It was those batteries of the foe that interested Delaherche. His keen eyes were exploring the slopes of the Marfée hill, when he suddenly remembered that he had a telescope which, by way of amusement, he had in former times often pointed on the environs from that very terrace. He fetched it and set it in position, and whilst he was taking his bearings, slowly moving the instrument so that the fields, trees, and houses passed in turn before him, his eyes fell on the same cluster of uniforms, grouped at the corner of a pine wood, above the great battery of Frénois, that Weiss had faintly espied from Bazeilles. Delaherche, however, thanks to the magnifying power of his telescope could have counted the officers of this staff, so plainly did he see them. Some were reclining on the grass, others stood up, grouped together, and in advance of them was one man, all by himself, lean and slim, in a uniform free from all showiness, but whom he instinctively divined to be the master. It was, indeed, the King of Prussia, barely half an inch high, like one of those diminutive tin soldiers that children play with. Delaherche only became quite certain of it later on; still, from that moment he scarcely took his eyes off that tiny little fellow whose face, the size of a pin's head, appeared simply like a pale spot under the vast blue heavens.
It was not yet noon; the King was verifying the mathematical, inexorable march of his armies since nine o'clock. They were ever pressing onward and onward, following the routes traced out for them, completing the circle, and raising, step by step, around Sedan their wall of men and iron. That on the left, which had proceeded by way of the level plain of Donchery, was still debouching from the defile of St. Albert, passing beyond St. Menges, and beginning to reach Fleigneux; and in the rear of his Eleventh Corps, hotly grappling with General Douay's troops, the King could distinctly see the stealthy advance of his Fifth Corps, which, under cover of the woods, was making for the Calvary of Illy. And meantime batteries were being added to batteries, the line of thundering guns was incessantly being prolonged, and the entire horizon was gradually becoming one belt of flames. The army on the right hand henceforth occupied the whole valley of the Givonne; the Twelfth German Corps had seized La Moncelle, and the Guard had just passed through Daigny, and was already ascending the banks of the stream, also marching upon the Calvary of Illy, after compelling General Ducrot to fall back behind the wood of La Garenne. One more effort and the Crown Princes of Prussia and Saxony would join hands over yonder, amid those bare fields on the very verge of the forest of the Ardennes. South of Sedan one could no longer perceive Bazeilles; it had disappeared in the smoke of the burning houses, in the dun-coloured dust of a furious struggle.