at Chene!"

Others were more explicit in their information; fresh news had been
received. About two o'clock in the morning one of Marshal MacMahon's
aides had come riding up to say to General Douay that the whole army
was ordered to retreat immediately on Sedan, without loss of a minute's
time. The disaster of the 5th corps at Beaumont had involved the three
other corps. The general, who was at that time down at the bridge of
boats superintending operations, was in despair that only a portion of
his 3d division had so far crossed the stream; it would soon be day,
and they were liable to be attacked at any moment. He therefore sent
instructions to the several organizations of his command to make at once
for Sedan, each independently of the others, by the most direct roads,
while he himself, leaving orders to burn the bridge of boats, took the
road on the left bank with his 2d division and the artillery, and the
3d division pursued that on the right bank; the 1st, that had felt the
enemy's claws at Beaumont, was flying in disorder across the country, no
one knew where. Of the 7th corps, that had not seen a battle, all that
remained were those scattered, incoherent fragments, lost among lanes
and by-roads, running away in the darkness.

It was not yet three o'clock, and the night was as black as ever.
Maurice, although he knew the country, could not make out where they
were in the noisy, surging throng that filled the road from ditch to
ditch, pouring onward like a brawling mountain stream. Interspersed
among the regiments were many fugitives from the rout at Beaumont, in
ragged uniforms, begrimed with blood and dirt, who inoculated the others
with their own terror. Down the wide valley, from the wooded hills
across the stream, came one universal, all-pervading uproar, the
scurrying tramp of other hosts in swift retreat; the 1st corps, coming
from Carignan and Douzy, the 12th flying from Mouzon with the shattered
remnants of the 5th, moved like puppets and driven onward, all of them,
by that one same, inexorable, irresistible pressure that since the 28th
had been urging the army northward and driving it into the trap where it
was to meet its doom.

Day broke as Maurice's company was passing through Pont Maugis, and then
he recognized their locality, the hills of Liry to the left, the Meuse
running beside the road on the right. Bazeilles and Balan presented
an inexpressibly funereal aspect, looming among the exhalations