On July 31 and August 1 the Emperor contemplates an attack upon Saarlouis, but changes his mind, and all the plans which had been in the air end with the little affair at Saarbrücken[87] on August 2, which the Emperor describes to his wife by telegraph as soon as he returns to Metz.
The Emperor to the Empress, St. Cloud.
Metz,
August 2, 3.55 p.m.
Louis has had his baptism of fire. His sang-froid was admirable. He was in no wise disconcerted, and seemed as if he were walking in the Bois de Boulogne. One of General Frossard’s divisions captured the heights dominating the left bank of Saarbrücken. The Prussians made a feeble resistance. There was only rifle-fire and a cannonade. We were in the front line. But balls [shells] and bullets fell at our feet. Louis has a ball [bullet] which fell close to him. There were soldiers who wept at seeing him so cool. We embrace thee tenderly. I know the sort of language to use to Vimercati.[88]
Napoléon.
This last phrase (says M. Germain Bapst) was important; it showed that the Empress, knowing that Count Vimercati was at Metz with a treaty, approved by the Emperor of Austria and the King of Italy, which Napoleon III. was to be asked to sign, had insisted that her consort should ignore it.
When the telegram reporting the engagement at Saarbrücken reached the Empress at St. Cloud she was walking in the park. Someone took the despatch to her. She read and re-read it aloud, very happy, and proud of her son. She hastened to the voltigeurs who were on guard and read it to them—then sent it, marked “private,” to M. Émile Ollivier, President of the Council [since January 2]. M. Ollivier perhaps forgot that the despatch was marked “private”; at all events, he showed it to a “Gaulois” reporter, and it appeared in large print in that paper the next day. The Empress, upon seeing it, declared that its appearance in the journal was the result of an “indiscretion.” Unfortunately, the telegram was not read by the public in the right light, and the little Prince was made the subject of ridicule.
Leaving the voltigeurs, the Empress went to her little study and wrote these telegrams:
The Empress to the Emperor.
August 2, 6.32 p.m.