December 5th.
The incessant cannonading of the last few days has been succeeded by a deathlike stillness. What is going on? I am fearfully anxious. If Paris had sallied forth from her walls and were now marching on the roads, the disbanded and repulsed Prussians would fill the country and constantly change their bivouacs. But no. Ever since yesterday I have scoured the twelve miles of forest which hem me in like a wall on all sides; in vain I scrutinise the lanes around, they are as silent and lonely as usual. Through the trees, in the distance, I saw near Montgeron a company of Bavarians drilling in the open part of a wide plain. Mournfully drawn up in line under the lowering and lurid sky, they trod with resigned melancholy through the mud of this uncultivated and barren land . . . Evidently Paris has not yet made a successful sortie, but it has not capitulated either, for these soldiers presented too pitiful an appearance to be conquerors.
Overhead, circling clouds of rooks fly by towards the great city, cawing and alighting on the rising ground. Never had I seen so many, even in the peaceful winter, when all France is sown with wheat. This year it is another kind of seed which attracts them.
December 6th.
Thank Heaven! Paris still holds out, and is likely to do so. I had a delightful proof of this. This morning I was by the cloister well when I heard quick firing in the direction of Draveil. Almost immediately a peculiar sound, like the flapping of a sail at sea and the straining of the stretched rigging, passed through the air above me. It was a balloon, a fine yellow balloon, very apparent against the darkness of the clouds. From where I stood it seemed to float over the tree-tops, although in reality it was far above. I cannot describe how the slender texture of this silken balloon, whose netting I could distinctly see, stirred and filled me with enthusiasm. I remembered that above all this conquered France, the soul of Paris still soared, a living strength more powerful than all the Krupp cannons together, and I, a Parisian, felt proud of it. I felt inclined to cry, to shout, to call out. I threw my arms out towards the black, motionless specks at the edge of the car, two human lives, tossed about by all the currents of heaven, far above the rivers that may drown them, the precipices where they may be dashed to pieces, and the Prussian armies, which must look from that height like immense overrunning ant-heaps on the surface of the earth . . . A light powdery line became visible under the balloon. I heard the sound of scattered sand among the branches, and the vision was lost among the clouds.