Napoleon III. Surrenders.
General de Wimpffen went straight from the military conference to the wearied Emperor who had gone to bed. But he received his visitor, who told him that the proposed conditions were hard, and that the sole chance of mitigation lay in the efforts of His Majesty. “General,” said the Emperor, “I shall start at five o’clock for the German head-quarters, and I shall see whether the King will be more favourable;” for he seems to have become possessed of an idea that King William would personally treat with him. The Emperor kept his word. Believing that he would be permitted to return to Sedan, he drove forth without bidding farewell to any of his troops; but, as the drawbridge of Torcy was lowered and he passed over, the Zouaves on duty shouted “Vive l’Empereur!” This cry was “the last adieu which fell on his ears” as we read in the narrative given to the world on his behalf. He drove in a droshki towards Donchery, preceded by General Reille who, before six o’clock, awoke Count Bismarck from his slumbers, and warned him that the Emperor desired to speak with him. “I went with him directly,” said Bismarck, in a conversation reported by Busch; “and got on my horse, all dusty and dirty as I was, in an old cap and my great waterproof boots, to ride to Sedan where I supposed him to be.” But he met him on the high road near Frénois, “sitting in a two-horse carriage.” Beside him was the Prince de la Moskowa, and on horseback Castlenau and Reille. “I gave the military salute,” says Bismarck. “He took his cap off and the officers did the same; whereupon I took off mine, although it was contrary to rule. He said, ‘Couvrez-vous, donc.’ I behaved to him just as if in St. Cloud, and asked his commands.” Naturally, he wanted to see the King, but that could not be allowed. Then Bismarck placed his quarters in Donchery at the Emperor’s disposal, but he, thinking, as we know, that he would return to the Sub-Prefecture, declined the courtesy, and preferred to rest in a house by the wayside. The cottage of a Belgian weaver unexpectedly became famous; a one-storied house, painted yellow, with white shutters and venetian blinds. He and the Chancellor entered the house, and went up to the first floor where there was “a little room with one window. It was the best in the house, but had only one deal table and two rush-bottomed chairs,” In that lowly abode they talked together of many things for three-quarters of an hour, among others about the origin of the war which, it seems, neither desired, the Emperor asserting, Bismarck reports that “he had been driven into it by the pressure of public opinion,” a very inadequate representation of the curious incidents which preceded the fatal decision. But when the Emperor began to ask for more favourable terms, he was told that, on a military question, Von Moltke alone could speak. On the other hand Bismarck’s request to know who now had authority to make peace was met by a reference to “the Government in Paris;” so that no progress was made. Then “we must stand to our demands with regard to the Army of Sedan,” said Bismarck. General von Moltke was summoned, and “Napoleon III. demanded that nothing should be decided before he had seen the King, for he hoped to obtained from His Majesty some favourable concessions for the Army.” The German official narrative of the war states that the Emperor expressed a wish that the Army might be permitted to enter Belgium, but that, of course, the Chief of the Staff could not accept the proposal. General von Moltke forthwith set out for Vendresse where the King was, to report progress. He met His Majesty on the road, and there “the King fully approved the proposed conditions of capitulation, and declared that he would not see the Emperor until the terms prescribed had been accepted;” a decision which gratified the Chancellor as well as the Chief of the Staff. “I did not wish them to come together,” observed the Count, “until we had settled the matter of the capitulation;” sparing the feelings of both and leaving the business to the hard military men.
The Emperor lingered about in the garden of the weaver’s cottage; he seems to have desired fresh air after his unpleasant talk with the Chancellor. Dr. Moritz Busch, who had hurried to the spot, has left a characteristic description of the Emperor. He saw there “a little thick-set man,” wearing jauntily a red cap with a gold border, a black paletôt lined with red, red trousers, and white kid gloves, “The look in his light grey eyes was somewhat soft and dreamy, like that of people who have lived hard. His whole appearance,” says the irreverent Busch, “was a little unsoldierlike. The man looked too soft, I might say too shabby, for the uniform he wore,” phrases which suggest a lack of sympathy with adversity, and severe physical as well as mental suffering. But imagination can realize a picture of the fallen potentate, whose dynasty, crashing down, drew so much with it, as he was seen by the cynical German, talking to his officers, or to the burly Chancellor, or walking alone up and down a potato field in flower, with his white-gloved hands behind his back, smoking a cigarette; “betrayed by fortune” or fate, as he believed, but pursued, as others might say, by the natural consequences of his marvellous adventures, and of a strange neglect of the one source of strength on which he relied, the Army. He had failed in the business upon the conduct of which he prided himself; he was a bankrupt Emperor.