And that was all; the peasant and the soldier parted as they had met, without an embrace—like a father and son who do not need to see one another in order to live.
When in their turn Maurice and Jean had left the farm, they descended the steep slope at a gallop. But they no longer found the 106th down below; all the regiments were already on the march, and they had to run on, now directed to the right and now to the left, until at last, when they had quite lost their heads amid the fearful confusion, they fell in with their company, which Lieutenant Rochas was commanding. As for Captain Beaudoin and the rest of the regiment, they were doubtless elsewhere. And now Maurice was stupefied on realising that this mob of men, horses, and guns was quitting Remilly in the direction of Sedan, proceeding along the left bank of the Meuse. What had happened, then? Why did they not cross the river? Why did they retreat towards the north?
An officer of Chasseurs who happened to be there, no one knew how, exclaimed aloud: 'Thunder! We ought to have taken to our heels on the 28th, when we were at Le Chêne!'
Meanwhile, others explained the movements that were being accomplished, and scraps of intelligence circulated. It appeared that at about two o'clock in the morning one of Marshal MacMahon's aides-de-camp had come to inform General Douay that the entire army was to fall back on Sedan without loss of time. The Fifth Corps crushed at Beaumont was overwhelming the other corps in its own disaster. When the aide-de-camp arrived, General Douay was still watching near the pontoon-bridge, in despair that only his Third Division had as yet managed to cross the stream. Dawn was now at hand, and they might be attacked at any moment. Accordingly he instructed the general officers, placed under his orders, to gain Sedan by the most direct routes, each acting for himself. For his own part, quitting the bridge, which he ordered to be destroyed, he went off along the left bank with his First Division and the reserve artillery, whilst the Third Division proceeded along the right bank, and the first, which had suffered at Beaumont and was disbanded, fled no one knew whither. Of the Seventh Army Corps, which had not yet fought a battle, there were now only so many scattered fragments, straying along the roads and rushing onward in the darkness.
It was not yet three o'clock, and the night was still black. Maurice, though he was acquainted with the district, no longer knew where he was roaming, unable to take his bearings amid the overflowing torrent, the maddened mob that was streaming tempestuously along the road. Many men who had escaped from the crushing blow of Beaumont, soldiers of all arms, in tatters, and grimed with blood and dust, had become mingled with the regiments and spread terror through the ranks. From all the broad valley across the stream ascended a sound of commotion, the tramping of other flocks, of other flights, for the First Corps had left Carignan and Douzy, and the Twelfth Corps had started from Mouzon with the remnants of the Fifth, all being set in motion, carried along by the same logical, irresistible force, which since the 28th had been impelling the army northwards, driving it into the depths whence no egress was possible, and where it was fated to perish.
However, whilst Captain Beaudoin's company was passing through Pont-Maugis the morning twilight appeared, and Maurice was then able to identify his surroundings. On the left were the slopes of the Liry hill, on the right the road was skirted by the Meuse. Infinitely sad in the grey dawn, Bazeilles and Balan loomed indistinctly beyond the meadows; whilst on the horizon Sedan, livid and woeful, with the aspect of some vision seen in a nightmare, stood out against the vast dark curtain of forest trees. When, after passing through Wadelincourt, the men at last reached the Torcy gate, it became necessary to parley, to supplicate, threaten, and, in fact, almost besiege the fortress before the governor would lower the drawbridge. It was now five o'clock. Intoxicated with weariness, hunger and cold, the Seventh Army Corps entered Sedan.