as been proclaimed at the Hotel de Ville, and that
night Paris is illuminated as after a victory.

CHAPTER XXII.

The siege -- The Parisians convinced that the Germans will not
invest Paris -- Paris becomes a vast drill-ground, nevertheless
-- The Parisians leave off singing, but listen to itinerant
performers, though the latter no longer sing the "Marseillaise"
-- The theatres closed -- The Comedie-Francaise and the Opera --
Influx of the Gardes Mobiles -- The Parisian no longer chaffs the
provincial, but does the honours of the city to him -- The
stolid, gaunt Breton and the astute and cynical Normand -- The
gardens of the Tuileries an artillery park -- The mitrailleuse
still commands confidence -- The papers try to be comic -- Food
may fail, drink will not -- My visit to the wine depot at Bercy
-- An official's information -- Cattle in the public squares and
on the outer Boulevards -- Fear with regard to them -- Every man
carries a rifle -- The woods in the suburbs are set on fire --
The statue of Strasburg on the Place de la Concorde -- M.
Prudhomme to his sons -- The men who do not spout -- The French
shopkeeper and bourgeois -- A story of his greed -- He reveals
the whereabouts of the cable laid on the bed of the Seine --
Obscure heroes -- Would-be Ravaillacs and Balthazar Gerards --
Inventors of schemes for the instant annihilation of all the
Germans -- A musical mitrailleuse -- An exhibition and lecture at
the Alcazar -- The last train -- Trains converted into dwellings
for the suburban poor -- Interior of a railway station -- The spy
mania -- Where the Parisians ought to have looked for spies -- I
am arrested as a spy -- A chat with the officer in charge -- A
terrible-looking knife.

In spite of the frequent reports from the provinces that the Germans
were marching on Paris, there were thousands of people in the capital
who seriously maintained that they, the Germans, would not dare to
invest, let alone, shell it. But it must not be inferred, as many
English writers have done, that this confidence was due to a mistaken
view of the Germans' pluck, or their reluctance to beard the "lion" in
his den. Not at all. The Parisians simply credited their foes with the
superstitious love and reverence for "the centre of light and
civilization" which they themselves felt. They did not