My washerwoman having nothing to make a fire with, and being obliged to refuse work in consequence, addressed a demand to M. Clémenceau, Mayor of the Ninth Arrondissement, for some coal, which she said she was prepared to pay for. I endorsed it thus:
“I am resigned to everything for the defence of Paris, to die of hunger and cold, and even to forego a change of shirt. However, I commend my laundress to the Mayor of the Ninth Arrondissement.”
And I signed my name. The Mayor gave her the coal.
January 8.—Camille Pelletan brought us good news from the Government. Rouen and Dijon retaken, Garibaldi victorious at Nuits, and Fraidherbe at Bapaume. All goes well.
We had brown bread, now we have black bread. Everybody fares alike. It is well.
The news of yesterday was brought by two pigeons.
A shell killed five children in a school in the Rue de Vaugirard.
The performances and readings of Les Châtiments have had to be stopped, the theatres being without gas or coal, therefore without light or heat.
Prim is dead. He was shot and killed at Madrid the day the king after his own heart, Amedeus, Duke of Genoa, entered Spain.
The bombardment was a furious one to-day. A shell crashed through the chapel of the Virgin at Saint Sulpice, where my mother’s funeral took place and where I was married.