Sevres and Meudon. To the right of the river is Mont Valerien
and the batteries in the Bois de Boulogne; to the left the Fort of
Issy. The noise of the cannonade was very loud; but very little could be
seen, owing to the sun shining on the hills outside. Speculators,
however, with telescopes, were offering to show the Prussian
artillerymen for one sou--one of them offered to let me see a general
for two sous. When I got within about half a mile of the ramparts I
began to hear the whistling of the shells. Here the sightseers were not
so numerous. Whenever a shell was heard, there was a rush behind walls
and houses. Some people threw themselves down, others seemed to imagine
that the smallest tree would protect them, and congregated behind the
thinnest saplings. Boys were running about picking up pieces of shells,
and offering them for sale. Women were standing at their doors, and
peeping their heads out: "Brigands, bandits, they dare to bombard us;
wait till to-morrow, we will make them rue it." This, and expressions of
a similar nature, was the tone of the small talk. My own impression is,
that the Prussians were firing at the ramparts, and that, as often
occurs, their projectiles overshot the mark. I did not see anyone either
killed or wounded, and it seems to me that the most astonishing thing in
a bombardment is the little damage it does to life and limb. I saw a bit
of iron cut away a branch from one of the trees, and one shell I saw
burst on the road by the river. In 15 minutes we counted 11 shells
whizzing through the air, over our heads, which fell I presume somewhere
behind us. The newspaper which I have just bought, I see, says that two
shells have fallen close by the Invalides, and that they have been
coming in pretty thickly all along the zone near the southern ramparts.
This may or may not be the case. Like Herodotus in Egypt, I make a
distinction between what I am told and what I see, and only guarantee
the authenticity of the latter. The only house which as far as I could
perceive had been struck was a small one. A chimney-stack had been
knocked over; an old lady who inhabited it pointed this out to me. She
seemed to be under the impression that this was the result of design,
and plaintively asked me what she had done to "William" and to Bismarck
that they should knock over her chimney. On the ramparts no damage
seemed to have been done. The National Guard on duty were in the
casemates. The noise, however, w