Thus spoke George, in his indignation; and Marie Anne, after listening to him, said: "Ah, it is too true! Those men did deceive us; and they did not even pay their debts. Some fine morning, when their bill had run up, three-fourths of them would make a start, and they were never heard of again. I have never had any confidence in any of them, except the crossing-sweepers and the shoe-blacks: one knew where to find them; but as for the professors, the newspaper correspondents, the inventors, the book-worms--they have done us too many bad turns; and they were too overbearing. They were filled with hatred and envy of our nation." Since the departure of the Landwehr, we were able to speak more freely: those sulky eavesdroppers were no longer spying upon us, and we felt the relief. Paris, as we saw in the _Independance_, was making sorties. The Gardes Mobiles and the National Guards were being drilled and becoming better skilled in the use of arms. Our sailors, in the forts, were admirable. But the Germans grew stronger from day to day; they had brought such enormous guns--called Krupp's--that the railways were unable to bear them, the tunnels were not high enough to give them passage, and the bridges gave way under their ponderous mass. This proves that if the bombardment had not yet commenced, in spite of the innumerable petitions of _the good Germans_, it was not for want of will on the part of his Majesty King William, Messieurs Moltke, Bismarck, and all those good men. Oh, no! our forts and our sorties hampered them a good deal in gaining their positions! At last, about the end of December, "by the grace of God," as the Emperor William said, they began by bombarding a few forts, and were soon enabled to reach houses, hospitals, churches, and museums. George and Marie Anne knew all these places by name, and these ferocious acts drew from them cries of horror. I, my wife, and Gredel could not understand these accounts: having never been in Paris, we could not form an idea of it. The German news-writers knew them, however; for daily they told us how great a misfortune it was to be obliged to shell such rich libraries, such beautiful galleries of pictures, such magnificent monuments, and gardens so richly stocked with plants and rare collections; that it made their hearts bleed: they professed themselves inconsolable at being driven to such an extremity by the evil dispositions of those who presumed to defend their property, their homes, their wives, their children, contrary to every principle of justice! They pitied the French for their want of common-sense; they said that their brains were addled; that they were in their dotage, and uttered similar absurdities.