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 engaged, he graciously
took time to explain that the sudden movement northward from
Bar-le-Duc was, as I have previously recounted, the result of
information that Marshal MacMahon was endeavoring to relieve Metz by
marching along the Belgian frontier; "a blundering manoeuvre," remarked
the Chancellor, "which cannot be accounted for, unless it has been
brought about by the political situation of the French."

CHAPTER XVIII.

AFTER MacMAHON--THE BATTLE AT BEAUMONT--THE FRENCH SURPRISED--THE
MARCHING OF THE GERMAN SOLDIERS--THE BATTLE OF SEDAN--GALLANT CAVALRY
CHARGES--DEFEAT OF THE FRENCH--THE SURRENDER OF NAPOLEON--BISMARCK
AND THE KING--DECORATING THE SOLDIERS.

All night long the forced march of the army went on through Clermont,
and when I turned out, just after daylight, the columns were still
pressing forward, the men looking tired and much bedraggled, as
indeed they had reason to be, for from recent rains the roads were
very sloppy. Notwithstanding this, however, the troops were pushed
ahead with all possible vigor to intercept MacMaho