before the articles of capitulation were drawn up: but King William
declined the interview. When the capitulation was signed, however,
he drove over to visit the captive emperor at a château where the
latter had taken refuge.

Their interview was private; only the two sovereigns were present.
The French emperor afterwards expressed to the Crown Prince of Prussia
his deep sense of the courtesy shown him. He was desirous of passing
as unnoticed as possible through French territory, where, indeed,
exasperation against him, as the first cause of the misfortunes of
France, was so great that his life would have been in peril. The
next day he proceeded to the beautiful palace at Cassel called
Wilhelmshöhe, or William's Rest. It had been built at ruinous expense
by Jérôme Bonaparte while king of Westphalia, and was then called
Napoleon's Rest.

Every consideration that the German royal family could show their
former friend and gracious host was shown to Louis Napoleon. This
told against him with the French. Was the man who had led them into
such misfortunes to be honored and comforted while they were suffering
the consequences of his selfishness, recklessness, negligence, and
incapacity?

Thus eighty thousand men capitulated at Sedan, and were marched
as prisoners into Germany; one hundred and seventy-five thousand
French soldiers remained shut up in Metz, besides a few thousands
more in Strasburg, Phalsbourg, Toul, and Belfort. But the road
was open to Paris, and thither the various German armies marched,
leaving the Landwehr, which could not be ordered to serve beyond the
limits of Germany, to hold Alsace and Lorraine, already considered