LADY AT TOILETTE.]

It may be remembered that the number of German troops admitted into the
city was restricted by the terms of the capitulation to thirty thousand,
the entrance to be made at ten o'clock on the morning of the 1st of
March, 1871, and the district occupied by them to be limited to the
space between the Seine and the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, from the
Place de la Concorde to the Quartier des Ternes. The evacuation was to
take place immediately after the ratification of the preliminaries of
the treaty of peace by the Assemblee Nationale. On the appointed morning
all the public edifices, even the Bourse, were closed, as well as the
great majority of the cafes and restaurants. All the battalions of the
National Guard were under arms in their various quarters, their
standards draped in crape, in the streets and on the various mairies
black flags were displayed, and on many shutters might be read
inscriptions: "Closed on account of the national mourning," or, "because
of the public grief." On the boulevards, opposite the new Opera-house,
and on all the streets leading down to the Place de la Concorde and the
Champs-Elysees, detachments of the National Guard were stationed who
prevented from passing any person wearing a uniform, or even a kepi or
pantaloons with a red stripe. The Rue Royale, from the Madeleine to the
Place de la Concorde, was barred in the middle of its length by
artillery caissons, and the Rue and the Faubourg Saint-Honore were
patrolled by strong detachments of the Chasseurs d'Afrique and mounted
gendarmes. But in the afternoon the sun came out, and, according to M.
Claretie, "the appearance of Paris, alas! became quite different from
that of the morning. The population, carried away by an unwholesome
curiosity, and aware that the entrance of the enemy had occasioned no
disorder, decided to come out in the streets." The next day the Germans
wished to visit the Louvre and the Invalides, but the sight of Prussian
uniforms under the colonnade of the Louvre produced such an effect on
the populace, it is said, that the French general Vinoy informed the
German general von Kammecke that if his soldiers entered the Invalides
he would not be responsible for the public peace,--and the Prussian
officer abandoned the attempt.

If the Prussians had remained in Paris, the public peace would have been
much better preserved. On the heels of their withdrawal came the
Commune, and within three weeks the