For the German armies the capitulation of Metz on October 28 came in very good time. Although the enormous forces around Paris, and those on the Loire, on the Saône, on the Somme, and elsewhere, had hitherto held their ground with unshaken firmness, still it was no wonder if they began to feel the strain which the task before them put upon their energies. And there were not wanting signs that the hastily-gathered levies of France were beginning to gain the necessary martial confidence and discipline that would enable them to hold their own before the well-drilled soldiers of Germany. In an engagement between the Prussian royal guards and some of the Paris garrison, General Trochu's raw levies did not fly in "wild confusion," as they were wont to do on former occasions. At Le Bourget, near St. Denis, on October 21, the German outposts were driven in by a sortie of the French, who proceeded to entrench themselves on the spot, from which they were not dislodged by the guards till the 23rd; and then only after a well-contested engagement, in which the Prussians took more than 1200 prisoners, and among them thirty officers, but not without sustaining "heavy losses themselves." In the north, on the 21st October, at Formerie, a town of the Oise, between Amiens and Rouen, an attempt made by the Prussians to cut the railway line was frustrated by a party of French regular infantry and mobiles, who were left masters of the position.

These, indeed, were trifling advantages, only to be noticed as slight breaks in that uniform run of ill fortune which had so long attended the French. But, independently of such incidents, there was undeniable evidence that, on the one hand, the German line around Paris had been somewhat inconveniently thinned to strengthen the detached forces under General von der Tann and Prince Albrecht; and on the other, that the Paris garrison had been making the most of the respite allowed to it in acquiring that steadiness, the lack of which had hitherto proved a bar to its success. Besides, Von der Tann, though apparently equal to maintaining his position at Orleans and on the Loire, seemed to evince some hesitation as to any further advance, and awaited the onset of the French army under Aurelles de

up strength and courage either to force the Prussian general's position at Orleans, or to turn its flank and steal a march upon it on the way to Paris. In the north, again, the invasion seemed to have abated in activity, and people wondered how long it would be ere Bourbaki had collected, out of the various frontier garrisons and the solid populations of those districts, a force large enough to embolden him to take the offensive; while, again, Bazaine's army at Metz, exhausted and dispirited though it was said to be, hung in the rear of the German forces, and created some apprehension of danger, however indefinite and remote, that it might break loose and throw itself upon their lines of communication.

Bazaine's capitulation put an end to these apprehensions, and rendered Germany stronger, almost to the full extent of the forces by which she protected herself against danger from that quarter; for, besides placing 173,000 men, four marshals of France, 6000 officers, and one of the strongest places in Europe in the hands of the victors, it set free nearly 200,000 of them for new efforts and triumphs. The general importance of this event was, of course, apparent from the first; but not until some weeks afterwards did it fully appear how seriously its occurrence at this particular time affected the fortunes of the war. Had Bazaine been able to prolong the defence for another month, a relieving army, of which even the existence had come to be doubted, would almost certainly have made its way to the neighbourhood of Paris. In view of this contingency, indeed, as we explained near the end of Chapter XX., the German commander had actually arranged for raising the siege.

Of the immense force now liberated, one part remained to garrison Metz; another, nearly 50,000 strong, was despatched against the French army of the north; a third, comprising a single corps, was sent to Paris to aid the besiegers; and the remainder, about 75,000 men, under the command of Prince Frederick Charles, was directed to the south and east of France, to occupy the Upper Loire, and to co-operate with the army under Werder. For it must be remembered that, besides the campaigns on the Loire and the Somme, there had been for some time in the east of France another struggle, which had resulted in the advance of a German army, under this general, into the

and they sat perched high up on their peculiar Moorish saddles. The chasseurs d'Afrique, the hussars, and the chasseurs à cheval, mustered largely, but it could not escape notice how absurdly overweighted, the whole cavalry force was, by having to carry all sorts of cooking pots, tentes d'abri, and other impedimenta, which rendered them utterly useless in a charge. Smartness, cleanliness of horses, and pride of corps, as known in the English service, seemed not to exist in the cavalry of this army; and the men, seen on the march, always gave one the idea that their first and last business in life was to make their soup, not to fight. Besides their sabres, which they were hardly taught how to use, they were armed with a long, lumbering carbine, which was slung at their backs, and greatly hindered the use of the sword-arm.

Such was some of the rather unpromising material, gathered from every quarter of the globe, which, in the hope that it might be welded into something like an army, was intrusted to the command of General d'Aurelles de Paladine, a soldier who had seen hard service in the field, and had come out of his well-earned retirement to organize the forces of his country. By birth he was of an Auvergnat house. At an early age he entered the army, and in 1843 served in a campaign against Abd-el-Kader, under the Duc d'Aumale, who was then governor of Algeria. At that time d'Aurelles was chef de bataillon of the sixty-fourth infantry, and considered an excellent officer. He had the reputation of being a strict disciplinarian; and his passion for order and prompt obedience specially qualified him for reducing into shape the loose mass of regulars, gardes mobiles, foreigners, and franc-tireurs, dignified with the name of the Army of the Loire, which he found little better than a mob, and succeeded in rendering almost a match for the best troops of Prussia. The mutinous spirit which prevailed when he took the command he put down by offering the alternative of obedience or death; and before firing a shot at the Germans he shot down several score of his own men. General d'Aurelles de Paladine in several respects was like General Trochu. Both were strongly imbued with a religious spirit; both had lived in retirement for years the one unknown, the other known only to strategists; and on the exertions of both seemed now to depend the last hopes of France.

