The night was falling when the 106th passed through Augecourt. The wooded crests still rose upon the right, but on the left the defile grew broader, and a bluish valley could be seen in the distance. At last from the heights of Remilly they perceived, in the evening mist, a pale silvery ribbon winding through the immense rolling expanse of meadow and cultivated land. It was the Meuse--the Meuse they had so longed to reach and where it seemed the victory was to be.
And Maurice, stretching out his arm towards some distant, tiny lights, that were gaily shining out amid the verdure in the depths of that fruitful valley, so delightfully charming in the gentle twilight, said to Jean, with the joyous relief of a man who again finds a spot he loves: 'There--look over yonder--that is SEDAN!'
A frightful medley of men, horses, and vehicles encumbered the sloping street of Remilly, descending in zigzags to the Meuse. Halfway down the hill, in front of the church, were some guns, the wheels of which were locked together, and the men seemed unable to get them any farther, however much they might swear and push. Near the spinning-mill below, where a fall of the Emmane roars, a train of baggage waggons was stranded, completely blocking the road; whilst an ever-swelling mob of exasperated soldiers was fighting at the Cross of Malta inn, without any of the men being able to obtain even a glass of wine.
The furious rush came to an end on the southern side of the village, which a copse here separates from the Meuse. The Engineers had thrown a pontoon bridge across the river during the morning. On the right there was a ferry with the waterman's solitary house standing out whitely among the tall rushes. Large fires had been lighted on both banks, and every now and then the flames, deftly encouraged, set the night all aglow, lighting up both the water and the shore, as though it had been midday. One could then perceive the enormous accumulation of troops waiting here; for only two men could cross the foot-bridge at a time, whilst the pontoon bridge, which was certainly not more than ten feet wide, was encumbered with artillery, cavalry and baggage waggons, defiling over it at a distressingly slow pace. It was reported that a brigade of the First Corps and an ammunition convoy were still on the spot, besides four regiments of Cuirassiers belonging to Bonnemain's division; and now, in the rear, came the entire Seventh Army Corps, thirty and odd thousand men, who believing that they had the enemy at their heels were feverishly eager to reach a place of safety by getting across the stream.