the Rue Maqua, whence he had already taken the precaution to
remove his securities and valuables and bury them in a place of safety.
He dropped in at the Hotel de Ville, found the Municipal Council sitting
in permanent session, and loitered away a couple of hours there without
hearing any fresh news, unless that affairs outside the walls were
beginning to look very threatening. The army, under the pushing and
hauling process, pushed back to the rear by General Ducrot during the
hour and a half while the command was in his hands, hauled forward to
the front again by de Wimpffen, his successor, knew not where to yield
obedience, and the entire lack of plan and competent leadership, the
incomprehensible vacillation, the abandonment of positions only to
retake them again at terrible cost of life, all these things could not
fail to end in ruin and disaster.

From there Delaherche pushed forward to the Sous-Prefecture to ascertain
whether the Emperor had returned yet from the field of battle. The only
tidings he gleaned here were of Marshal MacMahon, who was said to be
resting comfortably, his wound, which was not dangerous, having been
dressed by a surgeon. About eleven o'clock, however, as he was again
going the rounds, his progress was arrested for a moment in the
Grande-Rue, opposite the Hotel de l'Europe, by a sorry cavalcade of
dust-stained horsemen, whose jaded nags were moving at a walk, and at
their head he recognized the Emperor, who was returning after having
spent four hours on the battle-field. It was plain that death would have
nothing to do with him. The big drops of anguish had washed the rouge
from off those painted cheeks, the waxed mustache had lost its stiffness
and drooped over the mouth, and in that ashen face, in those dim eyes,
was the stupor of one in his last agony. One of the officers alighted
in front of the hotel and proceeded to give some friends, who were
collected there, an account of their route, from la Moncelle to Givonne,
up the entire length of the little valley among the soldiers of the 1st
corps, who had already been pressed back by the Saxons across the little
stream to the right bank; and they had returned by the sunken road of
the Fond de Givonne, which was even then in such an encumbered condition
that had the Emperor desired to make his way to the front again he would
have found the greatest difficulty in doing so. Besides, what would it
have availed?

As Delaherche was drinking in