Mahon, who, having united the
French army beaten at Worth with three fresh corps at Chalons, was
marching to relieve Metz in obedience to orders from the Minister of
War at Paris.

As we passed along the column, we noticed that the Crown Prince's
troops were doing their best, the officers urging the men to their
utmost exertions, persuading weary laggards and driving up
stragglers. As a general thing, however, they marched in good shape,
notwithstanding the rapid gait and the trying heat, for at the outset
of the campaign the Prince had divested them of all impedimenta
except essentials, and they were therefore in excellent trim for a
forced march.

The King traveled further than usual that day--to Clermont--so we did
not get shelter till late, and even then not without some confusion,
for the quartermaster having set out toward Chalons before the change
of programme was ordered, was not at hand to provide for us. I had
extreme good luck, though, in being quartered with a certain
apothecary, who, having lived for a time in the United States,
claimed it as a privilege even to lodge me, and certainly made me his
debtor for the most generous hospitality. It was not so with some of
the others, however; and Count Bismarck was particularly unfortunate,
being billeted in a very small and uncomfortable house, where,
visiting him to learn more fully what was going on, I found him,
wrapped in a shabby old dressing-gown, hard at work. He was
established in a very small room, whose only furnishings consisted of
a table--at which he was writing--a couple of rough chairs, and the
universal feather-bed, this time made on the floor in one corner of
the room. On my remarking upon the limited character of his
quarters, the Count replied, with great good-humor, that they were
all right, and that he should get along well enough. Even the tramp
of his clerks in the attic, and the clanking of his orderlies' sabres
below, did not disturb him much; he said, in fact, that he would have
no grievance at all were it not for a guard of Bavarian soldiers
stationed about the house for his safety, he presumed the sentinels
from which insisted on protecting and saluting the Chancellor of the
North German Confederation in and out of season, a proceeding that
led to embarrassment sometimes, as he was much troubled with a severe
dysentery. Notwithstanding his trials, however, and in the midst of
the correspondence on which he was so intently eng