The trophies at Sedan consisted of 3 standards, 419 fieldpieces, and 139 guns; 66,000 stands of arms; more than 1000 baggage- and other wagons, and 6000 horses fit for service.
COUNT OTTO VON BISMARCK
VENDRESSE, September 3 [1870]
MY DEAR HEART:
I left my present quarters before early dawn the day before yesterday, came back to-day, and have in the mean time witnessed the great battle of Sedan, in which we made about thirty thousand prisoners, and threw the remainder of the French army, which we have been pursuing since we were at Bar-le-Duc, into the fortress, where they had to surrender themselves, along with the Emperor, prisoners of war. Yesterday morning at five o'clock, after I had been negotiating until 1 A.M. with Moltke and the French generals about the capitulation to be concluded, I was awakened by General Reille, with whom I am acquainted, to tell me that Napoleon wished to speak with me.
Unwashed and unbreakfasted, I rode toward Sedan, found the Emperor in an open carriage, with three aides-de-camp and three in attendance on horseback, halted on the road before Sedan. I dismounted, saluted him just as politely as at the Tulleries, and asked for his commands. He wished to see the King; I told him, as the truth was, that his Majesty had his quarters fifteen miles away, at the spot where I am now writing. In answer to Napoleon's questions where he should go to, I offered him, as I was not acquainted with the country, my own quarters at Donchery, a small place in the neighborhood, close by Sedan. He accepted, and drove, accompanied by his six Frenchmen, by me and by Carl (who in the mean time had ridden after me), through the lonely morning toward our lines.
Before coming to the spot, he began to hesitate on account of the possible crowd, and asked me if he could alight in a lonely cottage by the wayside. I had it inspected by Carl, who brought word that it was mean and dirty. "N'importe," said Napoleon, and I ascended with him a rickety narrow staircase. In an apartment of ten feet square, with a deal table and two rush bottomed chairs, we sat for an hour; the others were below - a powerful contrast with our last meeting in the Tuileries in 1867. Our conversation was a difficult thing, if I wished to avoid touching on topics which could not but affect painfully the man whom God's mighty hand had cast down.
I had sent Carl to fetch officers from the town and to beg Moltke to come. We then sent one of the former to reconnoitre, and discovered, twenty-one and a half miles distant, in Frenois, a chateau situated in a park. Thither I accompanied him with an escort of the Cuirassier Regiment of Life-Guards, which had meantime been brought up, and there we concluded with the French General-in-Chief, Wimpffen, the capitulation, by virtue of which from forty thousand to sixty thousand Frenchmen - I do not know, accurately, at present - with all they possess, became our prisoners. Yesterday and the day before cost France one hundred thousand men and an emperor. This morning the latter, with all his suite, horses and carriages, started for Wilhelmshohe, near Cassel.
It is an event of great weight in the world's history, a victory for which we shall humbly thank the Almighty, and which decides the war, even if we have to carry it on against France shorn of her Emperor.
I must conclude. With heartfelt joy I learned from your and Maria's letters that Herbert has arrived among you. Bill I spoke to yesterday, as already telegraphed, and embraced him from horseback in his Majesty's presence, while he stood motionless in the ranks. He is very healthy and happy. I saw Hans and Fritz Carl, both Buelows, in the Second Dragoon Guards, well and cheerful.
Good-by, my heart - love to the children. Your v. B.
“When the soul is once taken up with the things that are of absolute necessity, it will not be much troubled about other things.”
–Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment