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Updated: May 22, 2025
In the interval General von Moltke arrived and held a long conference with the King, and when we did pull out we traveled the remainder of the afternoon in company with a part of the Crown Prince's army, which after this conference inaugurated the series of movements from Bar-le-Duc northward, that finally compelled the surrender at Sedan.
The Parliament obliged the Court to issue a declaration setting forth the innocence of the Princes, and another for the exclusion of cardinals French as well as foreigners from the King's Council, and the Parliament had no rest till the Cardinal retired from Sedan to Breule, a house belonging to the Elector of Cologne.
To-morrow will be the anniversary of the Battle of Sedan. The "Mailed Fist" is doing his best to celebrate it by leading his legions to Paris. It is daredevil desperation that spurs him on, for nowhere, as yet, have the Franco-British armies been broken through, and they continue to present successive stone walls to the Teuton invasion, and oppose every inch of ground with dogged tenacity.
All the officers had jumped up and were shrieking orders at the same time. In less than a minute the old man, still impassive, was pushed up against the wall and shot, looking smilingly the while toward Jean, his eldest son, his daughter-in-law and his two grandchildren, who witnessed this scene in dumb terror. Paris had just heard of the disaster at Sedan. A republic had been declared.
These wanderings were not, however, allowed to disturb the conversation, which flowed on after the mellow French fashion, enlivened by much wit and gay badinage. One of our hostess’s anecdotes at her own expense was especially amusing. “When in Venice,” she told us, “most prima donnas are carried to and from the opera in sedan chairs to avoid the risk of colds from the draughty gondolas.
Then he sought out the emperor, and, greatly moved, told him that 'all was finished. His majesty, he writes, 'with tears in his eyes, approached me, pressed my hand, and embraced me, and 'my sad and painful duty having been accomplished, I remounted my horse and road back to Sedan, "la mort dans l'ame." "So soon as the convention was signed, the king arrived, accompanied by the crown prince.
An officer of Turcos was protected at Sedan; a cuirassier of Reichsoffen would have died, pierced in the heart by a bullet, if this bullet after passing though his pocket-book had not stayed its flight on reaching a little picture of Our Lady of Lourdes!
Suddenly the clock struck three, and then it seemed exactly as though he had called me. I ran down for the servant, but there was no carriage to be found. "Will a sedan chair do?" "No," I said, "that's an equipage for the hospital" and we went on foot. There was a regular chocolate porridge in the streets and I had to have myself carried over the worst bogs.
On the Pont-Neuf an unceasing stream of vehicles rolled in each direction fine carriages, richly decorated and gilded, drawn by two or four prancing horses, with lackeys in brilliant liveries clinging on behind, and stately coachmen on the box; less pretentious carriages with more quiet steeds and fewer servants; heavy carts laden with stone, wood, or wine-barrels, whose drivers swore loudly at the detentions they were frequently obliged to submit to, and which were unavoidable in such a crush of vehicles; and among them all, gentlemen on horseback, threading their way carefully in and out among the press of carts and carriages, and endeavouring to avoid coming in contact with their muddy wheels not always successfully; while here and there a sedan chair crept slowly along, keeping upon the edge of the stream, so as not to be crushed; and the narrow, raised walk on either side was thronged with pedestrians.
He could almost count the houses in Sedan, whose windows flashed back the level rays of the departing day-star, and the ramparts and fortifications, outlined in black against the eastern sky, had an unwonted aspect of frowning massiveness.
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