commanded the garrison at Strasburg, became acquainted with many things
which he communicated to his relative, Baron de Bourgoing, one of the
Emperor's equerries.

There is no doubt that these various communications reached Napoleon III;
and though he may have regarded both the statements of Stoffel and those
of Ducrot as exaggerated, he was certainly sufficiently impressed by them
to order the preparation of certain plans. Frossard, basing himself on the
operations of the Austrians in December, 1793, and keeping in mind the
methods by which Hoche, with the Moselle army, and Pichegru, with the
Rhine army, forced them back from the French frontier, drafted a scheme of
defence in which he foresaw the battle of Woerth, but, through following
erroneous information, greatly miscalculated the probable number of
combatants. He set forth in his scheme that the Imperial Government could
not possibly allow Alsace-Lorraine and Champagne to be invaded without a
trial of strength at the very outset; and Marshal Bazaine, who, at some
period or other, annotated a copy of Frossard's scheme, signified his
approval of that dictum, but added significantly that good tactical
measures should be adopted. He himself demurred to Frossard's plans,
saying that he was no partisan of a frontal defence, but believed in
falling on the enemy's flanks and rear. Yet, as we know, MacMahon fought
the battle of Woerth under conditions in many respects similar to those
which Frossard had foreseen.

However, the purely defensive plans on which Napoleon III at first worked,
were replaced in 1868 by offensive ones, in which General Lebrun took a
prominent part, both from the military and from the diplomatic
standpoints. It was not, however, until March, 1870, that the Archduke
Albert of Austria came to Paris to confer with the French Emperor.
Lebrun's plan of campaign was discussed by them, and Marshal Le Boeuf and