| 670 | 671 | 672 | 673 | 674 |
| 1 | 171 | 343 | 514 | 685 |
|
then this outlet reclosed. This refuge only remained, Sedan; Sedan
encumbered with carts, with wagons, with carriages, with hospital huts;
a heap of combustible matter. This dying agony of heroes lasted ten
hours. They refused to surrender, they grew indignant, they wished to
complete their death, so bravely begun. They were delivered up to it.
As we have said, three men, three dauntless soldiers, had succeeded each
other in the command, MacMahon, Ducrot, Wimpfen; MacMahon had only time
to be wounded, Ducrot had only time to commit a blunder, Wimpfen had
only time to conceive an heroic idea, and he conceived it; but MacMahon
is not responsible for his wound, Ducrot is not responsible for his
blunder, and Wimpfen is not responsible for the impossibility of his
suggestion to cut their way out. The shell which struck MacMahon
withdrew him from the catastrophe; Ducrot's blunder, the inopportune
order to retreat given to General Lebrun, is explained by the confused
horror of the situation, and is rather an error than a fault. Wimpfen,
desperate, needed 20,000 soldiers to cut his way out, and could only get
together 2000. History exculpates these three men; in this disaster of
Sedan there was but one sole and fatal general, the Emperor. That which
was knitted together on the 2d December, 1851, came apart on the 2d
September, 1870; the carnage on the Boulevard Montmartre, and the
capitulation of Sedan are, we maintain, the two parts of a syllogism;
logic and justice have the same balance; it was Louis Bonaparte's dismal
destiny to begin with the black flag of massacres and to end with the
white flag of disgrace.
[
39] "The French were literally awakened from sleep by our attack."
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