On the morning of August 30, having learnt that the army was near Mouzon, Delaherche, in company with Weiss, his book-keeper, had started on that excursion which old Fouchard had referred to in conversation with Maurice. Tall and stoutly built, with a ruddy complexion, a large nose and thick lips, the manufacturer was of an expansive nature, endowed with all the inquisitiveness of the French _bourgeois_, who likes nothing better than a brilliant military display. On learning from the chemist at Mouzon that the Emperor was at Baybel farm, he had climbed thither and had seen Napoleon, had almost spoken to him, had met, in fact, with quite an adventure, which he had not ceased talking about since his return to Sedan. But the homeward journey in the midst of the Beaumont panic, along the roads crowded with runaways, had been truly terrible. A score of times had the gig narrowly missed being upset in the wayside ditches; and delayed over and over again by constantly recurring obstacles, Delaherche and Weiss had only got back to Sedan at nightfall. The pleasure trip ended, indeed, in a most unpleasant fashion; the army, which the manufacturer had gone to see, marching along a couple of leagues away, drove him home again with the gallop of its retreat, and this unforeseen, tragical adventure so exercised his mind that on the road back he kept on repeating to his companion: 'And to think that I fancied the army was marching on Verdun--that was why I didn't want to miss the opportunity of seeing it. Well, I have seen it, and no mistake; and I fancy we shall see rather more of it at Sedan than will be altogether pleasant.'
Awakened at five o'clock the next morning by the loud commotion of the Seventh Corps streaming torrent-like through the town, he hastily dressed himself and went out; and the first person whom he met on the Place Turenne was none other than Captain Beaudoin. During the previous year, the captain had been one of the intimates of pretty Madame Maginot at Charleville; and she had introduced him to Delaherche prior to their marriage. According to the scandal-mongers, the captain, who was considered to be the lady's favoured admirer, had retired through a feeling of delicacy, not wishing to stand between his inamorata and the manufacturer's large fortune.