ic could
fail to be struck with the genuine outburst of national resentment
against a whole nation on the part of another nation, which, as I take
it, means something different from unalloyed patriotism. It was a
mixture of hatred and chauvinism, rather than the latter and more
elevated sentiment. The "sacred soil of France"--though why more sacred
than any other soil, I have never been able to make out--was not
threatened in this instance by Prussia; carefully considered, it was not
even a question of national honour offended for which Paris professed
itself ready as one man to draw the sword, and yet the thousands in the
street that night behaved as if each of them had a personal quarrel to
settle, not with one or two Germans, but with every son and daughter of
the Fatherland.

It was, perhaps, a quarter after eight when I found myself in the
Chaussee d'Antin, and the distance to the Boulevard des Italiens was
certainly not more than two hundred and fifty yards; nevertheless, it
took me more than half an hour to get over it, for immediately on my
emerging into the main thoroughfare I looked at a clock which pointed to
nine. Two things stand out vividly in my memory: the first, the
preparations of several business houses to illuminate on a grand scale,
there and then; _i. e._ the putting up of the elaborate crystal devices
used by them on the 15th of August, the Emperor's fete-day. It was
exactly a month before that date, and a neighbour of an enthusiastic
tradesman remarked upon the fact. "I know," was the answer; "I'll leave
it there till the 14th of next month, and then I'll add two bigger ones
to it." On the day proposed, not only were there none added, but the
original one had also disappeared, for by that time the Second Empire
was virtually in the throes of death. The second thing I remember was
the enormous strip of calico outside a bookseller's shop, with the
announcement, "Dictionnaire Francais-Allemand a l'usage des Francais a
Berlin." In less than two months I read the following; it was an extract
from the interview between Bismarck and Moltke on the one side and
General de Wimpffen on the other, on the eve of the capitulation of
Sedan: "You do not know the topography of the environs of Sedan,"
replied General von Moltke; "and, seeing that we are on the subject, let
me give you a small instance which thoroughly shows the presumption, the
want of method, of your nation. At the beginning of the campaign, you