esh -- The journals deliver their opinions -- The supply
of horseflesh as it stood in '70 -- The Academie des Sciences --
Gelatine -- Kitchen gardens on the balcony -- M. Lockroy's
experiment -- M. Pierre Joigneux and the Englishman -- if
cabbages, why not mushrooms? -- There is still a kitchen garden
left -- Cream cheese from the moon, to be fetched by Gambetta --
His departure in a balloon -- Nadar and Napoleon III. --
Carrier-pigeons -- An aerial telegraph -- Offers to cross the
Prussian lines -- The theatres -- A performance at the Cirque
National -- "Le Roi s'amuse," at the Theatre de Montmartre -- A
dejeuner at Durand's -- Weber and Beethoven -- Long winter nights
without fuel or gas -- The price of provisions -- The Parisian's
good-humour -- His wit -- The greed of the shopkeeper -- Culinary
literature -- More's "Utopia" -- An ex-lieutenant of the Foreign
Legion -- He gives us a breakfast -- He delivers a lecture on
food -- Joseph, his servant -- Milk -- The slender resources of
the poor -- I interview an employe of the State Pawnshop --
Statistics -- Hidden provisions -- Bread -- Prices of provisions
-- New Year's Day, and New Year's dinners -- The bombardment --
No more bread -- The end of the siege.

I am not a soldier, nor in the least like one; hence, I have, almost
naturally, neglected to note any of the strategic and military problems
involved in the campaign and the siege. But, ignorant as I am in these
matters, and notwithstanding the repeated failures of General Trochu's
troops to break through the lines of investment, I feel certain, on the
other hand, that the Germans would have never taken Paris by storming
it. Years before, Von Moltke had expressed his opinion to that effect in
his correspondence, not exactly with regard to the French capital, but
with regard to any fortified centre of more than a hundred thousand
inhabitants. Such an agglomeration, even if severely left alone, and
only shut off from the rest of the world, falls by itself. I am giving
the spirit and not the substance of his words.

Consequently, there is no need to say, that, to the mere social
observer, the problems raised by the food-supply were perhaps the most
interesting. Even under normal conditions, the average Parisian in his
method of feeding is worth studying; he is supposed to be one of the
most abstemious creatures on the ci