It was at one o'clock on the afternoon of September 19 that the telegraph wires between Paris and Versailles, the last which linked us to the outside world, were suddenly cut by the enemy; the town so closely associated with the Grand Monarque and his magnificence having then surrendered to a very small force of Germans, although it had a couple of thousand men--Mobile and National Guards--to defend it. The capitulation which was arranged between the mayor and the enemy was flagrantly violated by the latter almost as soon as it had been concluded, tins being only one of many such instances which occurred during the war. Versailles was required to provide the invader with a number of oxen, to be slaughtered for food, numerous casks of wine, the purpose of which was obvious, and a large supply of forage valued at L12,000. After all, however, that was a mere trifle in comparison with what the present Kaiser's forces would probably demand on landing at Hull or Grimsby or Harwich, should they some day do so. By the terms of the surrender of Versailles, however, the local National Guards were to have remained armed and entrusted with the internal police of the town, and, moreover, there were to have been no further requisitions. But Bismarck and Moltke pooh-poohed all such stipulations, and the Versaillese had to submit to many indignities. In Paris that day the National Defence Government was busy in various ways, first in imposing fines, according to an ascending scale, on all absentees who ought to have remained in the city and taken their share of military duty; and, secondly, in decreeing that nobody with any money lodged in the Savings Bank should be entitled to draw out more than fifty francs, otherwise two pounds, leaving the entire balance of his or her deposit at the Government's disposal. This measure provoked no little dissatisfaction. It was also on September 19, the first day of the siege, that the last diplomatic courier entered Paris. I well remember the incident. Whilst I was walking along the Faubourg Saint Honore I suddenly perceived an open _caleche_, drawn by a pair of horses, bestriding one of which was a postillion arrayed in the traditional costume--hair a la Catogan, jacket with scarlet facings, gold-banded hat, huge boots, and all the other appurtenances which one saw during long years on the stage in Adolphe Adam's sprightly but "impossible" opera-comique "Le Postillon de Longjumeau." For an instant, indeed, I felt inclined to hum the famous refrain, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, qu'il etait beau"--but many National Guards and others regarded the equipage with great suspicion, particularly as it was occupied by on individual in semi-military attire. Quite a number of people decided in their own minds that this personage must be a Prussian spy, and therefore desired to stop his carriage and march him off to prison. As a matter of fact, however, he was a British officer, Captain