92 PARIS before. Little remains of what was then still left of old Paris: its crooked streets, close and dark, with their quaint gables, and storied fronts and corner towerets, so rich in histor- ical associations and foul flavors, so pictu- resque, so favorable to popular emeutes and epidemic maladies. In 18(30 the octroi wall was demolished, and the suburban towns and vil- lages grouped around it were annexed to Paris, which took for its boundary the fortifications. The prosperity of Paris seemed at its height ; the luxury of its shops, promenades, theatres, saloons, and court outshone those of all other European capitals ; the general government, of which the city administration was a branch, was deemed by throngs of admiring strangers perfection in its solidity as in other respects, when the declaration of war in July, 1870, suddenly changed the aspect of affairs. On Sept. 4 the empire fell without a drop of blood shed in its defence by its late beneficiaries. The alarmed empress fled to England ; and the rapid progress of the war (see FRANCE) soon brought the advancing German army within a short distance of the city, where the most energetic measures were in progress for defence. On Sept. 19 a sortie under Gen. Ducrot proved fruitless as a means of hindering the advance, and his troops were driven back. In the two weeks following, the investment of Paris by the German armies was made complete. The forces of the besieged at the time of the invest- ment were, according to the Journal Officiel, as follows : the 13th and 14th corps of the line, in round numbers 50,000 men, under Gens. Vinoy and Renault; a corps of government and railway employees and volunteers, and a body of cavalry, in all about 30,000, under Ducrot; 100,000 men of the garde mobile and 10,000 marines, under various commanders; 60 old and 194 new battalions of the national guard; grand total, about 400,000 men. Gen. Trochu, president of the government of the national defence, was commandant of the city. The forces of the besiegers, and their arrange- ment about the city, were as follows: the "third army" (5th, 6th, and llth Prussian corps, two Bavarian and two Wurtemberg corps), under the crown prince of Prussia, embraced the S. and S. E. front from Sevres to the Marne ; and the " army of the Meuse " (12th Saxon and two Prussian corps), under the crown prince (now king) of Saxony, em- braced the N. and N. E. front ; the whole be- sieging force numbering about 220,000 men. On Sept. 20 the Prussian crown prince, and on Oct. 5 the king, took up their headquar- ters at Versailles ; those of the Saxon crown prince were at Grand Tremblay. From Sept. 20 the lines of the Germans were constantly drawn more and more closely about Paris, and the siege from their side presents little more than the regular progress of military opera- tions, hardly interrupted until their success- ful end. Its history from the side of the be- sieged, however, is entirely different. Every expedient for breaking the lines of the besiegers was debated; and desperate but unsuccessful sorties were made on Sept. 30 (Gen. Viuoy with 10,000 men in the direction of Choisy), Oct. 13 (reconnoissance under Trochu toward Chatillon), Oct. 21 (Gens. Noel and others to- ward Bougival, Malmaison, &c.), Oct. 28 (the French capturing Le Bourget, which was recap- tured after a violent conflict on the 30th), Nov. 29 and 30 (fighting at Mont-Mesly, Champigny, Villiers, and Brie, all of which were taken by the French and retaken by the Germans with- in a few days), and Dec. 21 (Trochu toward Le Bourget). On Dec. 27, at 7i A. M., the Ger- mans, who had finally decided upon and pre- pared for this measure, began a vigorous bom- bardment of the city, directing it first of all against the forts on the E. side, the fire of which was practically silenced by Jan. 1. On the 5th of that month the bombardment of the southern' forts was begun, and on that day, too, the first shells fell in the city itself, in the Luxembourg gardens. On the 13th, 14th, and 15th the French made further unsuccessful sorties in various directions ; and on the 19th Trochu once more undertook a grand sally from Mont Valerien and that side of the city, against the German left wing, with more than 100,000 men. An obstinate conflict followed, but the French were finally driven back with heavy loss. All hope of saving the city was now over ; on the 20th Trochu resigned the governorship ; and on the evening of the 23d Jules Favre appeared at Versailles to begin negotiations for the capit- ulation. The terms of the surrender, and the account of the German entry and subsequent events connected with it, are given in the arti- cle FRANCE ; and the account of the great com- munistic insurrection, in which the whole his- tory of the city until the beginning of June is involved, is given in COMMUNE DE PARIS. The suffering in the city during the two sieges was very great, that of the majority of the people being far greater during the German than during the Versaillist investment. At the mo- ment of the former investment its population was in excess of 2,000,000, the depletion by the voluntary and forced withdrawal of many thousands of its ordinary French and foreign inhabitants being more than compensated by the influx of refugees from the neighboring region. The military conduct of the defence is still too much matter of grave and often of passionate discussion to be authoritatively pro- nounced upon here. What is indisputable is, that despite a bombardment of three weeks, which was constantly increasing in intensity, Pa- ris finally capitulated to cold and hunger. The winter was unusually severe. In the latter pe- riod of the siege the daily rations, purchasable of butchers and bakers only on presentation oi a personal certificate, were for an adult about two ounces of horse flesh and less than three- quarters of a pound of bread composed of one part wheat and two parts of whatever else could be got. There was no fixed scale of
