Margueritte with three choice cavalry regiments (Chasseurs d’Afrique) and several squadrons of Lancers to charge the advancing lines.  Moving forward from the northern edge of the Bois de Garenne to judge his ground, Margueritte fell mortally wounded.  De Bauffremont took his place, and those brave horsemen swept forward on a task as hopeless as that of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, or that of the French Cuirassiers at Woerth[48].  Their conduct was as glorious; but the terrible power of the modern rifle was once more revealed.  The pounding of distant batteries they could brave; disordered but defiant they swept on towards the German lines, but when the German infantry opened fire almost at pistol range, rank after rank of the horsemen went down as grass before the scythe.  Here and there small bands of horsemen charged the footmen on the flank, even in a few cases on their rear, it is said; but the charge, though bravely renewed, did little except to delay the German triumph and retrieve the honour of France.

[Footnote 48:  Lebrun (op. cit. pp. 126-127; also Appendix D) maintains that de Bauffremont then led the charge, de Gallifet leading only the 3rd Chasseurs d’Afrique.]

By about two o’clock the French cavalry was practically disabled, and there now remained no Imperial Guard, as at Waterloo, to shed some rays of glory over the disaster.  Meanwhile, however, de Wimpffen had resolved to make one more effort.  Gathering about him a few of the best infantry battalions in and about Sedan, he besought the Emperor to join him in cutting a way out towards the east.  The Emperor sent no answer to this appeal; he judged that too much blood had already been needlessly shed.  Still, de Wimpffen persisted in his mad endeavour.  Bursting upon the Bavarians in the village of Balan, he drove them back for a space until his men, disordered by the rush, fell before the stubborn rally of the Bavarians and Saxons.  With the collapse of this effort and the cutting up of the French cavalry behind Floing, the last frail barriers to the enemy’s advance gave way.  The roads to Sedan were now thronged with masses of fugitives, whose struggles to pass the drawbridges into the little fortress resembled an African battue; for King William and his Staff, in order to hurry on the inevitable surrender, bade the 200 or more pieces on the southern heights play upon the town.  Still de Wimpffen refused to surrender, and, despite the orders of his sovereign, continued the hopeless struggle.  At length, to stay the frightful carnage, the Emperor himself ordered the white flag to be hoisted[49].  A German officer went down to arrange preliminaries, and to his astonishment was ushered into the presence of the Emperor.  The German Staff had no knowledge of his whereabouts.  On hearing the news, King William, who throughout the day sat on horseback at the top of the slope behind Frenois, said to his son, the Crown Prince:  “This is indeed a great success; and I thank thee that thou hast contributed to it.”  He gave his hand to his son, who kissed it, and then, in turn, to Moltke and to Bismarck, who kissed it also.  In a short time, the French General Reille brought to the King the following autograph letter:—­