As may be imagined, the task of D'Aurelles was not an easy one. For several weeks the troops were kept in the open air, exposed to all vicissitudes of weather, and engaged incessantly in the varied exercises which were necessary to accustom them to the tactics of war. To enforce good discipline amongst them proved for a time most difficult. Their idea of subordination seemed to be extinguished—a spirit which could be overcome only by a rigorous discipline, like that maintained in the Prussian army, in which insubordination is always punished by death. There were many loud and bitter complaints of D'Aurelles' severity; but the good fruits of the hardy training were soon seen in improved solidity and promptitude in manoeuvring, in the excellent health of the troops, and in their renewed hope and confidence.

The most ardent hopes of the French government, therefore, now centred in this army of the Loire. Should it have the fortune to gain a considerable victory, the effect throughout France, it was felt, would be incalculable in putting down resistance to the government, and in converting into soldiers, inspired with some confidence in their leaders and some respect for themselves, those hordes of armed men by courtesy styled armies.

The forces under General d'Aurelles de Paladine, early in November, amounted to 180,000 men, with 400 guns, and nearly 15,000 cavalry. Since the disaster of Metz the authorities waited with intense anxiety for some serious movement on the part of this army before the victorious legions of Prince Frederick Charles should have time to approach. Although composed, as we have seen, of such heterogeneous masses, it was from its numbers by no means despicable; and at this conjuncture an opportunity was afforded its leader of striking a blow of which the results might have been momentous. At the beginning of November it was separated by a few miles only from a single Bavarian corps of not more than 25,000, scattered somewhat disorderly between Orleans and Châteaudun, and virtually forming the only German force between Orleans and the lines round Paris. General d'Aurelles de Paladine saw the favourable opportunity, and laid his plans for cutting off, and if possible annihilating, the small hostile corps which lay temptingly in his front. For this purpose he resolved to cross the Loire below and above Orleans, thus, by a converging movement, to close in completely on his

foe; and in case he should succeed in sweeping away this only obstacle in his path, he intended to march straight on Paris, and endeavour to relieve it. It thus happened that the 9th of November, which witnessed the surrender of Verdun, brought to the French, as a compensation in another quarter, their first gleam of success. After the battles before Orleans, Von der Tann, reduced to his own corps by the recall of the twenty-second division to Paris and the detachment of Prince Albrecht's cavalry to Chartres, remained inactive on the Loire. A force of 20,000, including Prince Albrecht's horsemen, was at Chartres about the end of October, to hold in check the army of Brittany; and Von der Tann's right flank was covered by a detachment at Châteaudun. Columns of various strength, detached from the investment on the different roads, occasionally suffering a reverse, formed a large semicircle round the rest of Paris from Compiégne on the north, by Montdidier, Breteuil, Beauvais, Evreux, Chartres, and Châteaudun, to Orleans on the south.

The occupation of Orleans, indeed, had proved scarcely less difficult than its capture. For more than a month the Bavarian general had kept the French constantly employed and himself informed of their movements, by a system of reconnaissances and patrols, which extended over a comparatively wide area, and necessarily exposed those engaged in them to the constant attacks of franc-tireurs concentrated at Tours, whose most energetic efforts were directed to harassing the troops in the occupation of Orleans, while the larger army was forming below the Loire to attack the comparatively small force at the disposal of General von der Tann. The occupation of Chartres and Châteaudun by General Wittich weakened the army at Orleans, which, receiving no reinforcement from other quarters, and reduced to a force of about 15,000 men, began to find itself in a somewhat critical position. The position, in fact, of the Prussian garrison of Orleans was one of even greater danger than Von der Tann suspected, for by about the end of October General d'Aurelles' army had assumed a form which enabled him to act, and it was agreed that he should begin to move forward from Blois on the morning of the 29th, with the intention of driving back the Bavarians, and then trying to reach Paris. But at the last moment D'Aurelles changed his mind; he telegraphed to Tours on the night of the 28th,

to say that the roads were bad, the equipment of part of the garde mobile very insufficient, and that it was consequently imprudent to attempt an action. It transpired subsequently that the news of the capitulation of Metz had become known to General d'Aurelles that very afternoon, some hours before the Tours government heard of it; and this was the main cause of his resolution not to move. His decision caused great disappointment at Tours, where it was immediately recognized that the Red Prince's army, suddenly set free, would come westward as fast as possible, and that it was indispensable to relieve Paris before its arrival, which was expected to take place about the 16th or 18th of November. But instead of hastening forward, the Loire army was delayed by various circumstances which it is difficult to determine with precision, amongst which, however, the current reports that an armistice had been concluded appear to have had much influence on General d'Aurelles, and to have disposed him to stop where he was. The despatches afterwards made public, and a work published at the close of the war by M. de Freycinet, M. Gambetta's delegate to the ministry of War, show that the hesitations of the commanderin-chief were the object of continual correspondence between that officer and the ministry of War; but however strong may have been the pressure employed, it was not till the 6th November, more than a week after the date originally fixed, that the French army at last marched forward.

While this was going forward along the Loire, the Prussians had decided to send reinforcements to General Von der Tann. Some 30,000 men had therefore been detached from the army before Paris, and had been sent towards him under the orders of the duke of Mecklenburg. The arrangement was made too late; for on the same day (the 11th November) that the duke reached Toury en route for Orleans, Von der Tann entered the same town with the remnant of his valiant but thoroughly beaten troops, who, swept forward by the masses of D'Aurelles, had escaped entire capture only by a kind of miracle. We will, however, revert to the first dispositions of the French commander, which had resulted in this signal reverse for the German arms.

On November 6, leaving one corps at Mer, on the north bank of the Loire, to cover Tours, three others, moving from their headquarters at La Ferté (twelve miles south of Orleans), crossed