The General himself was moved.

"What your task will be," he continued, "I do not known. You will go
at once to the Mareschal's headquarters when the chief of the staff,
General Jarras, will inform you."

Lieutenant Fevrier went immediately up to Metz. His division was
entrenched on the right bank of the Mosel and beyond the forts, so
that it was dark before he passed through the gates. He had never once
been in Metz before; he had grown used to the monotony of camps; he
had expected shuttered windows and deserted roads, and so the aspect
of the town amazed him beyond measure. Instead of a town besieged, it
seemed a town during a fairing. There were railway carriages, it is
true, in the Place Royale doing duty as hospitals; the provision
shops, too, were bare, and there were no horses visible.

But on the other hand, everywhere was a blaze of light and a bustle of
people coming and going upon the footpaths. The cafés glittered and
rang with noise. Here one little fat burgher was shouting that the
town-guard was worth all the red-legs in the trenches; another as
loudly was criticising the tactics of Bazaine and comparing him for
his invisibility to a pasha in his seraglio; while a third sprang upon
a table and announced fresh victories. An army was already on the way
from Paris to relieve Metz. Only yesterday MacMahon had defeated the
Prussians, any moment he might be expected from the Ardennes. Nor were
they only civilians who shouted and complained. Lieutenant Fevrier saw
captains, majors, and even generals who had left their entrenchments
to fight the siege their own way with dominoes upon the marble tables
of the cabarets.