numbers were against it. Once in, if the way out were blocked, it
could never leave it again. Some of the generals,--General Wimpfen
among them--saw this, and were uneasy; but the little court around
the emperor was confident of safety. 'At worst,' they said, 'we
can always reach the Belgian frontier.' The commonest military
precautions were neglected. The army slept soundly on the night
of August 31. At the worst they believed themselves to have a line
of retreat open to Mézières, a town on the frontier of Belgium.
No cavalry reconnoissance was made that night; the guards were
not doubled. The French believed themselves more than forty miles
from the German army. They behaved as if they thought that army
unconcentrated and ill-informed, attempting vaguely several things
at once, and incapable of converging on one point, namely, Sedan.
They thought they knew that the column under the Prince of Saxony
was marching upon Châlons, and that the Crown Prince of Prussia
was marching upon Metz.

"But that night, while the French army, in fancied security, was
sleeping at Sedan, this is what was passing among the enemy.

"By a quarter to two A. M. the army of the Prince of Saxony was
on its march eastward, with orders not to fire a shot till five
o'clock, and to make as little noise as possible. They marched
without baggage of any kind. At the same hour another division of
the Prussian army marched, with equal noiselessness, from another
direction, on Sedan, while the Würtemburgers secured the road to
Mézières, thereby cutting off the possibility of a retreat into
Belgium.

"At the same moment, namely, five o'clock,--on all the hills around