“Pack up our trunks,” he ordered his wife. “The bourse is going to close; and the Mutual Credit can very well get along without me.”
But the next day he became undecided again. What Mlle. Gilberte thought she could guess, was, that he was dying to start alone, and leave his family, but dared not do it. He hesitated so long, that at last, one evening,
“You may unpack the trunks,” he said to his wife. “Paris is invested; and no one can now leave.”
XVIII
In fact, the news had just come, that the Western Railroad, the last one that had remained open, was now cut off.
Paris was invested; and so rapid had been the investment, that it could hardly be believed.
People went in crowds on all the culminating points, the hills of Montmartre, and the heights of the Trocadero. Telescopes had been erected there; and every one was anxious to scan the horizon, and look for the Prussians.
But nothing could be discovered. The distant fields retained their quiet and smiling aspect under the mild rays of the autumn sun.
So that it really required quite an effort of imagination to realize the sinister fact, to understand that Paris, with its two millions of inhabitants, was indeed cut off from the world and separated from the rest of France, by an insurmountable circle of steel.
Doubt, and something like a vague hope, could be traced in the tone of the people who met on the streets, saying,