On reaching the Rue du Four and the Rue des Laboureurs, however, she found an obstacle in her way; the place had been pre-empted by the ordnance department, and guns, caissons, forges were there in interminable array, having apparently been parked away in that remote corner the day before and then forgotten there.  There was not so much as a sentry to guard them.  It sent a chill to her heart to see all that artillery lying there silent and ineffective, sleeping its neglected sleep in the concealment of those deserted alleys.  She was compelled to retrace her steps, therefore, which she did by passing through the Place du College to the Grande-Rue, where in front of the Hotel de l’Europe she saw a group of orderlies holding the chargers of some general officers, whose high-pitched voices were audible from the brilliantly lighted dining room.  On the Place du Rivage and the Place Turenne the crowd was even greater still, composed of anxious groups of citizens, with women and children interspersed among the struggling, terror-stricken throng, hurrying in every direction; and there she saw a general emerge from the Hotel of the Golden Cross, swearing like a pirate, and spur his horse off up the street at a mad gallop, careless whom he might overturn.  For a moment she seemed about to enter the Hotel de Ville, then changed her mind, and taking the Rue du Pont-de-Meuse, pushed on to the Sous-Prefecture.

Never had Sedan appeared to her in a light so tragically sinister as now, when she beheld it in the livid, forbidding light of early dawn, enveloped in its shroud of fog.  The houses were lifeless and silent as tombs; many of them had been empty and abandoned for the last two days, others the terrified owners had closely locked and barred.  Shuddering, the city awoke to the cares and occupations of the new day; the morning was fraught with chill misery in those streets, still half deserted, peopled only by a few frightened pedestrians and those hurrying fugitives, the remnant of the exodus of previous days.  Soon the sun would rise and send down its cheerful light upon the scene; soon the city, overwhelmed in the swift-rising tide of disaster, would be crowded as it had never been before.  It was half-past five o’clock; the roar of the cannon, caught and deadened among the tall dingy houses, sounded more faintly in her ears.

At the Sous-Prefecture Henriette had some acquaintance with the concierge’s daughter, Rose by name, a pretty little blonde of refined appearance who was employed in Delaherche’s factory.  She made her way at once to the lodge; the mother was not there, but Rose received her with her usual amiability.

“Oh! dear lady, we are so tired we can scarcely stand; mamma has gone to lie down and rest a while.  Just think! all night long people have been coming and going, and we have not been able to get a wink of sleep.”

And burning to tell all the wonderful sights that she had been witness to since the preceding day, she did not wait to be questioned, but ran on volubly with her narrative.