the 1st corps would look out for the position at Illy, and indeed
a regiment of zouaves was presently seen to occupy the Calvary, so that
General Douay, his anxiety being relieved on that score, sent Dumont's
division to the assistance of the 12th corps, which was then being hard
pushed. Scarcely fifteen minutes later, however, as he was returning
from the left, whither he had ridden to see how affairs were looking,
he was surprised, raising his eyes to the Calvary, to see it was
unoccupied; there was not a zouave to be seen there, they had abandoned
the plateau that was no longer tenable by reason of the terrific fire
from the batteries at Fleigneux. With a despairing presentiment of
impending disaster he was spurring as fast as he could to the right,
when he encountered Dumont's division, flying in disorder, broken and
tangled in inextricable confusion with the debris of the 1st corps. The
latter, which, after its retrograde movement, had never been able to
regain possession of the posts it had occupied in the morning, leaving
Daigny in the hands of the XIIth Saxon corps and Givonne to the Prussian
Guards, had been compelled to retreat in a northerly direction across
the wood of Garenne, harassed by the batteries that the enemy had posted
on every summit from one end of the valley to the other. The terrible
circle of fire and flame was contracting; a portion of the Guards had
continued their march on Illy, moving from east to west and turning the
eminences, while from west to east, in the rear of the XIth corps, now
masters of Saint-Menges, the Vth, moving steadily onward, had passed
Fleigneux and with insolent temerity was constantly pushing its
batteries more and more to the front, and so contemptuous were they of
the ignorance and impotence of the French that they did not even wait
for the infantry to come up to support their guns. It was midday; the
entire horizon was aflame, concentrating its destructive fire on the 7th
and 1st corps.

Then General Douay, while the German artillery was thus preparing the
way for the decisive movement that should make them masters of
the Calvary, resolved to make one last desperate attempt to regain
possession of the hill. He dispatched his orders, and throwing himself
in person among the fugitives of Dumont's division, succeeded in forming
a column which he sent forward to the plateau. It held its ground for
a few minutes, but the bullets whistled so thick, the naked, treeless
fi