said, “Here is a despatch which I have written to the Minister.” Faure read, and begged the Marshal not to send it, for, said he, “You will get an answer from Paris, which, perhaps, will prevent you from carrying out your new plans. You can transmit it to-morrow, when we are already on the road to Mézières.” The Marshal answered, “Send it,” and it was sent. The reply, so shrewdly foreseen by General Faure, was handed to the Marshal about half-past one on the morning of the 28th. It was dated, “Paris, August 27, 11 p.m.,” addressed to “the Emperor,” and began with these tell-tale words, “If you abandon Bazaine,” wrote the Comte de Palikao, “‘la revolution est dans Paris,’ or Paris will revolt, and you will be attacked yourself by all the enemy’s forces.” He asserted that Paris could defend herself, that the Army must reach Bazaine; that the Prussian Crown Prince, aware of the danger to which his Army and that which blockaded Metz, was exposed by MacMahon’s turning movement, had changed front to the north. “You are at least six-and-thirty, perhaps eight-and-forty, hours in advance of him,” the Minister continued. “You have before you only a part of the forces blockading Metz, which, seeing you retire from Chalons to Reims, stretched out towards the Argonne. Your movement on Reims deceived them. Everybody here feels the necessity of extricating Bazaine, and the anxiety with which your course is followed is extreme.” The Marshal’s will broke down under this strain. He could not bear the thought that men might in future point to him as one who deserted a brother Marshal. Against his better judgment he revoked the orders already issued, enjoining a retreat upon Mézières, and put all his Corps in motion for the banks of the Meuse. To complete the narrative of this decisive event, it may here be said that, on the 28th, at Stonne, as the Marshal himself has admitted, the Emperor made a last desperate appeal against the change of plan. Another despatch from Palikao, dated half-past one in the morning of the 28th, this time addressed to the Marshal, had come to hand at Stonne. “In the name of the Council of Ministers and the Privy Council,” it said, “I request you [‘je vous demande’] to succour Bazaine—profiting by the thirty hours’ advance which you have over the Crown Prince of Prussia. I direct Vinoy’s Corps on Reims.”