As the critical hours drew nearer when the capacity of the Emperor Napoleon and Marshal Lebœuf, applied to the conduct of a great war, was to be put to the severest test, so their hesitation increased and their inherent unfitness for the heavy task became more and more apparent. Marshal Bazaine had been intrusted with the command of three corps “for military operations only,” yet the supreme control was retained in Metz, and the Corps commanders looked more steadily in that direction than they did towards the Marshal’s head-quarters at St. Avold. Along the whole front, at every point, an attack by the enemy was apprehended. General de Ladmirault was convinced that the 7th Prussian Corps would strive to turn his left; Marshal Bazaine was disturbed by the fear that the same body of troops would come upon him from Saarlouis; General Frossard felt so uncomfortable in the angle or curve on the Saar, which he occupied, that he vehemently desired to see the Army concentrated in the position of Cadenbronn, a few miles to the rear of Spicheren; General Montaudon, who had a division at Sarreguemines, was certain that the enemy intended to swoop down upon him; and General de Failly was in daily alarm lest the Prussians should advance upon the gap of Rohrbach. At Metz all these conflicting surmises weighed upon, we might almost say collectively governed the Emperor and the Marshal, who issued, recalled, qualified, and again issued perplexing orders. It is true that, owing to the supineness of the cavalry, and the indifference of the peasantry on the border, they were without any authentic information; but if that had been supplied it is very doubtful whether they would have been able to profit by it; and they were evidently unable to reason out a sound plan which would give them the best chances of thwarting the adversary’s designs or of facing them on the best terms. The sole idea which prevailed was that every line should be protected; and thus, on the 5th, the Guard was at Courcelles; Bazaine’s four divisions, hitherto echeloned on the line from St. Avold to Forbach, were strung out on a country road between St. Avold and Sarreguemines; De Ladmirault, who had been ordered to approach the Marshal, misled by the apparition of Prussian patrols, gave only a partial effect to the order; while Frossard, on the evening of that day, instead of the next morning, made those movements to the rear which attracted the notice of his opponents and drew them upon him. At dawn on the 6th, “the Army of the Rhine” was posted over a wide space in loosely-connected groups; yet, despite all the errors committed, there were still three divisions sufficiently near the 2nd Corps on the Spicheren heights to have converted the coming defeat into a brilliant victory. That great opportunity was lost, because the soldierly spirit and the warlike training, in which the French were deficient, were displayed to such an astonishing degree by the Germans