XIII. A RELEASE, AN IMPRISONMENT, A HAPPY MEETING PREFACE. I HAVE endeavoured in the following pages to bring before my readers in the form of a tale, the sad history of those eventful and disastrous months, which, commencing with the declaration of war by France against Prussia in July, 1870, terminated with the defeat and destruction of the Commune of Paris in May, 1871. The sufferings and trials of the poor family in the Rue du Dragon, during these terrible days, were neither greater nor less than those of thousands of others at the same period. From the journals and recitals of eye-witnesses, detailing the hardships and miseries endured by the Parisian population, the battles and sorties during the siege, and the fierce and bloody street conflicts under the Commune, which so quickly followed it, I have tried to draw a picture of family life, as it then really existed in the French capital. During those dreary days of privation, misery, and almost every kind of suffering, heroic deeds and selfdenying actions, wrought by many in various ranks of life, stood out in strong contrast to the selfishness, cowardice, and base wickedness of others. illustrative of both will be found in the story. Characters Having passed the month of August, 1870, at Dinan, I write from personal experience of the scenes which occurred there, at that period. |