rces through the great plains of Champagne.
MacMahon had some design of turning back, uniting with another
army corps, and attacking the Prussians in the rear, thus hemming
in part of their army between himself and the troops of Bazaine
in Metz; but he seems to have been really in the position of a
pawn driven about a chess-board by an experienced player.

Continually retreating, the emperor, who was with MacMahon's army,
at last found himself at Sedan, safe, as he hoped, for a brief
breathing space, from the attacks of the two Prussian army corps
which were following in his rear. He had been warned repeatedly
that he must not return to Paris without a victory. "The language
of reason," he remarked, "is no longer understood at the capital."

On Aug. 30, 1870, the retreating French were concentrated, or rather
massed, under the walls of Sedan,[1] in a valley commonly called
the Sink of Givonne. The army consisted of twenty-nine brigades,
fifteen divisions, and four _corps d'armee_, numbering ninety thousand
men.

[Footnote 1: Victor Hugo, Choses vues.]

"It was there," says Victor Hugo, "no one could guess what for,
without order, without discipline, a mere crowd of men, waiting,
as it seemed, to be seized by an immensely powerful hand. It seemed
to be under no particular anxiety. The men who composed it knew,
or thought they knew, that the enemy was far away. Calculating
four leagues as a day's march, they believed the Germans to be at
three days distance. The commanders, however, towards nightfall,
made some preparations for safety. The whole army formed a sort
of horse-shoe, its point turning towards Sedan. This disposition
proved that its chiefs believed themselves in safety. The valley
was one of those which the Emperor Napoleon used to call a 'bowl,'
and which Admiral Van Tromp designated by a less polite name. No
place could have been better calculated to shut in an army. Its very
numbers were against it. Once in, if the way out were blocked, it
could never leave it again. Some of the generals,--General Wimpfen
among them--saw this, and were uneasy; but the little court around
the emperor was confident of safety. 'At worst,' they said, 'we
can always reach the Belgian frontier.' The commonest military
precautions were neglected. The army slept soundly on the night
of August 31. At the worst they believed themselves to have a line
of retreat open to Mezieres, a town on the frontier of Belgium.
No cavalry reco