United States or Kosovo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then Napoleon despatched his chief aide-de-camp, General Keille, with a letter to the king of Prussia. King William early that day had taken his stand on an eminence which commanded an extensive view and which rises a little south of Frenois. There, his staff about him, he watched the progress of the fight. Toward this eminence Reille rode.
This little house is on the east side of the Donchery road, near its junction with that to Frenois, and stands about twenty paces back from the highway. In front is a stone wall covered with creeping vines, and from a gate in this wall runs to the front door a path, at this time bordered on both sides with potato vines.
The guns seemed to spring spontaneously from the soil, like some noxious growth; it was a zone of fire that grew hotter and fiercer every moment; there were batteries at Noyers shelling Balan, batteries at Wadelincourt shelling Sedan, and at Frenois, down under la Marfee, there was a battery whose guns, heavier than the rest, sent their missiles hurtling over the city to burst among the troops of the 7th corps on the plateau of Floing.
Accompanied by Count Bismarck, he stopped at a small and mean-looking laborer's inn on the road to Donchery, where, sitting down on a stone seat before the door, with Count Bismarck, he declared that he had not desired the war, but had been driven to it through the force of public opinion; and afterwards the two proceeded to the little castle of Bellevue, near Frenois, to join King William and the crown prince.
Its front, standing back a little from the street, displayed a single story with three windows, surmounted by an attic; in the rear was a garden of some extent that sloped gently downward toward the meadows and commanded a wide panoramic view of the encircling hills, from Remilly to Frenois.
At the same time the 6th Cavalry Division was sent from Mazeray, and passing by Boutancourt and Bolzicourt, reached the Meuse at Flize; the 2d Cavalry Division quitted its encampment, and took up its position to the south of Boutancourt; the 4th Cavalry Division took up its position to the south of Frénois; the 1st Bavarian Corps installed itself at Remilly; the 5th Cavalry Division and the 6th Corps were posted to observe, and all in line, and order, massed upon the heights waited for the dawn to appear.
Underneath the King's position the long line of batteries, stretching with hardly an interval from Remilly to Frenois, kept up an unintermittent fire, pouring their shells into Daigny and la Moncelle, sending them hurtling over Sedan city to sweep the northern plateaus.
Sedan lies in the most beautiful part of the valley of the Meuse, amid terraced heights, covered with trees, and, within close distance, the villages of Donchery, Iges, Villette, Glaire, Daigny, Bazeilles, and others. Along the Meuse, on the left bank, ran the main road from Donchery through Frenois, crossing the river at the suburb Torcy, and there traversing Sedan.
In that case, he said, the signal for battle would be the reopening of fire by the batteries on the heights east of Frenois. "The signal was not given. Late on the evening of September 1st a momentous session was held in Donchery, the little town which commands a bridge over the Meuse below Sedan.
It was nearly dark, but there was sufficient light yet remaining in the sky to enable them to distinguish the black huddle of roofs above the city, and further in the distance Balan and Bazeilles, lying in the broad meadows that stretch away to the range of hills between Remilly and Frenois, while to the right was the dusky wood of la Garenne, and to the left the broad bosom of the Meuse had the dull gleam of frosted silver in the dying daylight.
Word Of The Day