When I reached Brittany, coming from Paris, early in the second fortnight of November, the Provincial Delegation of the Government of National Defence was able to meet the Germans with very considerable forces. But such had not been the case immediately after Sedan. As I pointed out previously--quite apart from the flower of the old Imperial Army, which was beleaguered around Metz--a force far too large for mere purposes of defence was confined within the lines with which the Germans invested Paris. In the provinces, the number of troops ready to take the field was very small indeed. Old Cremieux, the Minister of Justice, was sent out of Paris already on September 12, and took with him a certain General Lefort, who was to attend to matters of military organization in the provinces. But little or no confidence was placed in the resources there. The military members of the National Defence Government--General Trochu, its President, and General Le Flo, its Minister of War, had not the slightest idea that provincial France might be capable of a great effort. They relied chiefly on the imprisoned army of Paris, as is shown by all their despatches and subsequent apologies. However, Glais-Bizoin followed Cremieux to Tours, where it had been arranged that the Government Delegation should instal itself, and he was accompanied by Admiral Fourichon, the Minister of Marine. On reaching the Loire region, the new authorities found a few battalions of Mobile Guards, ill-armed and ill-equipped, a battalion of sharpshooters previously brought from Algeria, one or two batteries of artillery, and a cavalry division of four regiments commanded by General Reyau. This division had been gathered together in the final days of the Empire, and was to have been sent to Mezieres, to assist MacMahon in his effort to succour Bazaine; but on failing to get there, it had made just a few vain attempts to check the Germans in their advance on Paris, and had then fallen back to the south of the capital.