fighting condition, against the united 50,000 of Mecklenburg and Von der Tann. "The following days," says General Chanzy, were employed in organising convoys, in completing the artillery, and in procuring clothes for the soldiers." Day followed day and the French did not move; their outposts advanced, but the army remained inactive. Von der Tann left a few troops in Etampes, and marched away with the rest to join the Duke of Mecklenburg at Chartres; so that, by the 14th, there were not 5000 Germans between D'Aurelles and Paris. With these facts before us, it is easy to comprehend the terrors of Versailles. General Moltke knew that nothing would stop D'Aurelles if he marched resolutely on by Etampes to the Seine; he feared that Mecklenburg would not get into position between Chartres and Dreux in time to paralyse the other imaginary army, which was supposed to be driving on Versailles in that direction; so that, on 14th and 15th November, the German headquarters expected to be attacked behind from Rambouillet, and to be cut off from their line of communications eastward by D'Aurelles. It is not strange that they should have packed up their boxes; it seemed impossible to the energetic Prussians that their enemy would not rush at them instantly and make a desperate attempt to break the line of investment south of Paris before Prince Frederic Charles could reach it; but when they learnt, on the night of the 15th, that D'Aurelles had made no sign-that the Red Prince's outposts had reached the line of which Montargis is the centre-and that no French army had shown itself beyond Dreux -they took courage, stopped where they were, and so evaded the grave moral consequences which would have ensued on an evacuation of Versailles.

While the German headquarters were in this critical position, a conference had taken place, on 12th November, between the French generals and M. Gambetta, who had come up from Tours to congratulate the troops on the victory of Coulmiers. General Borel, a most able officer, who has since been chief of the staff to Marshal MacMahon during the Communist siege of Paris, proposed to march straight to the Seine, but General d'Aurelles would not have that at all; "not only did it seem to him impossible to continue the offensive, but he considered it was dangerous even to remain at Orleans. He said the enemy would be back on him directly; that M. Thiers" (who had just returned from Versailles) "had seen 80,000 Prussians marching down. from Paris; that he was certain to be attacked in a day or two, and that his army was unfit to stand the shock." Finally, he proposed to immediately evacuate Orleans, and to return to his old position at Salbris. M. Gambetta, M. de Freycinet, and General Borel energetically opposed these arguments; but all they could obtain from General d'Aurelles was, that instead of abandoning Orleans, the army should retrench itself round the town: no forward movement should be made, for the moment at least; but it was admitted that Paris should still be considered to be the destination of the army. A fortified camp was immediately formed round Orleans, new troops arrived, and in a few days the French had more than 200,000 men in position.

Meanwhile Prince Frederic Charles was marching up with extraordinary speed. His brigades advanced separately, by various roads, to their general rendezvous at Pithiviers, but D'Aurelles let them come without attempting to attack them, though General des Pallières

asked to be allowed to march against them with his division, and though M. Gambetta wrote a despatch on the subject on 13th November. General d'Aurelles invoked, however, the old arguments of bad weather, bad roads, and ill-clothed troops; and time passed uselessly until the 19th November, when M. Gambetta seems to have lost patience. On that day he wrote to the General as follows: "We cannot stop eternally at Orleans. Paris is hungry, and calls for us. Prepare a plan which will enable us to reach Trochu, who will come out to meet us." General d'Aurelles declined, however, to prepare a plan, on the ground that he could not do so without knowing what General Trochu meant to do. It was not till about the 23d November that orders were at last given to get ready to march, and to send forward a few divisions to open the road.

On the 13th November M. Gambetta had sent a pigeon-telegram to General Trochu informing him of the victory of Coulmiers, and proposing joint action between the Loire and Paris armies. M. Trochu replied on the 18th, by balloon: "Your telegram excites my interest and my zeal to the utmost; but it has been five days coming, and we shall want a week to get ready. I will not lose one instant. We have ample food till the end of the year, but perhaps the population will not wait till then, and we must solve the problem long before that." On the 24th another balloon was sent out, with the news that a great sortie would be made on the 29th, in the hope of breaking the investing lines and effecting a junction with d'Aurelles.

But,

most unluckily, this balloon was carried into Norway, and it was not till the 30th that its intelligence reached Tours by telegraph. Of course it created an immense sensation; for though it was expected,

the definitive announcement of a great sortie was an event of the gravest importance. The telegram was as follows: "The news received from the Loire army has naturally decided me to go out on the southern side, and to march towards that army at any cost. On Monday, 28th November, my preparations will be finished. I am carrying them on day and night. On Tuesday the 29th, an army, commanded by General Ducrot, the most energetic of us all, will attack the enemy's positions, and, if they are carried, will push onwards towards the Loire in the direction of Gien. I suppose that if your army is turned on its left flank" (this was an allusion to the Duke of Mecklenburg, who, General Trochu thought, would move down from Chartres), "it will pass the Loire, and will withdraw on Bourges." This important despatch, which announced the Paris sortie for the 29th, was not received, as has just been said, till the 30th. M. de Freycinet was instantly sent up from Tours to General d'Aurelles with instructions to send the whole army next morning towards Pithiviers, where the Red Prince's troops were supposed to be massed by this time. A council of war was called to meet M. de Freycinet, whose arrival was announced by telegraph; and though General Chanzy says that a march forward under such hasty circumstances was considered to be dangerous, and was objected to by the generals present, M. Gambetta's will prevailed. It was decided to attempt to form a junction with General Ducrot near Fontainebleau, and the details of the operation were discussed and settled. A large stock of food, representing eight days' rations for 300,000 men, had been prepared, and was to be sent after the army directly Pithiviers was taken. The movement commenced

