How, by long and laborious marches, the tough foot soldiers, almost treading on the heels of their mounted comrades, gained ground on the adversary must now be succinctly narrated. On the 26th, the 12th Corps reached Varennes, and the Saxon Prince established his head-quarters at Clermont in Argonne. The Guard went on to Dombasle, and the 4th Corps to a point beyond Fleury. Such were the marches of the Army of the Meuse. In the Third Army, the Bavarians made a wet and weary night march in the wake of the 4th Corps, attaining Triaucourt and Erize la Petite; but for the moment, the 5th, the 6th, and the Würtembergers stood fast. The reason for this apparent hesitation was that Von Moltke was not yet quite convinced. King William remained at Bar le Duc all the forenoon. Thither came the Crown Prince and General von Blumenthal from Ligny, and, at a council held in the great head-quarters, both of them declared unequivocally in favour of the northern march, urging that it would be wiser to delay the movement on Paris than run the risks of a battle in the north unless it could be fought by all the forces which could be got together. These opinions prevailed, and it was decided that the Bavarians should start at once, and that the next day the other Corps of the Third Army should proceed to Sainte-Menehould and Vavray. General von Blumenthal, indeed, had formed a strong judgment on the situation. A few hours after the consultation at head-quarters, writes Dr. William Russell in his “Diary,” “taking me into a room in which was a table covered with a large map on a scale of an inch to a mile, he (Blumenthal) said, ‘These French are lost, you see. We know they are there, and there, and there—and Mahon’s whole Army. _Where_ can they go to? Poor foolish fellows! They must go to Belgium, or fight _there_ and be lost;’ and he put his finger on the map between Mézières and Carignan.” It is a remarkable fact that General Longstreet judging only from the telegrams which reached the United States about this time, arrived at the same conclusion. King William, during the afternoon, journeyed to Clermont; while the Crown Prince drove to Revigny les Vaches, which he made his head-quarters until the 28th. Before losing sight of Bar le Duc, we may quote from Dr. Russell’s pages one other sentence, which affords a brief glimpse of the great political leader in this war. In the forenoon on the 26th, the graphic Diarist “saw Count Bismarck standing in a doorway out of the rain whiffing a prodigious cigar, seemingly intent on watching the bubbles which passed along the watercourse by the side of the street;” but probably with his thoughts far away from the evanescent symbols of men’s lives. He had entered the town with the King on the 24th, and feared that the royal staff would linger there for several days, “as in Capua;” yet, in a few hours, this playful censor of delay was speeding North, like the Armies, to play a conspicuous part in a sublime tragedy at Sedan.