now so imperfectly restored, was a piteous sight.  The flames had gone out for want of fuel.  We could see the sky through holes in the roof.  The organ-front was leaning over, pierced with strange gaps; the clock escaped as by miracle; and the mighty saints, who had been praying for centuries in the stained windows, were scattered upon the floor.  On the 25th the systematic firing of the faubourgs began, and the city was filled with the choking smell of burning goods:  on the 28th the citadel was kindled.”

[Illustration:  Beauty’s quintessence.]

“And what opposition,” I naturally demanded, “were you able to make to all this?  I believe your forces were greatly shortened?”

“We were as short as you can think, sir.  Most of the garrison had been withdrawn by MacMahon.  The soldiers still among us were miserably demoralized by the entrance of the fugitives from Woerth.  Our defence was the strangest of mixtures.  The custom-house officers were armed and mobilized:  the naval captain Dupetit-Thouars happened to be in the walls, with some of the idle marine.  Colonel Fievee, with his pontoneers, hurriedly tore up the bridge of boats leading over to Kehl, and united himself with the garrison.  From the outbreak of the war we civilians had been invited to form a garde nationale, but never was there a greater farce.  We were asked to choose our own grades, and when I begged to be made colonel, they inquired if I would not prefer to be lieutenant or adjutant.  Most of us, those at least who had voted against the imperial candidates, never received a gun.  Our artillery, worthy of the times of Louis XIV., scolded in vain from the ramparts against the finest cannons in the world, and we were obliged to watch the Prussian trenches pushing toward the town, and to hear the bullets beginning to fall where at first were only bombs.”

“The capitulation was then imminent.”

“There were a few incidents in the mean time.  The deputation from Switzerland, of ever-blessed memory, entered the city on the eleventh of September.  Angels from heaven could not have been more welcome.  You know that a thousand of our inhabitants passed over into Switzerland under conduct of the delegate from Berne, Colonel Bueren, and that they were received like brothers.  From Colonel Bueren also we learned for the first time about Sedan, the disasters of Bazaine and MacMahon, and the hopelessness of the national cause.  We learned that, while they were crowning with flowers the statue of our city in Paris, they had no assistance but handsome words to send us.  Finally, we learned the proclamation of the French republic—­a republic engendered in desolation, and so powerless to support its distant provinces!  We too had our little republican demonstration, and on the 20th of September the prefect they had sent us from Paris, M. Valentin, came dashing in like a harlequin, after running the gauntlet of a thousand dangers, and ripped out of his sleeve his official voucher from Gambetta.  Alas! we were a republic for only a week, but that week of fettered freedom still dwells like an elixir in some of our hearts.  For eight days I, a born Switzer, saw the Rhine a republican river.”