pe. During this
period also a political revolution took place in Italy, in consequence
of the French war, and Paris sustained two sieges; the first by the
German army; the second and most bitter by the French themselves,
fighting against a mob of fanatical revolutionists and ending in a
frightful saturnalia of murder, ruin and revenge.

Has there ever been a year in the world's history more crowded with
momentous events? Within that year the political status of France,
Germany, and Italy was transformed, the late emperor of France suddenly
found himself a throneless fugitive, and the people of Paris passed
through an experience unparalleled in the diversified history of that
ancient city. Of all the sieges to which Paris has been subjected, far
the strangest was that in which the scum of the city, miscalled the
commune, fought with tiger-like ferocity against the forces of the
newly-formed republic, filled with the revengeful and murderous spirit
which had inspired the masses in the first revolution.

It is the story of this tragic interlude which we propose here to tell,
premising with a brief resume of the events which led up to it.

Louis Napoleon, posing as Emperor Napoleon III. of France, a position
which he had been enabled to gain through the glamour of the name of his
famous uncle, was infected throughout his reign with the desire to
emulate the deeds of the great Napoleon. He hoped to shine as one of the
military stars of Europe, and was encouraged by the success of the war
which he fomented in Italy. His second effort in this direction was the
invasion of Mexico and the attempt to establish an empire, under his
tutelage, upon American soil. In this he ran counter to the Monroe
Doctrine and the power of the United States and was forced to retire
with his feathers scorched and his prestige sadly diminished.

But what he probably proposed to make the great military triumph of his
reign came in 1870, when, on a flimsy pretence, a misunderstanding which
called only for diplomatic adjustment, he suddenly declared war against
Germany and rashly put his armies into the field to cope with that
powerful rival. Never had there been a more unwise or suicidal
proceeding. In shameful ignorance of the real condition of the army,
which he was made to believe was "five times ready," "ready to the last
gaiter button," he marshalled against the thoroughly prepared military
power of Germany an army ill-organized, ill-supplied,