the Republic was not accepted by the whole country, he involved himself in the Bonapartist intrigue. He was surrounded by men personally attached to the dynasty — Leboeuf, who knew that the Republic would ask him to account for so much ruin ; Frossard, the governor of the Prince Imperial, the Imperial Staff, and the Imperial Guard. He knew that the Germans distrusted the new Government and preferred the old, and he believed that Paris could not long prevent the discussion of peace. They would then be glad to treat with the commander of the only remaining army in France, and to place the new Government, whether a Regency or a National Assembly, under the protection of his sword. He could not hope to be delivered ; and after his troops began to eat the horses he could not escape. He tried to profit by the political position to rescue himself from the military position. He sent first Bourbaki and then Boyer to sound the Empress. Count Bismarck sent her word that she might return to the Tuileries if she would consent to his conditions ; and the Empire might have been restored in October on better terms, at least in respect of the indemnity, than those which the Republic accepted in March. Among the exiled Bonapartists in England there was much impatience at the coldness with which the Empress received the overtures from Versailles and Metz. But neither Bismarck nor Bazaine bound himself with pledges definite enough for security, and the Empress refused the terms. Bazaine, whose men for a whole week had declined to fight, and whose provisions were running short, so that two leeches were sold for £7, capitulated on the 27th of October with 173,000 men. It was not easy to prove why so large and so brave an army should have been unable to pierce the lines of an enemy scarcely superior in numbers, and divided by a river. It was supposed that Bazaine had been dazzled by the hope of serving the Empire, that the Germans had made skilful use of his delusion, and that political motives had barred his defence. Gambetta, whose plans were ruined by the fall of Metz, proclaimed him a traitor.
