George sat down in the window-corner while we were at supper, and he told us that on his arrival at Phalsbourg, about six in the morning, the gate of France had just been opened, but that that of Germany, facing Saverne, remained closed; that in that direction from the outposts to Quatre Vents, nothing was to be seen but fugitives, calling, and firing pistol-shots to get themselves admitted; that he had had time to put up his horse and cart at the Ville de Bale, and to go upon the ramparts to witness this spectacle, when at the same instant the drawbridge fell, and the crowd of Turcos, Zouaves, foot-soldiers, officers, generals, all in a confused mass, had rushed through the gate; in the whole number, he had seen but one flag, surrounded by about sixty men of the 55th, commanded by a lieutenant; the rest were mingled together, in hopeless confusion, the most part without arms, and under no sort of discipline; they had lost all respect for their chiefs. It was a rout--a complete rout. He had seen superior officers invaded at their own tables under the tent of the Cafe Meyer, by private soldiers, and veterans throwing themselves back in their chairs with elbows squared in the presence of their officers, looking defiantly upon them, and shouting, "A bottle!" The waiters came obsequiously to wait upon them for fear of a scene, whilst the officers pretending to hear and see nothing, seemed to him the worst thing he had seen yet. Yet it was deserved; for these officers--officers of rank--knew no more about the roads, paths, streams and rivers of the country than their soldiers, who knew nothing at all. They did not even know the way from Phalsbourg to Sarrebourg by the high-road, which a child of eight might know. He had heard a staff-officer ask if Sarrebourg was an open town; he had seen whole battalions halting upon that road, not knowing whether they were right. We should ourselves see these deplorable things next day, for our retreating soldiers did nothing but turn and turn again ten times upon the same roads, around the same mountains, and ended by returning to the same spot again so tired, exhausted, and starved, that the Prussians, if they had come, would only have had to pick them up at their leisure. Yet George had one moment's satisfaction in this melancholy disorganization; it was to see, as he told us, those sixty men of the 56th halt in good order upon the _place_, and there rest their flag against a tree. The lieutenant who commanded them made them lie on the ground, near their rifles, and almost immediately they fell asleep in the midst of the seething crowd. The young officer himself went quietly to sit alone at a small table at the cafe.