The aide-de-camp got out that it was feared so. He was thanked and charged with a polite message to the Prince. As he saluted and retired, lightened of his tidings of anguish, the Minister focused his binoculars with a steady hand upon that point toward the northward where the dark bulk of the fortress of St. Privat loomed on a hill-top covered with masses of troops and traversed by a straight white, poplar-bordered road, regularly trenched for musketry. He said in the same tone of composure, though his set face and the hand that held the glasses were wet as though with rain:
"St. Privat still resists. General Pape, with the Guard's cavalry and the Saxons, will find their work cut out for them in driving those French battalions out of the village below the hill."
He lowered and wiped the glasses with his handkerchief. The King said entreatingly, laying a hand upon his arm:
"Go, go! Find out the truth about your sons, Bismarck.... Leave not a stone unturned, in God's name!"
Even as the King spoke, German drums and trumpets sounded the charge; and there was a sudden shifting of masses of troops in the direction of St. Hubert. Then as a wave of dark blue men began to roll out from the deep woods that flanked the village of Gravelotte, so fierce a storm of cannon and mitrailleuse and chassepot began to beat about their heads that the unseasoned horses of the Princes of the suite kicked and plunged and the Minister said:
"It would be wise did your Majesty remove out of this neighborhood. These bon-bons thrown by Frossard's artillery are coming much too near."
"I will ride back—I will move out of the way," said the old man in great agitation. "But you, Bismarck!—you must go and see about your sons!"
He answered, and his great bloodshot eyes and sagging jowl were more than ever those of a mastiff:
"When I have seen your Majesty in a place of safety I will ask your permission to do so."
An orderly from Steinmetz, who now had his field headquarters at St. Hubert, arrived with an urgent entreaty that the King would at once retire.