A hundred thousand men! A hundred thousand Frenchmen had to capitulate, and the Emperor of France had to hand his sword over to the King of Prussia!
Ah, that cry of grief, that cry of rage uttered by the whole nation! It can never be forgotten!
On the first of September toward ten o’clock Claude, my manservant, knocked at my door. I was not asleep, and he gave me his copy of the first telegrams: “Battle of Sedan commenced.... MacMahon wounded ... etc., etc.” “Ah, go back again!” I said, “and as soon as a fresh telegram comes, bring me the news. I feel that something unheard of, something great—and quite different—is going to happen. We have suffered so terribly this last month that there can only be something good now, something fine; for God’s scales mete out joy and suffering equally. Go at once, Claude,” I added, and then full of confidence, I soon fell asleep again, and was so tired that I slept until one o’clock. When I awoke, my maid Elicie, the most delightful girl imaginable, was seated near my bed. Her pretty face and her large, dark eyes were so mournful that my heart stopped beating. I gazed at her anxiously, and she put into my hands the copy of the last telegram: “The Emperor Napoleon has just handed over his sword....”
The blood rushed to my head, and my lungs were too weak to control it. I lay back on my pillow, and the blood escaped through my lips with the groans of my whole being.
For three days I was between life and death. Dr. Langlet sent for one of my father’s friends, a shipowner named M. Mannoir. He came at once, bringing with him his young wife. She, too, was very ill, worse in reality than I was, in spite of her fresh look, for she died six months later. Thanks to their care and to the energetic treatment of Dr. Langlet I came through alive from this attack.
I decided to return at once to Paris, as the siege was about to be proclaimed and I did not want my mother and my sisters to remain in the capital. Independently of this, everyone at Eaux-Bonnes was seized with a desire to get away, invalids and tourists alike. A post chaise was found, the owner of which agreed, for an exorbitant price, to take me to the next train that came. When once in it, we were more or less comfortably seated as far as Bordeaux, but it was impossible to find five seats in the express from there. My manservant was allowed to travel with the engine driver. I do not know where Mme. Guérard and my maid found room, but in the compartment I entered, with my little boy, there were already nine persons. An ugly old man tried to push my child back when I had put him in, but I pushed him again energetically in my turn.
“No human force will make us get out of this carriage again,” I said; “do you hear that, you ugly old man? We are here and we shall stay.”
A stout lady, who took up more room herself than three ordinary persons, exclaimed:
“Well, that is lively, for we are suffocated already. It’s shameful to let eleven persons get into a compartment where there are only seats for eight!”
“Will you get out, then?” I retorted, turning to her quickly, “for without you there would only be seven of us.”