the Prussians in clusters like bees below him, and, with a telescope, could distinctly see them pointing cannon at him. He saw the balls ascend almost perpendicularly into the air, exhaust their impetus, and then fall to the ground. Some of the balls arrived high enough to make the balloon vibrate perceptibly. Infantry fired at him with their rifles almost all the way from Paris to Mantes, but he was entirely out of their range. He distinctly saw the Prussian army in the valley of the Seine, in seven lines, flanked by cavalry. After a voyage of about three-quarters of an hour, he judged that he must have got far enough to come down in safety, and, by a curious coincidence, he descended in the park of a château near Evreux, belonging to Admiral Roncière La Noury, afterwards in command of the sailors who manned the forts of Paris. M. Duruof was furnished with an authority from the Postmaster-General, and had orders to give his despatches to nobody but a Prefect or a General, and to destroy them rather than let them fall into the hands of any other person." He was fortunately enabled to take them on to Tours. Sometimes, however, the balloons descended inopportunely among the Germans, and when they contained official despatches this was a serious misfortune to the French.
Paris was formally invested on the 25th of September, 1870, and after that balloons and carrier-pigeons became the sole means of communication between the unfortunate city and the outside world. So thoroughly, however, were the two methods worked, that the authorities of Paris and Tours contrived to keep each other fully informed of everything that was being designed or accomplished. Balloons left and entered the beleagured city almost daily; and in addition to the mails being transmitted with
