we had to knuckle under in the end. And to think that after it was all
over they should come and tell us that we had whipped the Bavarians
over on our left! By the piper that played before Moses, if we had
only had a hundred and twenty thousand men, if _we_ had had guns, and
leaders with a little pluck!"

Loud and angry were the denunciations of Coutard and Picot in their
ragged, dusty uniforms as they cut themselves huge slices of bread and
bolted bits of cheese, evoking their bitter memories there in the
shade of the pretty trellis, where the sun played hide and seek among
the purple and gold of the clusters of ripening grapes. They had come
now to the horrible flight that succeeded the defeat; the broken,
demoralized, famishing regiments flying through the fields, the
highroads blocked with men, horses, wagons, guns, in inextricable
confusion; all the wreck and ruin of a beaten army that pressed on,
on, on, with the chill breath of panic on their backs. As they had not
had wit enough to fall back while there was time and take post among
the passes of the Vosges, where ten thousand men would have sufficed
to hold in check a hundred thousand, they should at least have blown
up the bridges and destroyed the tunnels; but the generals had lost
their heads, and both sides were so dazed, each was so ignorant of the
other's movements, that for a time each of them was feeling to
ascertain the position of its opponent, MacMahon hurrying off toward
Luneville, while the Crown Prince of Prussia was looking for him in
the direction of the Vosges. On the 7th the remnant of the 1st corps
passed through Saverne, like a swollen stream that carries away upon
its muddy bosom all with which it comes in contact. On the 8th, at
Sarrebourg, the 5th corps came tumbling in upon the 1st, like one mad
mountain torrent pouring its waters into another. The 5th was also
flying, defeated without having fought a battle, sweeping away with it