em, and scarcely
spoke to one another. As a matter of course, they were scattered all
over the place, in groups of three and four. I noticed that there was an
exceedingly strong contingent of sergents de ville, and several couples
of officiers de paix--what in England we should call superintendents of
police. The latter had evidently received particular instructions, for
they had posted, as much as possible, a sergent de ville close to every
group. At first I mistook the drift of the supervision, but it was soon
explained to me when one of the officiers de paix came up to a group
somewhat larger than the others. "Messieurs," he said very politely,
"vous etes Allemands, et je vous prierai de vous mettre ensemble, afin
de pouvoir vous proteger, s'il y a besoin." I heard afterwards that,
amidst all his weighty occupations, the Emperor himself had given orders
to have the Germans especially protected, as he feared some violence on
the part of the Parisians.

During the next week the excitement did not abate, but, save for some
minor incidents, it was the same thing over and over again: impromptu
processions along the main thoroughfares to the singing of the
"Marseillaise" and the "Chant du Depart," until the crowds had got by
heart Alfred de Musset's "Rhin Allemand," of which, until then, not one
in a thousand had ever heard.

Meanwhile the news had spread of the suicide of Prevost-Paradol, the
newly appointed French ambassador at Washington, and the republicans
were trying to make capital out of it. According to them, it was
political shame and remorse at having deserted his colours, despair at
the turn events were taking, that prompted the step. These falsehoods
have been repeated until they became legends connected with the fall of
the Second Empire. To the majority of Englishmen, Prevost-Paradol is not
even a name; talented as he was, Frenchmen would have scarcely known
more about him if some politicians, for purposes of their own, had not
chosen to convert him into a self-immolated martyr to the Imperialist
cause--or, rather, to that part of the cause which aimed at the recovery
of the left banks of the Rhine. I knew Prevost-Paradol, and he was only
distinguished from hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen in that his
"France Nouvelle" was a magnificent attempt to spur his countrymen's
ambition in that direction; but this very fact is an additional argument
against the alleged cause of his self-destruction. He shot himsel