'I went to Lyons, where the red flag was flying from the Town Hall, but where the feeling in favour of continuing the war was just as strong as in the districts of the tricolour. I then crossed France to Tours, where I saw M. Crémieux, a Jew, the representative of the Government outside Paris, Gambetta not having yet descended from his balloon.... 'I visited the camp of the Army of the Loire, of which the organization was commencing, saw Lord Lyons and Sheffield, his secretary, near Tours, and took despatches for them to Calais by Rouen and Amiens. They included the correspondence of Mme. de Pourtalès and Mme. de Metternich. The railways were in terrible confusion--National Guards moving, people flying before the Prussians, no food. I was three days and three nights on this little bit of road, and slept on tables in waiting-rooms at Vierzon and elsewhere. Passports were strictly demanded at this time on leaving as well as on entering France. When I reached Calais I found that the boat (and even that boat one with no passengers) would leave about 4 a.m., after the arrival of mails by sea. The inspection of my passport could only take place, I was told, when the boat was starting. It was midnight, the gates of the town were shut and drawbridges up, and the hotel at the station had been closed for lack of visitors. Watching my time, I dropped on board the steamer from off the quay, when the coastguardsman's head was turned, and, finding a deck-cabin unlocked, I popped in and bolted the door, going fast asleep, and woke only when we were outside the harbour in the grey light of early morning, which shows that passport regulations can be evaded. All through the war Prussian spies could get into France with ease, without any need of false papers, by visiting the Savoy coast of Lake Leman as Swiss peasants. I was not called upon to show my papers when I passed from the Germans to the French by way of Basle, Ouchy, and Evian.' Sir Charles here concludes the story of his French adventures of this year by giving his judgment of that moment upon the-- 'events which will never be forgotten by those of my time ... the downfall of the most magnificent imposture of any age--the Second Empire....