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From there Delaherche pushed forward to the Sous-Prefecture to ascertain whether the Emperor had returned yet from the field of battle. The only tidings he gleaned here were of Marshal MacMahon, who was said to be resting comfortably, his wound, which was not dangerous, having been dressed by a surgeon. About eleven o’clock, however, as he was again going the rounds, his progress was arrested for a moment in the Grande-Rue, opposite the Hotel de l’Europe, by a sorry cavalcade of dust-stained horsemen, whose jaded nags were moving at a walk, and at their head he recognized the Emperor, who was returning after having spent four hours on the battle-field. It was plain that death would have nothing to do with him. The big drops of anguish had washed the rouge from off those painted cheeks, the waxed mustache had lost its stiffness and drooped over the mouth, and in that ashen face, in those dim eyes, was the stupor of one in his last agony. One of the officers alighted in front of the hotel and proceeded to give some friends, who were collected there, an account of their route, from la Moncelle to Givonne, up the entire length of the little valley among the soldiers of the 1st corps, who had already been pressed back by the Saxons across the little stream to the right bank; and they had returned by the sunken road of the Fond de Givonne, which was even then in such an encumbered condition that had the Emperor desired to make his way to the front again he would have found the greatest difficulty in doing so. Besides, what would it have availed?

As Delaherche was drinking in these particulars with greedy ears a loud explosion shook the quarter. It was a shell, which had demolished a chimney in the Rue Sainte-Barbe, near the citadel. There was a general rush and scramble; men swore and women shrieked. He had flattened himself against the wall, when another explosion broke the windows in a house not far away. The consequences would be dreadful if they should shell Sedan; he made his way back to the Rue Maqua on a keen run, and was seized by such an imperious desire to learn the truth that he did not pause below stairs, but hurried to the roof, where there was a terrace that commanded a view of the city and its environs.

A glance of the situation served to reassure him; the German fire was not directed against the city; the batteries at Frenois and la Marfee were shelling the Plateau de l’Algerie over the roofs of the houses, and now that his alarm had subsided he could even watch with a certain degree of admiration the flight of the projectiles as they sailed over Sedan in a wide, majestic curve, leaving behind them a faint trail of smoke upon the air, like gigantic birds, invisible to mortal eye and to be traced only by the gray plumage shed by their pinions. At first it seemed to him quite evident that what damage had been done so far was the result of random practice by the Prussian gunners: they were not bombarding the city yet; then, upon further consideration, he was of opinion that their firing was intended as a response to the ineffectual fire of the few guns mounted on the fortifications of the place. Turning to the north he looked down from his position upon the extended and complex system of defenses of the citadel, the frowning curtains black with age, the green expanses of the turfed glacis, the stern bastions that reared their heads at geometrically accurate angles, prominent among them the three cyclopean salients, the Ecossais, the Grand Jardin, and la Rochette, while further to the west, in extension of the line, were Fort Nassau and Fort Palatinat, above the faubourg of Menil. The sight produced in him a melancholy impression of immensity and futility. Of what avail were they now against the powerful modern guns with their immense range? Besides, the works were not manned; cannon, ammunition, men were wanting. Some three weeks previously the governor had invited the citizens to organize and form a National Guard, and these volunteers were now doing duty as gunners; and thus it was that there were three guns in service at Palatinat, while at the Porte de Paris there may have been a half dozen. As they had only seven or eight rounds to each gun, however, the men husbanded their ammunition, limiting themselves to a shot every half hour, and that only as a sort of salve to their self-respect, for none of their missiles reached the enemy; all were lost in the meadows opposite them. Hence the enemy’s batteries, disdainful of such small game, contemptuously pitched a shell at them from time to time, out of charity, as it were.