arrangement of the whole French line upon the position, which at no point was in sufficient strength to offer a firm and certain resistance. This, indeed, was made evident, at the same time, at another part of the theatre of operations. While the Crown Prince was attacking MacMahon, a German division of the First Army crossed the Saar and advanced to Saarbrück, where a few days before the corps of Frossard had made a demonstration on the frontier, in order, it has been supposed, to gratify the curiosity of the Prince Imperial. The French were completely surprised; but, pressing hastily forward, they advanced to repulse the audacious foe, who with great boldness resisted steadily for some time. Meanwhile another German division had come to the aid of their comrades; and seizing promptly the cover of woods which overlapped the right of the French, they wasted it away with a destructive fire; and further supports having come up, the Germans stormed with heroic valour a line of heights called the Spicheren hills, which formed the front of the French position. The whole French line had begun to give way; and an additional mass of foes appearing on their extreme left, and having outflanked it, they retreated in precipitate haste, leaving a considerable number of guns and prisoners. The two engagements of the 6th of August, named respectively those of Woerth and Forbach, were fraught with results of great moment. It was not only that the renowned French army which had been supposed to be the first in the world had suffered a double crushing defeat, in one instance of a dishonourable kind; not only that it had lost its prestige and given proof of want of steadiness, of indiscipline, and of disorganization; the invasion of Germany was now impossible; the South had been united to the North by the pledge of common military success; and there was nothing to avert the victorious progress of the German masses on the French frontier. The situation, in fact, had been suddenly changed; and Europe, which up to that moment had been expecting a French advance, was now to witness the calamitous recoil of the Imperial forces at all points, attended with ever increasing disasters. The right wing of the French army, well-nigh cut off and destroyed at Woerth, was driven in rout out of Alsace and compelled to abandon Strasburg to its fate; and it would be too fortunate if it could rally at Châlons, drawing to it the corps of De Failly and Douay. The right centre, broken through at Forbach, was forced backward upon Metz; and the centre and left, involved in its defeat, were obliged to fall back in the same direction. Meanwhile the Germans ably directed, and collected in overwhelming strength, poured into France in the successive waves of an invasion that nothing could resist. The Crown Prince's army, in communication with the Second by a cordon of cavalry sent through the Vosges, detached a part of its force to besiege Strasburg, and with its