December 9.—I woke up in the night and wrote some verses. At the same time I heard the cannon.
M. Bondes came to see me. The correspondent of the “Times,” who is at Versailles, has written him that the guns for the bombardment of Paris have arrived. They are Krupp guns. They are awaiting their carriages. They have been arranged in the Prussian arsenal at Versailles side by side “like bottles in a cellar,” according to this Englishman.
I copy the following from a newspaper:
M. Victor Hugo had manifested the intention to leave Paris unarmed, with the artillery battery of the National Guard to which his two sons belong.
The 144th Battalion of the National Guard went in a body to the poet’s residence in the Avenue Frochot. Two delegates waited upon him.
These honourable citizens went to forbid Victor Hugo to carry out his plan, which he had announced some time ago in his “Address to the Germans.”
“Everybody can fight,” the deputation told him. “But everybody cannot write Les Chatiments. Stay at home, therefore, and take care of a life that is so precious to France.”
I do not remember the number of the battalion. It was not the 144th. Here are the terms of the address which was read to me by the major of the battalion:
The National Guard of Paris forbids Victor Hugo to go to the front, inasmuch as everybody can go to the front, whereas Victor Hugo alone can do what Victor Hugo does.
“Forbids” is touching and charming.