of soldiers, horse and foot, and a great variety of vehicles. Here and there we also saw small encampments. A little after 3 o’clock we reached our destination, a town of about eight thousand inhabitants. Passing the market-place, where a regiment of Saxon infantry were bivouacked, some of them lying on the ground on bundles of straw, we turned into the Rue St. Laurent. Here the Chancellor, with three of the Councillors, took up their residence at the corner of Rue Raugraf in a little château overgrown with red creepers. The rest of the party lived a few doors off. I slept with Saint Blanquart in a room which was a veritable museum of natural history and ethnology, being filled with the most varied trophies from all parts of the world. After a hasty toilette we returned to the office. On our way we observed a number of notices posted on the walls, one announcing our victory of the fourteenth, another respecting the abolition of the conscription, and a third by the Mayor, apparently in connection with some attacks by civilians on our troops, warning the inhabitants to maintain a prudent attitude. There was also an order issued by our people strictly enjoining the population to keep lights in their windows at night, and to leave the doors of houses and shops open, and to deliver up all arms at the Town Hall. During the greater part of the afternoon we again heard the distant roar of cannon, and ascertained at dinner that there had been renewed fighting near Metz. Some one remarked that perhaps it would not be possible to prevent the French retiring to Verdun. The Minister replied, smiling, “That hardened reprobate Molk (Moltke) says it would be no misfortune, as they would then be delivered all the more surely into our hands”--which must mean that we could surround and annihilate them while they were retreating. Of the other remarks made by the Chancellor on this occasion I may mention his reference to the “small black Saxons, who looked so intelligent” and who pleased him so much on his paying them a visit the day before. These were either the dark green Chasseurs or the 108th Regiment which wore the same coloured uniform. “They seem to be sharp, ready fellows,” he added, “and the fact ought to be mentioned in the newspapers.”