rance by the
Luxembourg frontier, and had fallen asleep in the coach. Suddenly the
jolt of the train coming to a standstill awoke him. One of the
passengers said: "What place is this?" Another answered "Sedan." With
a shudder, Hugo looked around. He says that to his mind and vision, as
he gazed out, the paradise was a tomb. Before substituting his words
for our own, we note only that nearly thirteen months had elapsed
since Louis Napoleon and his 90,000 men had here been brayed in a
mortar. Hugo's description of the scene and the event continues as
follows:

The valley was circular and hollow, like the bottom of a crater; the
winding river resembled a serpent; the hills high, ranged one behind
the other, surrounded this mysterious spot like a triple line of
inexorable walls; once there, there is no means of exit. It reminded
me of the amphitheatres. An indescribable, disquieting vegetation,
which seemed to be an extension of the Black Forest, overran all the
heights, and lost itself in the horizon like a huge impenetrable
snare; the sun shone, the birds sang, carters passed by whistling;
sheep, lambs and pigeons were scattered about; leaves quivered and
rustled; the grass, a densely thick grass, was full of flowers. It was
appalling.

I seemed to see waving over this valley the flashing of the avenging
angel's sword.

This word "Sedan" had been like a veil abruptly torn aside. The
landscape had become suddenly filled with tragedy. Those shapeless
eyes which the bark of trees delineates on the trunks were gazing--at
what? At something terrible and lost to view.

In truth, that was the place! And at the moment when I was passing by,
thirteen months all but a few days had elapsed. That was the place
where the monstrous enterprise of the second of December had burst
asunder. A fearful shipwreck!

The gloomy pathways of Fate cannot be studied without profound anguish
of heart.

On the thirty-first of August, 1870, an army was reassembled, and was,
as it were, massed together under the walls of Sedan, in a place
called the Givonne Valley. This army was a French army--twenty-nine
brigades, fifteen divisions, four army corps--90,000 men. This army
was in this place without anyone being able to divine the reason;
without order, without an object, scattered about--a species of heap
of men thrown down there as though with the view of being seized by
some huge hand.

This army either did not entertain, or appeared not to