M. Thiers had during his long life been a collector of pictures, bronzes, books, manuscripts, and curious relics.  His house in the Place Saint-Georges was a museum of these treasures, but a museum so arranged that it contributed to sociability and the enjoyment of his visitors.  He had acquired this taste for collecting in his early days at Aix.  During the Commune his house was razed to the ground, not one stone being left upon another.

When the Commune put forth its decree for this act of vandalism, Thiers’ consternation was pathetic.  The ladies of his family did everything that feminine energy and ingenuity could suggest to avert the calamity.  But when the destruction had taken place, Thiers bore his loss with dignity.  His collections were very fine, but he had always been afraid of their being damaged, and did not show them to strangers.  When the Commune sent the painter Courbet to appraise their value, he estimated the bronzes alone at $300,000.[1] M. Thiers’ collection of Persian, Chinese, and Japanese curios was also almost unique.  After the overthrow of the Commune, Madame Thiers and her sister did their utmost to recover such of these treasures as had passed into the hands of dealers.  Many of these men gave back their purchases, and none demanded extravagant prices.  A great deal was recovered, and the house on the Place Saint-Georges was rebuilt at the public cost.

[Footnote 1:  Le Figaro.]

It was on the 5th of September, 1872, that the last German soldier quitted France and the five milliards of francs (in our money a thousand millions of dollars) had been paid.[1]

[Footnote 1:  When looking over letters and papers concerning this period, I found among them many original notes from M. and Madame Thiers.  They all had broad black borders.  I learned afterwards that Thiers and his family used mourning paper so long as a single German soldier remained on French soil.  Thiers’ writing was thick and splashy.  He always wrote with a quill pen.  Early in life he had, like Sir Walter Raleigh, projected a History of the World; and as he never wrote of anything whose locality he had not seen, he had made his preparations to circumnavigate the globe, when he was arrested by the state of public affairs while on his way to Havre.]

I borrow the words of another writer speaking of this supreme effort on the part of France:—­

“After the most frightful defeat of modern times, with one third of her territory in the enemy’s hands, with her capital in insurrection, and her available army all required to restore order, France in eighteen months paid a fine equal to one fourth of the English National Debt; elected a bourgeois of genius to her head; obeyed him on points on which she disagreed with him; and endured a foreign occupation without giving one single pretext for real severity....  The people of France had no visible chiefs; the only two men who rose to the occasion were M. Thiers and