him was a moral consequence inseparable from his adventurous career. He could not add a cubit to his military stature; but he need not have “waded through slaughter to a throne.” In Paris before he started for the frontier, in Metz on the morning of August 7th, he must have felt, as the Empress also felt, that his was a dynasty which could not stand before the shock of defeat in battle. He had, therefore, to consider every hour, not so much what was the best course of action from the soldier’s standpoint, as how any course, advance, retreat or inaction, would affect the political situation in Paris. Count von Bismarck’s haughty message through M. Benedetti in 1866, if Benedetti faithfully delivered it, must have come back to the Emperor’s memory in 1870. Remind the Emperor, said Bismarck, that a war might bring on a revolutionary crisis; and add, that “in such a case, the German dynasties are likely to prove more solid than that of the Emperor Napoleon.” It was a consciousness of the weak foundations of his power, breeding an ever-present dread alike in the capital and the camp, which, making him ponder when he should act, falter when he should be bold, imparted to his resolutions the instability of the wind. It is on record that the first impulse of the Emperor and his intimate advisers was to retreat forthwith over the Moselle and the Meuse. General de Ladmirault was ordered to fall back on Metz; the Guard had to take the same direction; Bazaine, who had responsibility without power, was requested to protect the retirement of Frossard, who, driven off the direct, was marching along the more easterly road to Metz, through Gros Tenquin and Faulquemont, which the Germans call Falconberg; De Failly was required, if he could, to move on Nancy. MacMahon, it was hoped, would gather up his fragments, and transport them to Chalons, where Canrobert was to stand fast, and draw back to that place one of his divisions which had reached Nancy. Paris was placarded with the Emperor’s famous despatch; and the Parisians read aloud the ominous sentences which heralded the fall of an Empire. “Marshal MacMahon,” said the Emperor, “has lost a battle on the Sauer. General Frossard has been obliged to retire. The retreat is conducted in good order.” And then followed the tell-tale phrase, used by Napoleon I. himself on a similar occasion—“_Tout peut se rétablir_,” all, perhaps, may come right again. But so inconstant was the Imperial will, that the hasty resolve to fly into Champagne faded out almost as soon as it was formed; for the next day the dominant opinion was that it would be better to remain on the right bank of the Moselle. MacMahon and De Failly accordingly got counter orders, indicating Nancy as a point of concentration, and based on a feeble notion that they could both be drawn to Metz; while once again Canrobert was told to bring the infantry of the 6th Corps up to the same place by rail.