MONSIEUR MON FRERE—­N’ayant pu mourir au milieu de mes troupes, il ne me reste qu’a remettre mon epee entre les mains de Votre Majeste.—­Je suis de Votre Majeste le bon Frere

     NAPOLEON.

     SEDAN, le 1er Septembre, 1870.

[Footnote 49:  Lebrun, op. cit. pp. 130 et seq. for the disputes about surrender.]

The King named von Moltke to arrange the terms and then rode away to a village farther south, it being arranged, probably at Bismarck’s suggestion, that he should not see the Emperor until all was settled.  Meanwhile de Wimpffen and other French generals, in conference with von Moltke, Bismarck, and Blumenthal, at the village of Donchery, sought to gain easy terms by appealing to their generosity and by arguing that this would end the war and earn the gratitude of France.  To all appeals for permission to let the captive army go to Algeria, or to lay down its arms in Belgium, the Germans were deaf,—­Bismarck at length plainly saying that the French were an envious and jealous people on whose gratitude it would be idle to count.  De Wimpffen then threatened to renew the fight rather than surrender, to which von Moltke grimly assented, but Bismarck again interposed to bring about a prolongation of the truce.  Early on the morrow, Napoleon himself drove out to Donchery in the hope of seeing the King.  The Bismarckian Boswell has given us a glimpse of him as he then appeared:  “The look in his light grey eyes was somewhat soft and dreamy, like that of people who have lived too fast.” [In his case, we may remark, this was induced by the painful disease which never left him all through the campaign, and carried him off three years later.] “He wore his cap a little on the right, to which side his head also inclined.  His short legs were out of proportion to the long upper body.  His whole appearance was a little unsoldier-like.  The man looked too soft—­I might say too spongy—­for the uniform he wore.”

Bismarck, the stalwart Teuton who had wrecked his policy at all points, met him at Donchery and foiled his wish to see the King, declaring this to be impossible until the terms of the capitulation were settled.  The Emperor then had a conversation with the Chancellor in a little cottage belonging to a weaver.  Seating themselves on two rush-bottomed chairs beside the one deal table, they conversed on the greatest affairs of State.  The Emperor said he had not sought this war—­“he had been driven into it by the pressure of public opinion.  I replied” (wrote Bismarck) “that neither had any one with us wished for war—­the King least of all[50].”  Napoleon then pleaded for generous terms, but admitted that he, as a prisoner, could not fix them; they must be arranged with de Wimpffen.  About ten o’clock the latter agreed to an unconditional surrender for the rank and file of the French army, but those officers who bound themselves by their word of honour (in writing) not to fight again during the present war were to be set free.  Napoleon then had an interview with the King.  What transpired is not known, but when the Emperor came out “his eyes” (wrote Bismarck) “were full of tears.”