The final tragedy of 1871 (from a repetition of the horror of which, may Heaven preserve France and ourselves!) is no doubt in these days eclipsed by the brutal outrages upon which _Kultur_ is ever improving. What will forty-five more years do? That mechanical invention and chemical discoveries should come into play is, I suppose, inevitable. The strange thing is that the whole coarse-fibred soul of the German seems to be infected by the very potentialities of all these ghastly new discoveries, which seem to urge him on to new cruelties and new crimes. In 1870 he knew how to spare. Witness Paris. Now it is otherwise. Still, to us who lived in those days what will always be known as the Franco-German war remains as a poignantly painful memory; though the ravages of war and the carnage were terrible, it was the parricidal fury of anarchy and its monads which made men’s blood run cold. The Commune, that hideous catastrophe which reversed the unnatural, crime of Saturn—the children murdering and devouring their own parent—ended tragically with the month of May, 1871. One morning I got a note from the Duke of Sutherland, saying that he had received information that the first train would be allowed into Paris the next day, and suggesting that we should go over and see whether we could be of any use. We started the following morning—the Duke, George Crawley, Wright, the Duke’s secretary, and myself; but the train was stopped at Creil that afternoon, and we had to stay there rather miserably for the night. The place was swarming with Prussian soldiery, scowling and truculent-looking, clanking their spurs defiantly all about the station and town. The people returned their evil looks with interest, but it was of no use—they were the masters. _Væ victis!_ It is a terrible sight to see a great people trampled on and tortured by the savagery of a victorious army; but when that army is a Prussian army—ask the Belgians. There was no difficulty the next day; the train started early, and we were in Paris betimes. There were not many cabs at the station, but there was no great competition, so we were soon suited. I got on the box by the driver, as I was curious to hear what he had to say of the siege and the Commune. Strange to say, he, like every Parisian with whom I talked, was far more bitter against the Commune than against the Prussians. After all, men said, the Prussians spared our monuments; the Commune destroyed them. When we arrived arrests were taking place all over the town, and there was still some shooting of men in the streets, though we did not see it. Full of pathetic suggestion were the little heaps of clothes piled up in the squares and at the corners of streets.