"
In other directions, for instance at the Club du Maine, the Extremists
were already attacking the new Government for its delay in distributing
cartridges to the National Guards, being, no doubt, already impatient to
seize authority themselves.
Whilst other people were promenading or perorating, Trochu, in his room at
the Louvre, was receiving telegram after telegram informing him that the
Germans were now fast closing round the city. He himself, it appears, had
no idea of preventing it; but at the urgent suggestion of his old friend
and comrade General Ducrot, he had consented that an effort should be made
to delay, at any rate, a complete investment. In an earlier chapter I had
occasion to mention Ducrot in connexion with the warnings which Napoleon
III received respecting the military preparations of Prussia. At this
time, 1870, the general was fifty-three years old, and therefore still in
his prime. As commander of a part of MacMahon's forces he had
distinguished himself at the battle of Woerth, and when the Marshal was
wounded at Sedan, it was he who, by right of seniority, at first assumed
command of the army, being afterwards compelled, however, to relinquish
the poet to Wimpfen, in accordance with an order from Palikao which
Wimpfen produced.
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