s, and all suspected persons were called Prussians.
The mania for spy-hunting became general, and was frequently very
inconvenient to Americans and Englishmen. Germans in Paris, many of
whom had intermarried with the French, naturally found themselves
in a most unhappy situation. At first they were strictly forbidden
to leave Paris; then suddenly they were ordered away, on three
days' notice, under penalty of being treated as prisoners of war.

This decree affected eighty thousand persons in France, nearly all
of whom were connected by family ties or business relations with
the country of their adoption. The outcry raised by the English and
German Press about this summary expulsion procured some modification
of the order,--not, however, without a protest from the radicals,
who clamored for the rigor of the law. Mr. Washburne, the American
minister, the only foreign ambassador who remained in Paris during
the siege, had accepted the charge of these unhappy Germans, and
heart-breaking scenes took place daily at the American Legation.

Soon after the defeats in the first week in August, Mr. Washburne
had his last interview with the Empress Eugenie.

"She had evidently," he says, "passed a sleepless and agitated
night, and was in great distress of mind. She at once began to
speak of the terrible news she had received, and the effect it
would have on the French people. I suggested to her that the news
might not be quite so bad as was reported (alas! it was far worse),
and that the consequences might in the end be far better than present
circumstances indicated. I spoke to her about the first battle of
Bull Run, and the defeat that the Union army had there suffered,
which had only stimulated the country to greater exertions. She
replied: 'I only wish the French in these respects were like you
Americans; but I am afraid they will get too much discouraged,
and give up too soon.'"[1]

[Footnote 1: Recollections of a Minister to France.]

All this time the "Figaro" was publishing articles that held out
hopes of victory and flattered the self-confidence of the Parisians.
Marshals MacMahon and Bazaine were represented as leading the enemy
craftily into a snare, and the illusion was kept up that the Germans
would be cut to pieces by the peasantry "before they could lay
their sacrilegious hands," said Victor Hugo, "upon the Mecca of
civilization." Instead of this, the Crown Prince's army was marching
in pursuit of MacMahon's fo