ome there if he
had not been perfectly tranquil. This Givonne Valley is what Napoleon
I. called a "wash-hand basin." There could not have been a more
complete enclosure. An army is so much at home there that it is too
much so; it runs the risk of no longer being able to get out. This
disquieted some brave and prudent leaders, such as Wimpfen, but they
were not listened to. If absolutely necessary, said the people of the
imperial circle, they could always be sure of being able to reach
Mezieres, and at the worst the Belgian frontier. Was it, however,
needful to provide for such extreme eventualities? In certain cases
foresight is almost an offence. They were all of one mind, therefore,
to be at their ease.

If they had been uneasy they would have cut the bridges of the Meuse,
but they did not even think of it. To what purpose? The enemy was a
long way off. The Emperor, who evidently was well informed, affirmed
it.

The army bivouacked somewhat in confusion, as we have said, and slept
peaceably throughout this night of August 31, having, whatever might
happen, or believing that they had, the retreat upon Mezieres open
behind it. They disdained to take the most ordinary precautions, they
made no cavalry reconnoissances, they did not even place outposts. A
German military writer has stated this. Fourteen leagues at least
separated them from the German army, three days' march; they did not
exactly know where it was; they believed it scattered, possessing
little unity, badly informed, led somewhat at random upon several
points at once, incapable of a movement converging upon one single
point, like Sedan; they believed that the Crown Prince of Saxony was
marching on Chalons, and that the Crown Prince of Prussia was marching
on Metz; they were ignorant of everything appertaining to this army,
its leaders, its plan, its armament, its effective force. Was it still
following the strategy of Gustavus Adolphus? Was it still following
the tactics of Frederick II.? No one knew. They felt sure of being at
Berlin in a few weeks. What nonsense! The Prussian army! They talked
of this war as of a dream, and of this army as of a phantom....

The masterful description of the great novelist and poet then
continues in a narrative of the attack and catastrophe:

Bazeilles takes fire, Givonne takes fire, Floing takes fire; the
battle begins with a furnace. The whole horizon is aflame. The French
camp is in this crater, stupefied, affrighted