The Emperor left St. Cloud for the seat of war on July 28th, and went straight to Metz, where a Council of War was held on August 4, with Marshals Macmahon and Bazaine in attendance. That very day the Crown Prince of Prussia fell upon a portion of Macmahon's army corps at Weissenburg, and all but destroyed it, killing its general, Abel Douay, and taking 800 prisoners. The next day a similar fate overtook another corps, commanded by {124} Macmahon himself on the hills above Wörth, when 6000 men were killed or taken prisoner, and no less than thirty pieces of artillery with six mitrailleuses were captured. Whilst the latter engagement was actually in progress General Froissard's army corps, which was holding the heights above Saarbrück, was driven back in confusion and with great loss upon Metz. The news of these events fell upon the ears of startled Europe on August 8. A fiasco, so hurried and hopeless, had not been contemplated. At first a false report had reached Paris of a grand victory won by Macmahon, who was supposed to have captured the Crown Prince of Prussia with all his army. The enthusiastic excitement had been unbounded. Gradually the truth was borne in upon the unhappy people, and a hopeless reaction was the natural result. Napoleon's apologetic telegrams from Metz did not cheer his subjects; even the fourth of a series of five containing these words, _Tout pent se rétablir_, brought little hope to their hearts, for it was impossible not to be aware of the fact that, although the war was but three weeks old, the Prussian invasion of France was going successfully and steadily forward. But France was still an Empire, and, on the morning of August 7, the Empress-Regent presided over a ministerial council at 5 o'clock in the morning, and convoked the chambers, who met on the 9th, when the Ollivier Ministry resigned. The department of the Seine was declared in a state of siege, and a permanent council of the Ministry was established at the Tuileries. The Ollivier Ministry was replaced, by one under Count Palikao. It was still possible for news of the French defeats at the seat of war to reach the capital. Bazaine's unsuccessful movement of retreat from Metz to Verdun on August 15, followed by the bloody battle of Gravelotte, resulting in his enforced retirement into the entrenched camp of Metz, spread further consternation among the Imperial Ministers {125} at home, and preparations for a siege began in earnest. General Trochu was appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the forces in Paris on August 17. Sedan was fought on the first of September, and on the second, the Emperor of the French sent his sword to the King of Prussia, who thereupon appointed him a residence as a prisoner of war. Two days later the advance guard of the Prussian army at Sedan set out for Paris.