I had it examined by Carl, who reported that it was wretched and dirty. "_N'importe,_" said Napoleon, and I mounted with him a narrow, rickety stairway. In a room ten feet square, with a fig-wood table and two rush-bottomed chairs, we sat an hour, the others staying below. A mighty contrast to our last interview, in '67, at the Tuileries. Our conversation was difficult, if I would avoid touching on things which must be painful to those whom God's mighty hand had overthrown. Through Carl, I had officers brought from the city, and Moltke requested to come. We then sent out one of the first to reconnoitre, and discovered, a couple of miles off, at Fresnoi's, a little château with a park. Thither I conducted him, with an escort of the Cuirassier body-guards, which was meanwhile brought up, and there we concluded the capitulation with Wimpfen, the French general-in-chief. By its terms, from forty to sixty thousand French--I do not yet know the number more exactly--became our prisoners, with everything they have. The two receding days cost France one hundred thousand men and an emperor. He started early this morning, with all his court, horses, and wagons, for Wilhelmshöhe, at Cassel. It is an event in universal history, a triumph for which we will thank God the Lord in humility, and which is decisive of the war, even though we must continue to prosecute it against headless France. I must close. With heartfelt joy I have learned today, from your letter and Marie's, of Herbert's reaching you. I met Bill yesterday, as I telegraphed you, and took him to my arms from his horse before the King's face, while he stood with his limbs rigid. He is entirely well and in high spirits. Hans and Fritz Carl and both the Billows I saw with the Second Dragoon guards, well and cheerful. Farewell, my heart. Kiss the children. Your v.B. Gastein, August 30, '71. Happy the man to whom God has given a virtuous wife, who writes him every day. I am delighted that you are well, and that you have come to be three, to whom I hope to add myself as fourth on the 7th or 8th. * * * You see I have enough mental leisure here to devote myself to the unaccustomed work of making plans; but all on the presupposition that the excited Gauls do not worry my little friend Thiers to death, for then I should have to stay with his Majesty and watch which way the hare runs. I do not think that likely, but with such a stupid nation as they are anything is possible. Hearty love to both fat children. Your most faithful v.B. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 2: From _The Love Letters of Bismarck_. Permission Harper & Brothers, New York.] [Footnote 3: This note has been lost.] [Footnote 4: In subsequent letters he speaks of her "blue gray-black eyes."] [Footnote 5: Inspector at Schönhausen.] [Footnote 6: Compare the enclosure, in which I used often to find the expression of my inmost thought. Now, never any more. (Enclosed was a copy of Byron's poem, "To Inez.")]