on the morning of 1st December, and the fighting that day, particularly at Villepion, was all in favour of the French, who drove in the Germans everywhere. On the same day another balloon reached Belle Isle, bringing news of the first day's sortie from Paris, announcing a victory, and stating that the battle would go on next day. Thereupon General d'Aurelles issued a proclamation to his men, saying, "Paris, by a sublime effort of courage and patriotism, has broken the Prussian lines. General Ducrot, at the head of his army, is marching towards us; let us march towards him with a vigour equal to that of the Paris army." Despatches were sent to Generals Briand at Rouen, and Faidherbe at Lille, begging them to support the movement by a concentric march on Paris, so as to occupy the Germans at all points. M. Gambetta telegraphed all over France that the hour of success had come at last. The fight went on again on 2d and 3d December; but after a series of movements and engagements, all more and more unsuccessful, the blame of which is thrown by everybody on everybody else, General d'Aurelles telegraphed to Tours, on the night of the 3d, that he was beaten, that he considered the defence of Orleans to be impossible, and that he proposed to break up his army and retreat in detachments in three different directions, on Gien, Blois, and the Sologne. To this afflicting news Gambetta instantly replied by telegraph: "Your despatch of to-night causes me the most painful stupefaction. I can see nothing in the facts it communicates which can justify the desperate resolution with which it concludes. Thus far you have managed badly, and have got yourself beaten in detail; but you still have 200,000 men in a state to fight, provided their leaders set them the example

VOL. CX.-NO. DCLXXI.

of courage and patriotism. The evacuation you propose would be, irrespective of its military consequences, an immense disaster. It is not at the very moment when the heroic Ducrot is fighting his way to us that we can withdraw from him; the moment for such an extremity is not yet come. I see nothing to change for the present in the instructions which I sent you last evening. Operate a general movement of concentration as I have ordered." To this General d'Aurelles replied at eight in the morning: "I am on the spot, and am more able than you are to judge the situation. It gives me as much grief as to you to adopt this extreme resolution. Orleans is sur

rounded, and can no longer be defended by troops exhausted by three days of fatigue and battle, and demoralised by the heavy losses they have sustained. The enemy's forces exceed all my expectations, and all the estimates which you have given me. Orleans will fall into the enemy's hands to-night or to-morrow. That will be a great misfortune; but the only way to avoid a still greater catastrophe is to have the courage to make a sacrifice while it is yet time. . . . I therefore maintain the orders which I have given." This brought back, two hours later, another angry protest from Tours, leaving, however, to General d'Aurelles the power to retreat on his own responsibility. At half-past eleven that night (4th December) the Prussians re-entered Orleans. M. Gambetta came up from Tours in a special train, with the idea that his presence would produce some effect; but he could not get to Orleans, and was nearly caught by a party of cavalry which had got upon the railway.

Such is the secret history, on the French side, of the last effort to 20

save Paris. It could scarcely have been expected to end otherwise: the real opportunity, during the few days after Coulmiers, was thrown away; success was almost as certain then as it was hopeless afterwards— for the Loire army, numerous though it was, could not contend after 20th November with the united forces of Prince Frederic Charles and the Duke of Mecklenburg. Friends of France cannot read such a story without bitter regret. For the first time during the war, the French had won a real victory, and for the first time the Germans had made a mistake, and had uncovered the whole southern front of Paris on 10th November; the Red Prince was eight days' march off, and yet D'Aurelles would not move. If he had gone straight on, as a German would have done, he would have been on the Seine within three days. Versailles would have been evacuated, and the siege of Paris would have been suspended. A great battle would have taken place a week later, on the arrival of the Red Prince; but whatever might have been its result-however convinced we may be that it would have been a victory for Germany—a vast moral effect would have been produced. Paris would have been revictualled, and the issue of the war might have been materially altered. The battle of Coulmiers, though it was a week late, was still in time to open the door to active and useful movements; but the cavalry had gone calmly home to bed, just when it was wanted to ride down the outnumbered Bavarians. General d'Aurelles thought that his troops were wet and cold, and forgot that the other side was

wetter and colder; so the precious hours passed away,—and when at last the Loire army was moved ahead, it was too late to hope for success of any kind.

It is useless to speculate on what might have happened if Marshal Bazaine, instead of surrendering on 26th October, had held out for another month. The Germans themselves have frankly owned that, in that event, they could not have resisted the Loire army. But they admit this under the impression that the Loire army would have really come on; an hypothesis which can scarcely be admitted after reading the curious revelations contained in M. de Freycinet's well-written book. Even the wilful and obstinate Gambetta could not get General d'Aurelles de Paladines to move; even the mistake of General von Moltke, which cleared the whole road to Paris, could not tempt the prudent Frenchman to risk the journey. With these facts before us, it may be feared that, if Metz had held out to Christmas, the fact would have exercised no influence on the siege of Paris. The moment when D'Aurelles should have struck his blow was precisely calculated at Versailles; but then the Germans knew their business; and if they packed up their clothes on the 14th of November, it was because, according to all the laws of strategy, the Loire army ought to have reached the Seine that night. If it had done that, instead of corresponding with the "heroic Ducrot" by pigeons and balloons, in order to "negotiate a mutual support," as the Americans say, it might have marched right into Paris; but it did not, and the world knows what the consequences were.