I saw Paris next in August and September 1871. And these are some of the things that I noted in my diary then:--In the Rue de Rivoli some blocks of houses had been blown up, others burnt, and all more or less damaged. Of the garden front of the Tuileries only the outer walls were left: the New Louvre had been a little damaged, and was being re-roofed: the fire had not reached the Louvre itself. At the Palais Royal, the palace itself had been burnt, but not the shops underneath. Neither the Bourse nor the Opera House was hurt. There was nothing left of the Hôtel de Ville except the outer walls and the chimneys with the statues on them; and these stood out well against the sky. Most of the neighbouring houses had been burnt. There were several shot holes through the Bastille Column. The remains of the Vendôme Column had already been removed, but the base was still there, a good deal broken on the side on which the pillar fell--and the man with the telescope was there as before. The arcade in the Rue de Castiglione was covered with bullet holes. In the Place de la Concorde the statue of Lille had been knocked to pieces by a shell, also one of the fountains--the further from the river--but the Luxor obelisk was safe. Out by the Auteuil Gate every house had been more or less damaged by shells, and a good many had been pulled down for fear of their collapsing. The stone fortifications were not much damaged, but the earthworks above them were covered with shell-holes. For 300 yards outside the fortifications the trees in the Bois de Boulogne had been cut down, but very few of the others had been damaged. Paris has never recovered from that blow, and its slovenliness under the Republic contrasts badly with its smartness in the Second Empire. The damage was made good, but there has been little progress since; and meanwhile Vienna has become the finest town in Europe. Berlin has grown enormously; and the pleasant old town is lost amidst the dreariness of its extensions. It was after the events of 1870 that building started there, and started at Rome also in much the same style. But a style that does not matter in Berlin, is quite exasperating in such a place as Rome. During the siege of Paris there was Aurora Borealis on the nights of 24 and 25 October 1870. I have never seen anything else so brilliant in the sky--the Krakatoa sunsets were nothing to it. A friend of mine was in Paris at the time, and his diary says:--“The colour was blood mixed with water.” People in London--myself among them--fancied that Paris was in flames, and that this was the reflexion in the sky. But, when the Communists did what the Germans did not do, there was no glare visible so far away.