“It is all over, is it not? We have capitulated.” The manufacturer, who encountered the look his mother cast on him at that moment, was on the point of equivocating. But what good would it do? A look of discouragement passed across his face. “What else remained to do? A single glance at the streets of the city would convince you. General de Wimpffen has just set out for Prussian general headquarters to discuss conditions.” M. de Vineuil’s eyes closed again, his long frame was shaken with a protracted shiver of supremely bitter grief, and this deep, long-drawn moan escaped his lips: “Ah! merciful God, merciful God!” And without opening his eyes he went on in faltering, broken accents: “Ah! the plan I spoke of yesterday—they should have adopted it. Yes, I knew the country; I spoke of my apprehensions to the general, but even him they would not listen to. Occupy all the heights up there to the north, from Saint-Menges to Fleigneux, with your army looking down on and commanding Sedan, able at any time to move on Vrigne-aux-Bois, mistress of Saint-Albert’s pass—and there we are; our positions are impregnable, the Mézières road is under our control—” His speech became more confused as he proceeded; he stammered a few more unintelligible words, while the vision of the battle that had been born of his fever little by little grew blurred and dim and at last was effaced by slumber. He slept, and in his sleep perhaps the honest officer’s dreams were dreams of victory. “Does the major speak favorably of his case?” Delaherche inquired in a whisper. Madame Delaherche nodded affirmatively. “Those wounds in the foot are dreadful things, though,” he went on. “I suppose he is likely to be laid up for a long time, isn’t he?” She made him no answer this time, as if all her being, all her faculties were concentrated on contemplating the great calamity of their defeat. She was of another age; she was a survivor of that strong old race of frontier burghers who defended their towns so valiantly in the good days gone by. The clean-cut lines of her stern, set face, with its fleshless, uncompromising nose and thin lips, which the brilliant light of the lamp brought out in high relief against the darkness of the room, told the full extent of her stifled rage and grief and the wound sustained by her antique patriotism, the revolt of which refused even to let her sleep.