Part 48 (1/2)

January 3.--The heating of two rooms at the Pavillon de Rohan now costs 10 francs a day.

The Mountaineers' club again demands that Louis Blanc and I be added to the Government in order to direct it. I continue to refuse.

There are at present twelve members of the French Academy in Paris, among them Segur, Mignet, Dufaure, d'Haussonville, Legouve, Cuvillier-Fleury, Barbier and Vitet.

Moon. Intense cold. The Prussians bombarded Saint Denis all night.

From Tuesday to Sunday the Prussians hurled 25,000 projectiles at us.

It required 220 railway trucks to transport them. Each shot costs 60 francs; total, 1,500,000 francs. The damage to the forts is estimated at 1,400 francs. About ten men have been killed. Each of our dead cost the Prussians 150,000 francs.

January 5.--The bombardment is becoming heavier. Issy and Vanves are being sh.e.l.led.

There is no coal. Clothes cannot be washed because they cannot be dried.

My washerwoman sent this message to me through Mariette:

”If M. Victor Hugo, who is so powerful, would ask the Government to give me a little coal-dust, I could wash his s.h.i.+rts.”

Besides my usual Thursday guests I had Louis Blanc, Rochefort and Paul de Saint Victor to dinner. Mme. Jules Simon sent me a Gruyere cheese. An extraordinary luxury, this. We were thirteen at table.

January 6.--At dessert yesterday I offered some bonbons to the ladies, saying as I did so:

_Grace a Boissier, chere colombes, Heureux, a vos pieds nous tombons.

Car on prend les forts par les bombes Et les faibles par les bonbons_.

The Parisians out of curiosity visit the bombarded districts. They go to see the sh.e.l.ls fall as they would go to a fireworks display. National Guards have to keep the people back. The Prussians are firing on the hospitals. They are bombarding Val-de-Grace. Their sh.e.l.ls set fire to the wooden booths in the Luxembourg, which were full of sick and wounded men, who had to be transported, undressed and wrapped up as well as they could be, to the Charite Hospital. Barbieux saw them arrive there about 1 o'clock in the morning.

Sixteen streets have already been hit by sh.e.l.ls.

January 7.--The Rue des Feuillantines, which runs through the place where the garden of my boyhood used to be, is heavily bombarded. I was nearly struck by a sh.e.l.l there.

My washerwoman having nothing to make a fire with, and being obliged to refuse work in consequence, addressed a demand to M. Clemenceau, Mayor of the Ninth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, for some coal, which she said she was prepared to pay for. I endorsed it thus:

”I am resigned to everything for the defence of Paris, to die of hunger and cold, and even to forego a change of s.h.i.+rt. However, I commend my laundress to the Mayor of the Ninth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt.”

And I signed my name. The Mayor gave her the coal.

January 8.--Camille Pelletan brought us good news from the Government.