he end of being a witness to the surrender!"

"It's the fortune of war," said she soothingly, noticing how bitterly
Fritz spoke. "Although all may fight bravely, it is not every one who
reaps the laurels of victory."

"No," he replied, smiling at some thoughts which her words suggested--so
much is dry humour allied to sentiment that the mention of laurels
brought to his mind a comic association which at once dispelled his
chagrin. "When did you say the capitulation took place?"

"Well, I heard that the formal agreement was signed by the French
officers on behalf of Marshal Bazaine two days ago; but the actual
surrender takes place to-day, the Marshal having already left, it is
said, to join his imprisoned emperor at Cassel."

What Madaleine told Fritz was perfectly true.

On the 27th of October, the seventieth day after it had been driven
under the guns of Metz on the disastrous termination of the battle of
Gravelotte, Bazaine's army, in addition to the regular garrison of the
fortress and an unknown number of Gardes Mobiles, was forced to
surrender to the Germans--thus now allowing the latter to utilise the
giant legions hitherto employed in investing the stronghold of Lorraine,
in further trampling out the last evidences of organised resistance in
France, and so, by coercing the country, sooner put an end to the
duration of the war.

Notwithstanding all the comments made--especially those by his own
countrymen in their unreasoning prejudice against every one and
everything connected with the late empire, from its unfortunate and
much-maligned head downwards--in the matter of this capitulation, and on
Marshal Bazaine's conduct, it is absolutely certain that he held out as
long as it was possible to do so. Indeed, it is a surprising fact that
his provisions lasted such a length of time; and it would be a cause for
sorrow to believe that the brave defender of Metz was in any way stained
by the crime of "treachery" as his act was stigmatised by the demagogues
of Paris. Those who assert that a clever commander ought somehow or
other to have made his escape from the place, do not take into
consideration the strength of the investing force, which comprised the
united armies of Prince Frederick Charles and Steinmetz--more than two
hundred and fifty thousand men, in addition to their reserves, all
capable of being concentrated at any given point where an attack was
anticipated, and protected, besides, by entrenched l