The Emperor and his Generals.
Had Napoleon III. retained that Imperial authority which he had been supposed to possess, the slaughter might have been stayed some hours before. For early in the afternoon he became convinced that the Army could not be extricated, and that the time had come when it would be well to treat. His experiences, as a superfluous attendant on the battle-field, were dolorous. The first object which met his gaze was the wounded Marshal. The depressing incident may have called up visions of Italian triumphs; and, reflecting on the painful contrast, he may have remembered what he said after returning from the sanguinary victory of Solferino—that no more would he willingly lead great Armies to war; for the sight of its horrors had touched the chord of sympathy with human suffering which had always readily vibrated in his heart. During several hours he watched the tempest lower and break in fury; he saw and felt its effects, for two officers were shot at his side; wherever he looked the clouds of encircling battle smoke rose in the clear sunshine; and when he rode back into Sedan the terrible shells were bursting in the ditches, and even on the bridge which he traversed to gain his quarters. As the day wore on his gloomy meditations took a more definite shape; he wished to stop the conflict, and he seems to have thought first that an armistice might be obtained, and then that the King of Prussia, if personally besought, would grant the Army easy terms; for the idea of a capitulation had grown up and hardened in his mind.
At his instigation, no officer has come forward to claim the honour, some one hoisted a white flag. As soon as he heard of it, General Faure, Marshal MacMahon’s Chief of the Staff, ascended the citadel and cut down a signal so irritating to his feelings; but no one told the Emperor that his solitary, independent, and Imperial action, since he joined the Army of Chalons as a fugitive, had been thus irreverently contemned. “Why does this useless struggle still go on?” he said to General Lebrun, who entered his presence some time before three o’clock. “Too much blood has been shed. An hour ago I directed the white flag to be hoisted in order to demand an armistice.” The General politely explained that other forms were necessary—the Commander-in-Chief must sign a letter and send a proper officer, a trumpeter, and a man bearing a white flag, to the chief of the enemy. Lebrun drew out such a form, and started forth. Faure, who had just pulled down the white flag, would not look at it; De Wimpffen, seeing Lebrun ride up followed by a horseman who carried a rag on a pole, shouted out, “I will not have a capitulation; drop that flag; I shall go on fighting;” and then ensued their adventures about Balan, which have been described. When Lebrun had gone, Ducrot, and subsequently Douay, visited the Emperor. Ducrot found the interior of the fortress in a state which he qualifies as “indescribable.” “The streets, the squares, the gates were choked up with carts, carriages, guns, the impedimenta and debris of a routed Army. Bands of soldiers, without arms or knapsacks, streamed in every moment, and hurried into the houses and churches. At the gates many were trodden to death.” Those who preserved some remains of vigour exhaled their wrath in curses, and shouted “We have been betrayed, sold by traitors and cowards.” The Emperor still wondered why the action went on, and rejected Ducrot’s suggestion of a sortie at night as futile. He wished to stop the slaughter; but he could not prevail on Ducrot to sign any letter. Douay at first appeared disposed to accept the burden, but De Failly or Lebrun induced him to revoke his consent by remarking that it entailed the duty of fixing his name to a capitulation. General de Wimpffen sent in his resignation, which, as the Emperor could not induce one of the other generals to take his place, was absolutely refused. The shells were bursting in the garden of the Sub-Prefecture, in the hospitals, the streets, and among the houses, some of which were set on fire. In these dire straits the Emperor at length resolved that the white flag should be again unfurled, and should, this time, remain aloft in the sunshine. Meantime, as evident signs indicating a desire to negotiate had appeared at various points, and as the white flag surmounted the citadel, the King directed Colonel Bronsart von Schellendorf and Captain von Winterfeld to summon the place to capitulate. When Bronsart intimated to the Commandant of Torcy that he bore a summons to the Commander-in-Chief, he was conducted to the Sub-Prefecture, “where,” says the official narrative, “he found himself face to face with the Emperor Napoleon, whose presence in Sedan until that moment had been unknown at the German head-quarters.” The arrival of the Prussian officer seems to have occurred just as the Emperor finished writing a letter to the King destined to become famous. But he answered Bronsart’s request that an officer fully empowered to treat should be sent to the German head-quarters, by remarking that General de Wimpffen commanded the Army. Thereupon, Colonel Bronsart departed, bearing a weighty piece of intelligence indeed, but no effective reply; and soon afterwards General Reille, intrusted with the Imperial letter, rode out of the gate of Torcy and ascended the hill whence the King had witnessed the battle.