Mr. Labouchere was a famous raconteur and of the reminiscences he loved to recount there was no more riveting a series than the one relating his experiences as a journalist during the siege of Paris. According to the _Times_[1] nothing that he ever achieved in journalism or literature excelled or perhaps equalled the letters of a "Besieged Resident," which he sent from Paris to the _Daily News_, in the autumn and winter of 1870 and 1871. The correspondent of the _Daily News_ in Paris at that period was the late Mr. George Morland Crawford, who had occupied the position since 1851. Mr. Crawford had already made Mr. Labouchere's acquaintance in the early sixties, when the latter was an attaché at Frankfort, and they had met again later on at Homburg. It had been the intention of Mr. Crawford to remain at his post in Paris, when an unexpected offer from Henry Labouchere to replace him temporarily caused him to alter his plans. Mrs. Crawford has given a graphic account[2] of how Labouchere took her husband's place as correspondent. He had been in Paris with the exception of some excursions into the country for several weeks, and had invited {120} Mr. Crawford to dine with him at Durand's on the night of September 17. The party was to have included Aurélien Scholl, celebrated then as a wit, Got of the Comédie Française, Dr. Alan Herbert, and Mr. Frank Lawley. However, the uncertainty of immediate events and the general rush of departure from the capital obliged Labouchere to put off his party. He went at about six o'clock to the Café du Vaudeville to find Mr. Crawford--first to tell him that the dinner was countermanded, and then to propose to take his place as correspondent in Paris, whilst he, Mr. Crawford, should go to Tours. Mrs. Crawford happened to be with her husband at the café, and she thus describes the impression Labouchere made upon her: "Labby looked a young man on this, to me, memorable evening, but, at the close of the siege, frightened Odo Russell by looking almost an old one. Before my husband, who was writing, introduced us he began to talk to me and I could not make him out, but at once enjoyed his company. He had a very pleasing and intelligent face, I thought spoke a little like an American (he had been escorting a party of American young ladies to Rouen), had high caste manners, but with naturalness, and much that was the reverse of that affectation of owlish wisdom or cordial dodgery then rife in the diplomatic world. I saw that he was somebody, both on his own account, and from education, and thought that he might be some Don brought up in England, who had made himself the president of a South American Republic."