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Updated: May 15, 2025
And the inevitable accusation of treason was again made to do duty; Ducrot and de Wimpffen wanted to get three millions apiece out of Bismarck, as MacMahon had done. Alone in advance of his staff General Douay sat on his horse a long time, his gaze bent on the distant positions of the enemy and in his eyes an expression of infinite melancholy.
The conclusion of the treaty of capitulation was placed in the hands of Wimpffen, who, accompanied by General Castelnau, set out for Donchery to negotiate with Moltke and Bismarck.
On our way to the chateau we fell in with a number of artillery officers bringing up their guns hurriedly to post them closer in to the beleaguered town on a specially advantageous ridge. Inquiring the cause of this move, we learned that General Wimpffen had not yet agreed to the terms of surrender; that it was thought he would not, and that they wanted to be prepared for any such contingency.
Then there ensued a brief silence, for Von Moltke looked straight before him and said nothing, while De Wimpffen, oppressed by the number present, hesitated to engage in a debate 'with the two men admitted to be the most capable of our age, each in his kind. But he soon plucked up courage, and frankly accepted the conditions of the combat.
"From this conference General de Wimpffen went straight to the wearied emperor, who had gone to bed. But he received his visitor, who told him that the proposed conditions were hard, and that the sole chance of mitigation lay in the efforts of his Majesty.
He began by expounding those principles he had already expressed to Wimpffen, principles which had already been communicated by his secretaries to the German Press and been repeated in almost every paper of the country. The war had not been caused by the Emperor; it was the nation which was responsible for it.
At Caen, Wimpffen, having ordered the eight battalions of the National Guard to assemble in the court, demands volunteers and finds that only seventeen step forth; on the following day a formal requisition brings out only one hundred and thirty combatants; other towns, except Vire, which furnishes about twenty, refuse their contingent.
'Moltke, said Bismarck, recounting the interview, 'coldly persisted in his demand, or as the attentive d'Orcet puts it, 'Von Moltke was pitiless. Then De Wimpffen tried to soften his grim adversary by painting his own position.
Ducrot being also wounded, it became the sad duty of General Wimpffen to sign the capitulation. Marshal MacMahon was taken as a prisoner to Wiesbaden, where he remained till the close of the war. He got back to Paris forty-eight hours before the outbreak of the Commune. A commander was needed for the forces of France.
On the 13th of July its army under the Baron de Wimpffen, a constitutional monarchist, was met by a Parisian army at Pacy, 30 miles from the capital. The Normans met with defeat, a defeat they were never able to retrieve. On the same day a dramatic event was occurring at Paris, the last despairing stroke of the Gironde against its detested opponents.
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