At Bazeilles we met the King, accompanied by Bismarck and several of the staff.  They too had been riding over the field, the King making this a practice, to see that the wounded were not neglected.  As I drew up by the party, Bismarck accosted me with, “Well, General, aren’t you hungry?  This is just the place to whet one’s appetite —­these burning Frenchmen—­Ugh!” and shrugging his shoulders in evident disgust, he turned away to join his Majesty in further explorations, Forsyth and I continuing on to Chevenges.  Here we got the first inkling of what had become of our carriage since leaving it two days before:  it had been pressed into service to carry wounded officers from the field during the battle, but afterward released, and was now safe at the house in Vendresse where we had been quartered the night of the 31st, so, on hearing this, we settled to go there again to lodge, but our good friend, the cure’, insisting that we should stay with him, we remained in Chevenges till next morning.

On September 3 the King removed from Vendresse to Rethel, where he remained two days; in the mean while the Germans, 240,000 strong, beginning their direct march to Paris.  The French had little with which to oppose this enormous force, not more, perhaps, than 50,000 regular troops; the rest of their splendid army had been lost or captured in battle, or was cooped up in the fortifications of Metz, Strasburg, and other places, in consequence of blunders without parallel in history, for which Napoleon and the Regency in Paris must be held accountable.  The first of these gross faults was the fight at Worth, where MacMahon, before his army was mobilized, accepted battle with the Crown Prince, pitting 50,000 men against 175,000; the next was Bazaine’s fixing upon Metz as his base, and stupidly putting himself in position to be driven back to it, when there was no possible obstacle to his joining forces with MacMahon at Chalons; while the third and greatest blunder of all was MacMahon’s move to relieve Metz, trying to slip 140,000 men along the Belgian frontier.  Indeed, it is exasperating and sickening to think of all this; to think that Bazaine carried into Metz—­a place that should have been held, if at all, with not over 25,000 men—­an army of 180,000, because it contained, the excuse was, “an accumulation of stores.”  With all the resources of rich France to draw upon, I cannot conceive that this excuse was sincere; on the contrary, I think that the movement of Bazaine must have been inspired by Napoleon with a view to the maintenance of his dynasty rather than for the good of France.

As previously stated, Bismarck did not approve of the German army’s moving on Paris after the battle of Sedan.  Indeed, I think he foresaw and dreaded the establishment of a Republic, his idea being that if peace was made then, the Empire could be continued in the person of the Prince Imperial who—­, coming to the throne under German influences, would be pliable in his hands.  These