Marshal MacMahon, perplexed, but not dismayed, by the events of the 30th, remained for some time in doubt. “I do not know what I shall do,” said the Marshal early in the evening to Ducrot’s aide-de-camp. “In any case, the Emperor should at once start for Sedan.” At that time the Emperor was in the camp of Ducrot, who, instructed to protect the retreat of the Army either by Douzy or by Carignan, that is, towards Sedan or Montmédy, had divided his Corps between those two places. At a later period, when darkness had set in, MacMahon, seated at a bivouac fire, on the heights above Mouzon, sent for General Lebrun, and directed him to retreat, at once, upon Sedan, not by the highway, which was crowded with fugitives and wagons, but by cross roads leading upon Douzy. “We have had a bad time,” said the Marshal, “but the situation is not hopeless. At the most, the German Army before us cannot exceed in numbers sixty or seventy thousand men. If they attack us, so much the better; we shall be able, doubtless, to fling them into the Meuse.” The Marshal, who never spared himself, and seemed to live without sleep, rode back to Sedan, and Lebrun, stumbling along devious tracks, in the darkness, and apparently in dubious military array, fearing all the time that he might be attacked, entered Douzy at eight in the morning, and did not reach Bazeilles, his destination, until ten o’clock. Meantime Ducrot, embarrassed by the presence of the Emperor, awaited anxiously, at Carignan, the final orders of MacMahon. He respectfully urged His Majesty to depart by train for Sedan, but the Emperor refused—“he wished to be with the Corps which covered the retreat.” He was astonished and incredulous when the rout before Mouzon was described. “It is impossible,” he repeatedly exclaimed, “our positions were magnificent!” In the night he vanished from Carignan; and it was only some hours after he had gone that Ducrot was informed of his departure by train. The General then, in concert with Margueritte, whose cavalry were on the Chiers, resolved to retreat in the morning, without waiting longer for orders, and to move upon Illy, because he assumed that MacMahon would certainly direct the Army on Mézières. He was mistaken. On reaching Villers-Cernay, about four in the afternoon of the 31st, Ducrot learned that he was to retire upon Sedan, and not upon Mézières, “whither I have not any intention of going,” said the Marshal’s despatch. In fact, the two Divisions of the 1st Corps, left at Douzy on the 30th, had been already ordered to retire on the Givonne. Lebrun, whom we saw follow in their wake, after his painful night march, did not destroy the bridge over the Chiers; so that, when he was passing Francheval, Ducrot actually saw the enemy—they were Saxon horsemen—issuing from the village, and cutting in upon the baggage and transport trains.