ns, with women and
children interspersed among the struggling, terror-stricken throng,
hurrying in every direction; and there she saw a general emerge from the
Hotel of the Golden Cross, swearing like a pirate, and spur his horse
off up the street at a mad gallop, careless whom he might overturn. For
a moment she seemed about to enter the Hotel de Ville, then changed
her mind, and taking the Rue du Pont-de-Meuse, pushed on to the
Sous-Prefecture.

Never had Sedan appeared to her in a light so tragically sinister as
now, when she beheld it in the livid, forbidding light of early dawn,
enveloped in its shroud of fog. The houses were lifeless and silent as
tombs; many of them had been empty and abandoned for the last two days,
others the terrified owners had closely locked and barred. Shuddering,
the city awoke to the cares and occupations of the new day; the morning
was fraught with chill misery in those streets, still half deserted,
peopled only by a few frightened pedestrians and those hurrying
fugitives, the remnant of the exodus of previous days. Soon the sun
would rise and send down its cheerful light upon the scene; soon the
city, overwhelmed in the swift-rising tide of disaster, would be crowded
as it had never been before. It was half-past five o'clock; the roar
of the cannon, caught and deadened among the tall dingy houses, sounded
more faintly in her ears.

At the Sous-Prefecture Henriette had some acquaintance with the
concierge's daughter, Rose by name, a pretty little blonde of refined
appearance who was employed in Delaherche's factory. She made her way at
once to the lodge; the mother was not there, but Rose received her with
her usual amiability.

"Oh! dear lady, we are so tired we can scarcely stand; mamma has gone to
lie down and rest a while. Just think! all night long people have been
coming and going, and we have not been able to get a wink of sleep."

And burning to tell all the wonderful sights that she had been witness
to since the preceding day, she did not wait to be questioned, but ran
on volubly with her narrative.

"As for the marshal, he slept very well, but that poor Emperor! you
can't think what suffering he has to endure! Yesterday evening, do you
know, I had gone upstairs to help give out the linen, and as I entered
the apartment that adjoins his dressing-room I heard groans, oh, _such_
groans! just like someone dying. I thought a moment and knew it must be
the Emperor, and I was so