of General Ernest Courtot de Cissey. The investigative board gave their advice which led to several accusations. Bazaine then requested that the case be presented to a war council. The royalists and the republicans held their bouc émissaire in order to lay all the responsibilities of a defeat on a Bonapartist and justify the proclamation of the French Republic of 4 September 1870, and attempting to show the incapacity of the Emperor, through his subordinate. Certain Bonapartists were not unhappy that Bazaine was being judged, as this obscured accordingly the responsibilities of Napoleon III. Bazaine was then the ideal expiatory victim, who was brought in front of a war council sitting at Grand Trianon. The Duke of Aumale, President, condemned him to death with military degradation for having capitulated in an open campaign, collaborated with the enemym, and surrendered Metz before having exhausted all available means of defense. However, the same tribunal, which just condemned him, signed unanimously and sent to the President of France (and the Minister of War) a request for mercy in regards to M. Marshal Bazaine. His sentence was commuted then to 20 years in prison, without degradation ceremony, by the new President, Marshal MacMahon, who also was beaten at Sedan. This inspired Victor Hugo to remark: "Mac-Mahon absolves Bazaine. Sedan washes Metz. The idiot protects the traitor." Trial for Treason The French nation could not rest with the thought that their military supremacy had been broken by the superiority of the Prusso-German armies; their defeats could have proceeded only from the treachery or incapacity of their leaders. The commanders who had surrendered the French fortresses to the enemy were subjected to a trial by court-martial under the presidency of Marshal Baraguey d'Hilliers. The majority of them were, on account of their proved incapacity or weakness, deprived of their military honours. Even Ulrich, the once celebrated commander of Strasbourg, whose name had been given to a street in Paris, was brought under the censure of the court-martial. However, Bazaine, as Commander-in-Chief, was attributed with the blame for the Third Republic for France's defeat at the hands of the Prussians On return to captivity in 1872, Bazaine published his account of the events of 1870 in L'Armée du Rhin and formally requested and was granted a trial before a military court, in order to give an opportunity to clear his name and put his version of events