rado since 1872 and
our energy and knowledge of business.

In Paris we all stopped at the Hotel Meurice, Rue Rivoli, and spent much
time sightseeing. We were particularly interested in viewing the
battlefields around Paris--so interested, in fact, that we read up the
whole history of the mighty struggle with Germany, which ended in
throwing France into the dust. We, like most of the world here, got our
ideas of the war and the battles from the current news of the day, as
published in the newspapers, and we had a general idea that the
Frenchmen had not made much of a fight. That conclusion could only be
arrived at by a superficial knowledge such as had been ours.
Investigation upon the spot and a study of impartial authorities soon
opened our eyes to the fact that France only succumbed after a mighty
and most heroic struggle. The first few weeks of the war saw her entire
regular army captive, and transported prisoners across the Rhine. That
army had made a brave but unfortunate fight. Badly commanded, with the
transport and subsistence utterly demoralized, they were no match for
the mighty hosts that Germany poured across the Rhine. Perfectly
equipped, matchless in discipline since the palmy days of Rome,
commanded by the foremost military intellects of the age, they met the
French, overmatching them at every point of contact; enveloping their
columns with masses of infantry, or sweeping them with murderous storms
of shot and shell, or launching a magnificent cavalry at them, against
which French valor--ill directed as it was--proved futile, and that
splendid array of 480,000 men had to ground their arms, surrender their
colors, and, to their own unspeakable shame and humiliation, become
captive to their foes, leaving their beloved France defenseless. But the
loss of their army, no more than their thronging foes, dismayed France.
The heart of the nation was stirred, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic,
from the Channel to the blue Mediterranean, France rose as one man. They
saw the entire military force of Germany encamped on their soil, and in
their undisciplined valor, hurled themselves against it, and gave to
their astounded foes an exhibition of Titanic force and determined valor
whose story, when known, will become the admiration of all generations
of men.

It was against the decree of Heaven that France should win in the
struggle, but she fell only to rise the higher for the fall. The year
1871 saw France in the d