feeling of hesitancy seemed
to have taken possession of their leaders; there was not the resolute
alacrity of the first two days, when the 7th corps had accomplished
forty miles in two marches. Strange and alarming news, moreover, had
been circulating through the camp since morning, that the three other
corps were marching northward, the 1st at Juniville, the 5th and 12th
at Rethel, and this deviation from their route was accounted for on the
ground of the necessities of the commissariat. Montmedy had ceased to be
their objective, then? why were they thus idling away their time again?
What was most alarming of all was that the Prussians could not now be
far away, for the officers had cautioned their men not to fall behind
the column, as all stragglers were liable to be picked up by the
enemy's light cavalry. It was the 25th of August, and Maurice, when he
subsequently recalled to mind Goliah's disappearance, was certain
that the man had been instrumental in affording the German staff
exact information as to the movements of the army of Chalons, and
thus producing the change of front of their third army. The succeeding
morning the Crown Prince of Prussia left Revigny and the great maneuver
was initiated, that gigantic movement by the flank, surrounding and
enmeshing us by a series of forced marches conducted in the most
admirable order through Champagne and the Ardennes. While the French
were stumbling aimlessly about the country, oscillating uncertainly
between one place and another, the Prussians were making their twenty
miles a day and more, gradually contracting their immense circle of
beaters upon the band of men whom they held within their toils, and
driving their prey onward toward the forests of the frontier.

A start was finally made, and the result of the day's movement showed
that the army was pivoting on its left; the 7th corps only traversed the
two short leagues between Contreuve and Vouziers, while the 5th and
12th corps did not stir from Rethel, and the 1st went no farther than
Attigny. Between Contreuve and the valley of the Aisne the country
became level again and was more bare than ever; as they drew near to
Vouziers the road wound among desolate hills and naked gray fields,
without a tree, without a house, as gloomy and forbidding as a desert,
and the day's march, short as it was, was accomplished with such fatigue
and distress that it seemed interminably long. Soon after midday,
however, the 1st and