Maurice had caught Henriette in his arms, and in a voice that trembled with suspense: 

“It cannot be,” he said, “that they will have the cruelty to close the gate and shut us out.”

That was what the crowd feared would be done.  To right and left, however, upon the glacis soldiers were already arranging their bivouacs, while entire batteries, guns, caissons, and horses, in confusion worse confounded, had thrown themselves pell-mell into the fosse for safety.

But now shrill, impatient bugle calls rose on the evening air, followed soon by the long-drawn strains of retreat.  They were summoning the belated soldiers back to their comrades, who came running in, singly and in groups.  A dropping fire of musketry still continued in the faubourgs, but it was gradually dying out.  Heavy guards were stationed on the banquette behind the parapet to protect the approaches, and at last the gate was closed.  The Prussians were within a hundred yards of the sally-port; they could be seen moving on the Balan road, tranquilly establishing themselves in the houses and gardens.

Maurice and Jean, pushing Henriette before them to protect her from the jostling of the throng, were among the last to enter Sedan.  Six o’clock was striking.  The artillery fire had ceased nearly an hour ago.  Soon the distant musketry fire, too, was silenced.  Then, to the deafening uproar, to the vengeful thunder that had been roaring since morning, there succeeded a stillness as of death.  Night came, and with it came a boding silence, fraught with terror.

VIII.

At half-past five o’clock, after the closing of the gates, Delaherche, in his eager thirst for news, now that he knew the battle lost, had again returned to the Sous-Prefecture.  He hung persistently about the approaches of the janitor’s lodge, tramping up and down the paved courtyard with feverish impatience, for more than three hours, watching for every officer who came up and interviewing him, and thus it was that he had become acquainted, piecemeal, with the rapid series of events; how General de Wimpffen had tendered his resignation and then withdrawn it upon the peremptory refusal of Generals Ducrot and Douay to append their names to the articles of capitulation, how the Emperor had thereupon invested the General with full authority to proceed to the Prussian headquarters and treat for the surrender of the vanquished army on the most advantageous terms obtainable; how, finally, a council of war had been convened with the object of deciding what possibilities there were of further protracting the struggle successfully by the defense of the fortress.  During the deliberations of this council, which consisted of some twenty officers of the highest rank and seemed to him as if it would never end, the cloth manufacturer climbed the steps of the huge public building at least twenty times, and at last his curiosity was gratified by beholding General de Wimpffen emerge, very red in the face and his eyelids puffed and swollen with tears, behind whom came two other generals and a colonel.  They leaped into the saddle and rode away over the Pont de Meuse.  The bells had struck eight some time before; the inevitable capitulation was now to be accomplished, from which there was no escape.