What a quantity of luggage! Even those who had the good fortune of witnessing the emigration before the siege would never have supposed that there could be so much luggage in Paris. Well-to-do looking trunks with brass ornaments, black wooden boxes, hairy trunks, leathern hat-boxes, and cardboard bonnet-boxes, portmanteaux and carpet bags are piled up on vehicles of every description, of which more than ten thousand block up the roads leading to the railway stations. Everybody is wild to get away; it is whispered about that the Commune, the horrid Commune, is about to issue a decree forbidding the Parisians to quit Paris. So all prudent individuals are making off, with their bank-notes and shares in their pocket-books. I see a man I know, walking very fast, wearing a troubled expression on his face. I ask him where he is going.—“you do not know what has happened to me?” he cries. I confess I do not.—“The most extraordinary thing: I am condemned to death!”—“You!” I exclaim.—“Yes! by the Commune!”—“And wherefore?” I ask.—“Because I write on the _Figaro_.”—“Why, I never knew that!”—“Oh! not very often; but last year I addressed a letter to the Editor, to explain to him that my new farce called ‘My Aunt’s Garters’ had nothing at all to do with ‘My Uncle’s Braces,’ which is by somebody else. You understand that I did not want to change the title, which is rather good of its kind, so I wrote to the _Figaro_, and as my letter was inserted, and as the Commune condemns all the contributors.... You see ...!”—“Perfectly! Why, my dear fellow, you ought to have been off before. Of course you go to Versailles?”—“Why, yes.”—“By the railway?” I cannot help having a joke at his expense.—“Yes, of course.”—“Well, if I were you, I would not, really; the engine might blow up, or you might run into a luggage train. Such things do happen in the best of times, and I think the Commune capable of anything to get rid of so dangerous an adversary.”—“You don’t mean to say,” says the poor little, man in a tremor, “that they would go to such lengths! Well, at any rate I will travel by the road.”[29]