"Yes, mother," replied Josephine, "and when the real fighting begins, we shall have many anxious days and nights about him. Have you not perceived a change in Louis lately?" "Well, Josephine, he certainly appears more serious and thoughtful, but I attribute that to the sad times in which we live, and to the dangers to which his duties as a soldier expose him." "A Frenchman, mother, is born to be a soldier, and is never so gay as in prospect of a battle," replied Josephine. "No, it is not that, I believe Louis has formed some attachment lately. I know he has twice been to St. Cloud. He is always inquiring and speculating, as to whether the Prussians are likely to take St. Cloud early in the siege; then too he has been asking whether there are lodgings to be had in this house, as well as next door, and all along the street. Depend upon it, mother, Louis is in love." "I should not be sorry, Josephine, if it kept him out of the society of Camille and the Communists." "No, indeed! Camille is worse than ever, Clotilde tells me, he goes every night now to some terrible socialist club, where they make no secret of their plans to plunder the rich, murder the priests, and shut up the churches; war to religion, and to society, is their battle-cry, far more than war against the invader." "Alas! we are now reaping what we have sown," sighed the grandmother; "this is one of the effects of the detestable literature with which our houses have been flooded, which has boldly advocated immorality, and taught that all religion is false, except that of positivists and materialists, telling the workman that he was a poor oppressed victim, and his master a trafficker in slaves." "It is very true what you say, mother," said Madame Laforce. "I thank God that our Louis has as yet been so little corrupted by the society in which he has been thrown, He is a brave lad, and a dutiful son. May God protect him! and the tears started to the mother's eyes. A few days after, Paris was completely invested by the Prussians. The aspect of the city was changed now; people were no longer gay and careless, theatres were all closed by order of the government; provisions had already become dearer, the sound of incessant firing was heard day and night, frequent sorties of the garrison occasioned many deaths among the soldiers, so that dead and wounded men were constantly being brought to the various hospitals and ambulances. On the 23rd, the first balloon post left. On the 1st October came the sad news of the surrender of Strasburg, after its heroic resistance. Paris was a vast camp. Every one, young and old, had enrolled themselves in the National Guard, or among the Mobiles. CHAPTER XI. THE PRUSSIAN SPY. "Men With strength and will to right the wrong'd, of power TENNYSON. NOTWITHSTANDING the investment of the city by the Prussians, the Parisians at this early period of the siege were able-of course with a certain degree of risk-to communicate with some of the suburban villages. The road to St. Cloud was still open. Louis, tormented by his anxiety about Cécile and her father, disappointed and mystified by hearing nothing of them, determined, at all hazards, at the earliest opportunity to make an expedition thither. He said nothing about it to his mother and sister. Possibly, he might fall into the hands of the Prussians, be taken prisoner and shot as a spy; still, anything was preferable to this suspense; he longed to know if Meunier and his daughter were still at St. Cloud, or at all events to obtain some news of them, from their neighbours. It was the evening of the 1st October, the day on which the gloomy news of the surrender of Strasburg had reached Paris. The population was naturally more than usually irritable and discontented, quite ready to wreak their vengeance on any unfortunate victim who might give them the smallest provocation. There were quarrels of all kinds in the cafés on the boulevards; men could not assert different opinions on military or political questions without ending in blows; excited bands, shouting the Marseillaise and Mort aux Prussiens were parading the streets, while the Communists of course were not idle in exciting the people against the government, in order to further their own schemes. Louis had been on duty on the ramparts; his way home led him through one of the worst parts of Paris, the long, steep, winding street of Belleville, which leads from near the beautiful park of Les Buttes Chaumont, down to the boulevards. It was a dull, drizzling evening; the gas-lamps shed a flickering light upon the damp, sloppy pavement, and upon the few melancholy figures trudging along it; here might be seen some poor honest woman with a sad face under her clean white cap, carrying home a scanty meal to her sick children, thus early beginning to feel the privations caused by the siege; there three or four soldiers or National Guards wrapped up in their cloaks walking abreast, returning from, or on their way to, their posts on the walls; or now and then a solitary workman in a blouse, his cap pressed down over his forehead, his eyes bent sullenly on the ground, his morose face and desperate air betraying pretty well the destructive party to which he belonged. Louis had not proceeded far down the street before he heard loud and angry shouts, among which he clearly distinguished the words Un espion Prussien! Mort à l'espion! He soon perceived whence they proceeded, as a large crowd consisting almost entirely of workmen in blouses, with whom a few viciouslooking women were mingled, was assembled before the door of a low disreputable-looking café about a hundred yards off. Louis quickened his steps, and soon reached the group, inquiring of the first man he came up to, the cause of the disturbance. The reply was that a Prussian spy had just been captured; he had been seen prowling about Belleville all day, and on the pretence of seeking for a lodging had been prying into the weak parts of the city, as well as gaining information for the use of his detestable fellow-countrymen, from unsuspecting citizens. “Look, monsieur," said the man to Louis, "there he is inside; they mean to shoot him, those men do; but I begin to think there won't be much life in him to take, if they go on belabouring and half strangling him, as they have been doing for the last ten minutes." Louis gazed over the heads of the crowd, but so thick was the atmosphere, rendered denser by the breath of the people and the smoke of their pipes, that by the pale light of the lamps, he could scarcely distinguish anything in the café, except a confused mass of figures swaying backwards and forwards. Wild and furious cries resounded both from within and without; there were no police in Paris then, the old Gardiens de Paris had been abolished with the empire, the military and the National Guard performed the duty of Police, and under such circumstances very little justice or mercy could be expected for any one, who was accused by the excited multitude, of being that most hateful of all living creatures in their eyes---a Prussian spy. Louis's uniform helped to make a way for him through the crowd, and at last, with great difficulty and exertion, he reached the open door of the café. The first man whom he recognized inside, and who seemed to be the ringleader of the rioters, was his old fellow-workman, Clement Roux the Communist; dirty, with torn clothes, red face, bleared eyes, evidently half drunk, this degraded being was haranguing the rest, and urging them on to acts of violence against a wretched man, who had sunk down upon the ground, evidently fainting under the blows and kicks, which all had in turn bestowed upon him. Louis had a keen sense of honour and fairness, he was disgusted at this brutal spectacle, and whether the man were a Prussian spy or not, he was determined that he should not be murdered by these rascals, without a hearing. He pushed in, using all his strength, forcing his way through the angry, drunken mob, entered the café, drew his sword, and ordered silence. A glance round showed him that there was no one else in uniform present, he was one against a hundred at least. Had any other National Guards or Mobiles been in |