Of peace on earth, goodwill to men !"-LONGfellow. A STRANGE sight did that church present on the following morning. The nave and aisles strewn with beds, upon which lay wan and emaciated figures, their countenances distorted by agony, uttering groans and sobs enough to melt the hardest heart; the good sisters of charity and Christian brothers moving noiselessly about from one to the other, doing all in their power to comfort, to cheer, and to ease the pain of these poor soldiers, while in the chancel the Altar was lighted up and adorned with flowers in honour of the great Christmas festival, the choristers were singing their Christmas anthems, and the sweet notes of the Adeste Fideles were mingled with the groans of the wounded, and the last sighs of the dying.

When the Mass had been said, the priests devoted themselves to the spiritual needs of the poor sufferers around; they went from one to the other, now hearing a poor soldier's penitent confession, now administering the last Sacrament to a dying

man, cheering and consoling some, exhorting others to patience under their severe sufferings, but pointing all to Him Who with tender compassion listens to each sigh and groan of His children, Who is touched with the feeling of all our infirmities, and Who as on that day was born into a world of sin and trouble, that He might take upon Him our nature, bear our griefs and carry our sorrows, giving us by His blessed example, and by His strengthening spirit within us, grace to endure as He endured, so that we, at last made perfect through suffering, should share with Him the rest and joys of the heavenly Paradise.

Though it was a sadder Christmas than perhaps any there present had ever before experienced, yet the great mystery of the Incarnation had never come home with such power, reality, and comfort to the hearts of the sufferers as it did on that occasion. Cécile observed among the priests the venerable figure of the good Abbé Desilles, who had been such a true friend to herself and her father in their days of trial; she waited till he had finished giving the Viaticum to a dying soldier, and then beckoned him to Louis' side. After a night of delirium, the poor fellow had sunk early in the morning into a restless slumber. He was now awake, sensible but exhausted, his mother sat by his bedside.

One of the first questions he asked was how it fared with the young German. Madame Laforce dared not tell him the truth, fearing the deep grief and violent emotion it would cause him; she told him, therefore, that he must not speak, but keep very quiet: just at that moment the abbé came to his bedside, his mother moving a little distance off in order that she might leave her son alone with the priest, who now knelt beside him. Louis whispered a few words into the good man's ear, the abbé bent affectionately over him, he was evidently speaking very seriously and lovingly to the poor young soldier,- for Louis had told him how latterly he had been led astray, how he had neglected his religious duties, forgotten and

been ashamed of His Saviour; how he had allowed religion to be scoffed at, and ridiculed in his presence, if he had not actually taken part in the mockery himself. He felt that perhaps his last hour was approaching, and he remembered how sinful he had been in laughing at Pierre for his religion, sneering sometimes at his good old grandmother's pious remarks and encouraging the infidel and socialist jibes of Camille. He told the abbé now how sorry he was for all these faults, and how deeply he repented of his sinfulness in this and other respects. So earnest and heart-felt was his contrition, that the good priest felt justified in administering the Blessed Sacrament to the young soldier, who was ashamed indeed when he recalled how long ago it was since he had last received it. His mother, sister, and Cécile too, knelt by the bedside, and thus all together made their Christmas Communion. How greatly did all need that strengthening Food in the blessed, but arduous work and labour of love which they had undertaken.

Very great were the changes which the last few months of trial had wrought in this family. The formerly so comely Madame Laforce, the picture of health and activity, was now bent in form, grey-haired, and wrinkled. Already had she been

She might ere long

obliged to deplore the loss of a mother. too, it seemed, have to weep over the grave of an only son. Josephine, completely worn out by her hospital duties, was pale and emaciated, but the energy which work in a good and holy cause alone can give beamed forth in her bright eye, and was evident in her quick and active step. Cécile's wan cheeks betrayed that she, too, had borne no slight part in those privations which labour in a military hospital, in war time, must entail. Anxiety, too, for Louis was now added to her other trials; of her father, moreover, she saw but little; he was constantly on the ramparts, or engaged in some expedition with his regiment, but her faithful dog was still at her side ;-poor Nero! he looked sadly different from when he first came into

Paris on the morning after he had been separated from his mistress. He, too, was feeling the privations of the siege, he was lean and gaunt, his skin hung quite loosely on him; Cécile indeed gave him all the food she could spare, but that was very little. He was constantly exposed to danger, too, for even a lean dog in those days was a great prize for the starving Parisians; there were marauders ever on the look out to seize and carry off any stray member of the canine race to the nearest butcher's-once indeed poor Nero's doom would have been sealed, had it not been for Cécile's interposition, for three men had seized the dog, and though he had terribly bitten them in his struggles, they succeeded in getting him into a bag, in which they were dragging him off to the slaughter; his cries, however, reached Cécile, who was in the church close by, and with two of the "ambulanciers" present to back up her demand,-by force if needful,-she claimed her faithful companion, and after some demur he was delivered up to her.

After the Abbé Desilles had left him, Louis again sank to sleep; the surgeon pronounced him slightly better, and trusted that he might be removed home on the morrow. During his slumber the Protestant pastor had returned to the church to arrange for the removal of the body of the young Prussian. It was taken away in the course of the day, and buried in the Protestant portion of the cemetery of Père Lachaise, Pastor Herder reading the Lutheran service. The bed was immediately occupied by another patient. And so that sad Christmas Day passed away. Louis still remained in the hospital, his mother continuing by his side.

Not long after the disastrous struggle at Le Bourget, where Louis had received his wound, cold weather set in with extreme severity, so keen and bitter indeed was it, that it seemed to burn the feet and hands and face, and to freeze up the poor soldier to his very marrow. There had not been such a cruel The Seine was covered with huge

winter for twenty years.

blocks of ice, the soil, frozen to the depth of twenty inches, was so hard, that it was impossible to dig trenches. Fifty sentinels were frozen to death at their posts; there were 1200 cases of severe frost-bite in the hospitals, many of which proved fatal. While the Prussians, well wrapped up in sheepskins, sheltered themselves in the holes they had dug in the earth, the poor ill-clothed French sentries throwing round them any bed coverlets or linen they could lay hold of, shivered beneath the severity of the icy blast. Discontent was joined to fatigue and sickness. Within the city the mortality was terrible. The stock of coal was exhausted, and the supply of firewood was already running short. There was little to eat but coarse bread and horseflesh; 500,000 people were said to be in such distress as to need government relief, and this figure did not include thousands of tradesmen's families and hard-working members of professions, ashamed to throw themselves on public charity, and preferring to starve in secret. With all this, scarcely a murmur was to be heard. The people submitted to their hard fate, to cold and hunger, and long dark nights void of amusement, with a cheerfulness which was sublime. They thought, indeed, with a melancholy bitterness, of former happy Christmastides, of the boulevards gay with brilliantly lighted shops, of the elegant equipages which rolled through them in thousands, of the happy crowds on their pavements--but they thought with greater sadness on those who had been with them last Christmas, and now-where were they? Husbands and fathers separated from wives and children, whom they had sent away for safety, and had heard nothing of for weeks and months -wives and mothers whose husbands and sons were fighting for France in the south or west, exposed to every hardship and cold, or perhaps languishing in some Prussian prison, but from whom not a word of greeting, no tidings whatever, could be obtained.

On the 27th December, the surgeon expressed his opinion that Louis might be removed from the hospital church to his own