The morning of the 31st the King moved to Vendresse.  First sending our carriage back to Grand Pre’ for our trunks, Forsyth and I mounted our horses and rode to the battle-field accompanied by an English nobleman, the Duke of Manchester.  The part of the field we traversed was still thickly strewn with the dead of both armies, though all the wounded had been collected in the hospitals.  In the village of Beaumont, we stopped to take a look at several thousand French prisoners, whose worn clothing and evident dejection told that they had been doing a deal of severe marching under great discouragements.

The King reached the village shortly after, and we all continued on to Chemery, just beyond where his Majesty alighted from his carriage to observe his son’s troops file past as they came in from the direction of Stonne.  This delay caused us to be as late as 9 o’clock before we got shelter that night, but as it afforded me the best opportunity I had yet had for seeing the German soldiers on the march, I did not begrudge the time.  They moved in a somewhat open and irregular column of fours, the intervals between files being especially intended to give room for a peculiar swinging gait, with which the men seemed to urge themselves over the ground with ease and rapidity.  There was little or no straggling, and being strong, lusty young fellows, and lightly equipped—­they carried only needle-guns, ammunition, a very small knapsack, a water-bottle, and a haversack —­they strode by with an elastic step, covering at least three miles an hour.

It having been definitely ascertained that the demoralized French were retiring to Sedan, on the evening of August 31 the German army began the work of hemming them in there, so disposing the different corps as to cover the ground from Donchery around by Raucourt to Carignan.  The next morning this line was to be drawn in closer on Sedan; and the Crown Prince of Saxony was therefore ordered to take up a position to the north of Bazeilles, beyond the right bank of the Meuse, while the Crown Prince of Prussia was to cross his right wing over the Meuse at Remilly, to move on Bazeilles, his centre meantime marching against a number of little hamlets still held by the French between there and Donchery.  At this last-mentioned place strong reserves were to be held, and from it the Eleventh Corps, followed by the Fifth and a division of cavalry, was to march on St. Menges.

Forsyth and I started early next morning, September 1, and in a thick fog-which, however, subsequently gave place to bright sunshine—­we drove to the village of Chevenges, where, mounting our horses, we rode in a northeasterly direction to the heights of Frenois and Wadelincourt, bordering the river Meuse on the left bank, where from the crest we had a good view of the town of Sedan with its circling fortifications, which, though extensive, were not so formidable as those around Metz.  The King and his staff were already established on these heights, and at a point so well chosen that his Majesty could observe the movements of both armies immediately east and south of Sedan, and also to the northwest toward Floing and the Belgian frontier.