The Revolution of the 4th of September was especially remarkable for the inconsiderable impression it produced in Paris itself. Life went on just as usual, and save for a few expressions of wonder, no one seemed quite to realise the importance of it. The capital began to prepare for the siege, rather with mirth than anything else. To tell the truth no one seemed to believe in its possibility, and I remember one day, when visiting a friend who was living on the Quai Malaquais, she pointed to the Seine flowing softly under her windows, saying at the same time: “Croyez-vous que les Prussiens arriveront devant mes fenêtres comme les Normands jadis sont entrés à Paris?” (“Do you think that the Prussians will arrive in front of my windows as the Normans entered Paris in days of yore?”)

I reproduce this remark just to show how very little those in the capital realised either the present or the future at this particular moment.

Another thing which struck me, was that existence out of doors seemed to go on much as usual, in spite of the bad news that continued to pour in. The theatres were full, and people seemed to make the most of the late summer days that were coming to a close. There was very little excitement, and the feeling that predominated was one of curiosity. Some people were departing, but not in large numbers, and it was only towards the end of September that people began seriously to look at the situation. By that time I had already left Paris. I went on the 15th of September, hoping to return in January, not suspecting then that the war would drag on as it did. I, together with many reasonable people, still hoped that the new government would see the necessity of ending a hopeless struggle before it was too late.

All my suppositions turned out to be wrong, however, and it was only towards the end of February that I was once more to find myself at my old post, by which time the unfortunate Emperor, languishing in captivity, seemed to be forgotten, and the Republic had grown to be an established fact.

CHAPTER VII
Letters from Paris during the Siege

Paris was already invested when I succeeded in leaving it with the help of a diplomatic passport, and it was in Vienna that I read in the papers the news of the useless interview that took place between Prince, at that time still Count, Bismarck, with M. Jules Favre at Férrières. I never understood how the German Chancellor, who at that time had not the slightest intention to conclude peace, consented to receive the representative of a government which he had not acknowledged. I was told later on, that it was at the request of the King of Prussia he had given his assent to Favre’s arrival at the German headquarters.

The results of this hopeless attempt are well known. Jules Favre talked as only an advocate can talk. But he pleaded sentimental reasons where hard facts only had to be considered. When he returned to Paris, it was with the conviction that as the government of the Défense Nationale was neither strong enough nor respected enough to compel the country to accept a shameful peace, the only thing was to allow matters to drift.

A good many of my friends, and of my colleagues, had elected to remain in the capital, and there await the end of the war, and I must own that I regretted later on that I had not been given the same opportunity. That period was most interesting, and I have always felt that to understand the genesis of the events which happened later on, one ought to have experienced those months of anxiety, when the great capital was abandoned to her fate, with the Prussian guns levelled against her.

I was not, however, left entirely without news, and as regularly as was possible received letters from besieged Paris, sent either by balloon or by carrier pigeons. I have kept them all, and from their pages now give extracts which will give an idea of the feelings of the Parisians during the trial they had to undergo.

September 25th, 1870.