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For those who lived too far away to come in and out every day to drill, a large empty barn was taken, and fitted up as a temporary barracks. The time did not pass away without great excitement for, as the end of August drew on, everyone was watching, in deep anxiety, for the news of a battle near Chalons where MacMahon had been organizing a fresh army.
He was a tactician of the old school, imbued with the idea that every march should be made in perfect order. At half-past four MacMahon, with his uniform in disorder and followed by a few officers of his staff, dashed back to hurry up this deliberate reserve. On the way thither he rode into a body of Austrian sharpshooters. Fortune favored him.
This sudden change of direction I did not at first understand, but soon learned that it was because of the movements of Marshal MacMahon, who, having united the French army beaten at Worth with three fresh corps at Chalons, was marching to relieve Metz in obedience to orders from the Minister of War at Paris.
The Emperor and MacMahon seem even then, on the afternoon of the 31st, to have hoped to give their weary troops a brief rest, supply them with provisions and stores from the fortress, and on the morrow, or the 2nd, make their escape by way of Mézières.
Dora Macmahon and the two pale Bridesmaids, with areophane bonnets that had become hopelessly limp from exposure to that cruel rain, took their places in the second carriage.
In this small town the whole army of MacMahon was collected by evening, and there prevailed in the streets and houses an unprecedented disorder and confusion, which was still further increased when the German troops from the surrounding heights began to shoot down upon the fortress, and the town took fire in several places.
The then president of the republic, Marshal MacMahon, commuted the death sentence into one of imprisonment for twenty years. Confined in the fort of the island St. Marguerite, near Cannes, Bazaine escaped, and lived in Spain till his death.
It then agreed to refer the questions in dispute to the arbitration of General MacMahon, President of the French Republic . As has generally happened when foreign potentates have adjudicated on British interests, his verdict was wholly hostile to us.
As soon as the Marshal and Madame de MacMahon were announced, she came in, meeting them at the door, making a circle afterward, and shaking hands with all the ladies. Lord Lyons gave a beautiful ball at the embassy that season.
Within a month, De Courcy heard that the castles were pulled down, and, on his calling his refractory vassal to account, received a truly Irish answer: MacMahon said he had not promised to hold stones, but land, and it was contrary to his nature to couch within cold stones, when the warm woods were so nigh.
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