ended to a length of 4,000 paces. Every charge of the French
cavalry and of Cissy's Division had been persistently repelled with
the aid of twelve batteries of the Guards which had now put in an
appearance; but the German troops, reduced, as they were, by untold
losses, had to face two French Corps for thirty minutes longer before
reinforcements came to their aid.

It was nearly seven o'clock when, to the left of the Guards, two
brigades of the Saxon infantry arrived on the field; the other two
were still assembling in the forest of Auboue; their artillery,
however, had for some time kept up a lively fire on Roncourt.

When Bazaine, at three o'clock, received word that the Germans were
extending the line to enclose his right wing, he ordered Picard's
Division of the Grenadier Guards, posted at Plappeville, to advance to
the scene of action. Though the distance was no more than a mile
through the wooded valley on the right of the highway, his
all-important reinforcement had not yet arrived at seven o'clock, and
Marshal Canrobert, who was hardly able, by the most strenuous efforts,
to check the advance of the Prussians, decided to rally his troops
closer to the fortified town of St.-Privat. The retreat from Roncourt
was to be covered by a small rearguard, as the border of the Bois de
Jaumont was to be held.

Thus it happened that the Saxons found less resistance at Roncourt
than they expected, and entered the town after a short struggle,
together with the companies of the extreme left of the Guards; part of
them had previously been diverted from the road to Roncourt to assist
the Guards, and marched direct on St.-Privat. There terrible havoc was
worked by the twenty-four batteries of the two German Corps. Many
houses were in flames, or falling in ruins under the shower of shell.
But the French were determined to defend this point, where the fate of
the day was to be decided, to the last. The batteries belonging to
their right wing were placed between St.-Privat and the Bois de
Jaumont, that is, on the flank of the advancing Saxons. Others faced
the Prussians from the south, and as the German columns came on side
by side they were received by a shower of bullets from the French
rifles.

[Illustration: THE CAPITULATION OF SEDAN ANTON VON WERNER]

All these obstacles were defied in the onward rush, though again under
heavy losses, some stopping here and there to fire a volley, others
again never firing a shot. By sundo