en back under the
walls of Metz, was thenceforth to be imprisoned in a circle of flame and
iron.

[*] August.--TR.

As Henriette pursued her reading Jean momentarily interrupted her to
say:

"Ah, well! and to think that we fellows, after leaving Rheims, were
looking for Bazaine! They were always telling us he was coming; now I
can see why he never came!"

The marshal's despatch, dated the 19th, after the battle of
Saint-Privat, in which he spoke of resuming his retrograde movement by
way of Montmedy, that despatch which had for its effect the advance
of the army of Chalons, would seem to have been nothing more than the
report of a defeated general, desirous to present matters under their
most favorable aspect, and it was not until a considerably later period,
the 29th, when the tidings of the approach of this relieving army
had reached him through the Prussian lines, that he attempted a final
effort, on the right bank this time, at Noiseville, but in such a
feeble, half-hearted way that on the 1st of September, the day when the
army of Chalons was annihilated at Sedan, the army of Metz fell back
to advance no more, and became as if dead to France. The marshal, whose
conduct up to that time may fairly be characterized as that of a leader
of only moderate ability, neglecting his opportunities and failing to
move when the roads were open to him, after that blockaded by forces
greatly superior to his own, was now about to be seduced by alluring
visions of political greatness and become a conspirator and a traitor.

But in the papers that Doctor Dalichamp brought them Bazaine was still
the great man and the gallant soldier, to whom France looked for her
salvation.

And Jean wanted certain passages read to him again, in order that he
might more clearly understand how it was that while the third German
army, under the Crown Prince of Prussia, had been leading them such a
dance, and the first and second were besieging Metz, the latter were
so strong in men and guns that it had been possible to form from them a
fourth army, which, under the Crown Prince of Saxony, had done so much
to decide the fortune of the day at Sedan. Then, having obtained the
information he desired, resting on that bed of suffering to which his
wound condemned him, he forced himself to hope in spite of all.

"That's how it is, you see; we were not so strong as they! No one can
ever get at the rights of such matters while the fighting is going on.