'Just fancy,' began Rose, 'all this business has made mother quite ill; she's in bed and can't get up. So there's only me, you see, for father is at the citadel, being a National Guard. A little while ago the Emperor again wanted to show his bravery, for he went out again and was able to get to the end of the street, as far as the bridge. But then a shell fell in front of him, and the horse of one of his equerries was killed. And so he came back again--not surprising, is it? What would you have him do?' 'Then you know how we are situated--what do the officers say?' She gave him a look of astonishment. Amid all these abominations, but little of which she understood, she bustled about assiduously, retaining her gay freshness, with her fine hair and her clear eyes, the eyes of the child she was. 'No, I know nothing,' she said; 'at twelve o'clock I took up a letter for Marshal MacMahon. The Emperor was with him. They remained shut up together for nearly an hour, the marshal in bed, and the Emperor on a chair close to the mattress. I know that, because I saw them when the door was opened.' 'What were they saying?' She again looked at him, and could not help laughing. 'Why, I don't know,' she answered. 'How could I know? Nobody in the world knows what they said to one another.'[30] That was true, and Delaherche made a gesture as though to apologise for his foolish question. Still the idea of that supreme conversation worried him; how interesting it must have been! What decision could they have come to? 'And now,' added Rose, 'the Emperor has gone back into his private room, where he's conferring with two generals who arrived just now from the battlefield.' She paused and glanced towards the house-steps: 'Look! here comes one of the generals--and look! here's the other.' Delaherche hastily stepped out of the lodge and recognised Generals Douay and Ducrot, whose horses were waiting. He watched them get into the saddle again and gallop off. After the abandonment of the plateau of Illy, each, on his own side, had hastened into the town to warn the Emperor that the battle was lost. They furnished him with precise details of the situation; the army and Sedan were now completely enveloped, and the disaster would prove frightful.