the people whose town it was intended to restore to the Reich, and over whom she had determined to rule. It was only on the 26th, when the King had just turned northward from the Ornain to hunt after MacMahon, that Von Werder, finding Uhrich resolute, decided to proceed by way of a regular siege. After the end of the month the fortress ceased to be, in any sense, a danger to the German Armies, which, whether closed around Metz or marching westward through France, could afford to await, with calmness, the certain surrender of Strasburg, an end which might have been attained just as quickly had the wisdom of King William’s statesmen been called in to sustain the sound judgment of General Schulz, the accomplished Engineer. CHAPTER XIII. SEDAN. _German Decision._ While Strasburg was enduring the agonies of a siege and bombardment, and the “Army of the Rhine,” already oppressed by “la question des vivres,” was chafing in its restricted camps under the cannon of Metz; while Paris was quivering with excitement and barely restrained from bursting into open revolt, the victorious German host was closing steadily, yet swiftly, round the distracted and misguided Army of Chalons. It was pressed in so closely on the Belgian frontier that, during the afternoon of the 30th, before De Failly had been driven over the Meuse, Count Bismarck sent a formal communication to the German Minister at Brussels, in which he expressed a hope that, should MacMahon lead his soldiers across the boundary, the Belgian authorities would immediately deprive them of their arms. At night, in his quarters at Buzancy, King William sanctioned a decisive order to his son and the Saxon Prince. The troops were to march at dawn, attack the enemy wherever he could be found on the left and right bank of the Meuse, in order that he might be crushed up as much as possible between the river and the Belgian border. The Saxon Prince was to operate beyond the Meuse, with two Corps; the Prussian Prince on the front and left; movements designed to bar the road to Montmédy, prevent any attempt to recross the river, and, eventually, to interpose the German left wing between the French and Mézières. “Should the adversary enter Belgium and not be immediately disarmed, he is to be followed at once without waiting for fresh orders.” These were not the final instructions which led to the investment of an Army, but they prepared the way towards, and foreshadowed the accomplishment of that astonishing result. _Confusion in the French Camp._