Quite a stir suddenly arose in camp that evening after the roll call, the officers running hither and thither, transmitting orders, and arranging everything for the men's departure next morning at five o'clock. With mingled surprise and disquietude, Maurice learnt that everything was again changed, and that instead of falling back on Paris they were about to march on Verdun, in view of joining Bazaine. A rumour circulated that a despatch had arrived from the latter during the day, announcing that he was effecting his retreat; and Maurice then remembered Prosper and the officer he had come with from Monthois, perhaps to bring the Emperor a copy of this despatch. Thus the Empress-Regent and the Council of Ministers, so frightened at the thought of the Emperor's return to Paris, and so obstinately bent upon throwing the army forward at any cost in order that it might make a supreme attempt to save the dynasty, had triumphed at last over the perpetual hesitation of Marshal MacMahon. And that wretched Emperor, that poor devil who no longer had any place in his own empire, was to be carried off like a useless, cumbersome parcel among the baggage-train of his troops, condemned--oh! the irony of it--to drag after him all his Imperial household, his bodyguards, his carriages, his horses, his cooks, his vans full of silver saucepans and sparkling wine of Champagne--in a word, all the pomp of his bee-spangled, imperial robes, which could now only serve to sweep up the blood and mire that covered the high-roads of defeat!