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Notwithstanding his trials, however, and in the midst of the correspondence on which he was so intently engaged, he graciously took time to explain that the sudden movement northward from Bar-le-Duc was, as I have previously recounted, the result of information that Marshal MacMahon was endeavoring to relieve Metz by marching along the Belgian frontier; "a blundering manoeuvre," remarked the Chancellor, "which cannot be accounted for, unless it has been brought about by the political situation of the French."
* The parliamentary revolution of May, 1873, by which M. Thiers was overthrown and Marshal MacMahon installed in his place with the object of restoring the Monarchy in France. Trans. M. Grevy's decree by which the Jesuits were expelled. Trans. "And so, my dear Gerard," he said to the young man seated beside him, "your marriage is really to come off this year?"
And it also happened that Miss Macmahon, having received several practical illustrations of the old adage with regard to the disadvantage of a party of three persons as compared to a party of two persons, fell into the habit of carrying her books with her, and would sit and read in some shady nook near the abbey, while Laura wandered into the wilder regions of the park.
"Some dates have been misplaced, and some details relating to the colour of the troopers' collars were not right; but criticism of such absurd details cannot affect the treatment and the development of the subject, and the conclusions arrived at. I am told that Marshal MacMahon is wild against me, and that he is preparing a reply to my book. It has always been my object to avoid personalities.
The National Guard had never enjoyed the favor of the emperor, and had been suffered to fall to pieces. It was now reorganized and armed as well as the Government was able. There was a body of Mobiles who had been sent away from the army by Marshal MacMahon because they were so insubordinate that he did not know what to do with them.
The object of the emperor and Marshal MacMahon was to concentrate as large a force as possible before the very strongly fortified city of Metz. But as soon as they reached Metz the armies of General Steinmetz and Prince Frederic Charles, two hundred and fifty thousand strong, began to close in upon them. There seemed no safety but in further retreat.
The Emperor read it and bent his weary steps towards Châlons; Bazaine read it and said, "There is time;" MacMahon, Canrobert, Leboeuf, Ladmirault read it and wondered idly what it meant, till Vinoy turned a retreat into a triumph, and Gambetta, flabby, pompous, unbalanced, bawled platitudes from the Palais Bourbon.
The princess was not very mondaine, didn't care about society and life in a city preferred the country, with riding and shooting and any sort of sport. We had a very handsome dinner at the German embassy the winter of 1878 given to the Marshal and Madame de MacMahon.
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.
Then, after the famous conference at Chalons, where Rouher, Prince Napoleon, and others discussed the situation with the Emperor and MacMahon, Trochu was appointed Military Governor of Paris, where he soon found himself at loggerheads with Palikao.
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