it will be observed, was _after_ Gravelotte had been lost.) Napoleon
III. thereupon replied: "Received yours of the 19th at Reims; am going
towards Montmédy; shall be on the Aisne the day after to-morrow, and
there will act according to circumstances to come to your aid." Bazaine
did not receive this message until August 30, and then made only two
weak efforts to break out on the north (August 31-September 1). The
Marshal's action in sending that message must be pronounced one of the
most fatal in the whole war. It led the Emperor and MacMahon to a false
belief as to the position at Metz, and furnished a potent argument to
the Empress and Palikao at Paris to urge a march towards Montmédy at
all costs.

Doubtfully MacMahon led his straggling array from Reims in a
north-easterly direction towards Stenay on the Meuse. Rain checked his
progress, and dispirited the troops; but on the 27th August, while about
half-way between the Aisne and the Meuse, his outposts touched those of
the enemy. They were, in fact, those of the Prussian Crown Prince, whose
army was about to cross the northern roads over the Argonne, the line of
hills that saw the French stem the Prussian invasion in 1792. Far
different was the state of affairs now. National enthusiasm,
organisation, enterprise--all were on the side of the invaders. As has
been pointed out, their horsemen found out on the 23rd that the Châlons
camp was deserted; on the next day their scouts found out from a
Parisian newspaper that MacMahon was at Reims; and, on the day
following, newspaper tidings that had come round by way of London
revealed the secret that MacMahon was striving to reach Bazaine.

How it came about that this news escaped the eye of the censor has not
been explained. If it was the work of an English journalist, that does
not absolve the official censorship from the charge of gross