lurid light on the
events of those days and the passions they evoked. I bought whatever I
could find of such papers and drawings, as also a few of the more
respectable publications, and the collection is a pretty complete one,
including, as it does, copies of the Pere Duchene, La Lanterne, Le
National, La Verite, &c., and some sixty caricatures of the Emperor, the
Empress, Thiers, Jules Favre, and many other leading men, all furnishing
abundant material for recording and illustrating the politics,
hysterics, and erotics of those troublesome times.

Towards the end of my stay I went to Saint Denis. Peace and its
blessings were really coming, and welcome signs of their approach were
not wanting; even little twigs of olive branches were being held out
where I least expected to see them.

Saint Denis was still in the hands of the Germans, and was not to be
evacuated till a stipulated sum, forming part of the war indemnity, had
been paid. Officers and men quartered there had made themselves very
much at home, and some did not seem to be on bad terms with the
inhabitants, as in one case, when a bright young fellow on the German
side seemed on particularly good terms with an attractive young lady on
the French side. He and I had got into conversation; he was evidently
pleased to meet a countryman of his (I can be a German occasionally),
and was disposed to be friendly and confidential. "Come with me," he
said; "I will show you the prettiest girl in Saint Denis." I went to see
"the prettiest girl," who, it seemed to me, had been watching for him at
the window, and now came down to the door.

He was a non-commissioned officer in I forget which regiment. When not
in uniform he was a lawyer--for aught I know, a rising young
_Rechtsanwalt_, with plenty of clients. I hope so, for the sake of the
young lady, who was charming, and was as much smitten with him as he was
with her. He had taught her a few German words, which she could not
pronounce without laughing and showing her pretty teeth; she again had
lent him some books from her little library. He spoke French fluently,
and was happy to be put through a course of French literature by his
fair friend.

Love being thicker than blood, I feel sure they eventually got married;
and after so romantic an opening, their story cannot but have proved
interesting. Should anybody care to write it, I think the line to be
taken should be this: They married, and lived "happy ever after"--as