XXVI.
Anyone whose way led him daily past the fortifications could see,
however technically ignorant he might be, that they were exceedingly
insignificant. Constantly, too, one heard quoted Trochu's words: "I
don't delude myself into supposing that I can stop the Prussians with
the matchsticks that are being planted on the ramparts." Strangely
enough, Paris shut herself in with such a wall of masonry that in
driving through it in the Bois de Boulogne, there was barely room for a
carriage with two horses. They bored loop-holes in these walls and
ramparts, but few doubted that the German artillery would be able to
destroy all their defences with the greatest ease.
Distribute arms to the civil population, as the papers unanimously
demanded, from readily comprehensible reasons, no one dared to do. The
Empress' Government had to hold out for the existing state of things;
nevertheless, in Paris,--certainly from about the 8th August,--people
were under the impression that what had been lost was lost irrevocably.
I considered it would be incumbent upon my honour to return to Denmark,
if we were drawn into the war, and I lived with this thought before my
eyes. I contemplated with certainty an approaching revolution in France;
I was vexed to think that there was not one conspicuously great and
energetic man among the leaders of the Opposition, and that such a poor
wretch as Rochefort was once more daily mentioned and dragged to the
front.
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