anion or friend, but he was a friend of a thousand.

Poor fellow!

* * * * *

I had been in captivity in a stronghold on the Rhine for five months,
when the preliminaries of peace were signed between France and Germany
in January, 1871, and the French prisoners were sent back to their
country.

About five hundred of us were embarked at Hamburg on board one of the
steamers of the Compagnie Transatlantique, and landed at Cherbourg.

Finding myself near home, I immediately asked the general in command of
the district for a few days' leave, to go and see my mother.

Since the day I had been taken prisoner at Sedan (2d of September,
1870), I had not received a single letter from her, as communications
were cut off between the east and the west of France; and I learned
later on that she had not received any of the numerous letters I had
written to her from Germany.

This part of Normandy had been fortunate enough to escape the horrors
of war, but, for months, the inhabitants had had to lodge soldiers and
militia-men.

At five o'clock on a cold February morning, clothed, or rather covered,
in my dirty, half-ragged uniform, I rang the bell at my mother's house.

Our old servant appeared at the attic window, and inquired what I
wanted.

"Open the door," I cried; "I am dying of cold."

"We can't lodge you here," she replied; "we have as many soldiers as we
can accommodate--there is no room for you. Go to the Town Hall, they
will tell you we are full."

"_Sapristi_, my good Fanchette," I shouted, "don't you know me? How is
mother?"

"Ah! It is Monsieur!" she screamed. And she rushed down, filling the
house with her cries: "Madame, madame, it is Monsieur; yes, I have seen
him, he has spoken to me, it is Monsieur."

A minute after I was in my mother's arms.

Was it a dream?

She looked at me wildly, touching my head to make sure I was at her
side, in reality, alive; when she realized the truth she burst into
tears, and remained speechless for some time. Such scenes are more
easily imagined than described, and I would rather leave it to the
reader to supply all the exclamations and interrogations that followed.

* * * * *

I could only spend two days at home, as my regiment was being organized
in Paris, and I had to join it.

On the 18th of March, 1871, the people of Paris, in possession of all
the armament that had been placed