It was calculated that on a fierce day of firing the Germans shot away 10 tons of powder, and nearly 200 tons of heavy matter--iron and steel--were hurled upon the forts and city in twenty-four hours. There is a story of the Crown Prince of Prussia which illustrates his kindness of heart. In the 3rd Würtemberg Dragoons was a certain Jacob, who had an aged and anxious father. This father had not heard from his son Jacob for so long a time that the old man, in his rustic simplicity, sat down and laboriously wrote a letter to the Crown Prince, asking, “Can Your Highness find out anything about my son?” The old man knew his son had fought at Wörth and at Sedan, but nothing later than Sedan. The Crown Prince did not throw this letter into the waste-paper basket, but sent it to the officer commanding the 3rd Würtembergers, requesting that the old man’s mind should be set at ease. Jacob was sent for by his commanding officer and asked why he had not written home. “Do you know that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince wants to know why you have not written home for many weeks?” The man saluted. His purple face was a study. “Go and write instantly, and bring the envelope to me, sirrah.” How that story got about among the men! How often has the same experience come to house-masters, when some loving mother appeals for help: “Please make Harry write home.” Both Harry and Fritz need a touch of the spur at times, but how promptly the letter is written when they feel that touch! The town of St. Denis suffered terribly. The front of the theatre was in ruins. The cathedral, being banked up high with sand-bags, had not suffered so much. The tombs of the kings had all been thus protected, so had the statues, and not even a nose had been knocked off. But the bombardment had shattered many houses and churches, and the shells had ploughed up the streets, or rather hoed them into holes. It was only in the cold and dark cellars that safety could be found. Even there people were not always safe, and when they were pressed to take refuge in Paris they peeped forth shuddering, and swore they would rather die in their own cellars than sally forth through a tempest of shell-fire. “At nine o’clock on the evening of the 28th of January, 1871, while the Head-quarters Staff of the Maes Army were assembled in the drawing-rooms of the Crown Prince’s château after dinner, an orderly brought in a telegram to the Crown Prince. His Royal Highness, having read it, handed it to General von Schlottheim, the Chief of the Staff. That officer perused it in his turn, and then rising, walked to the door communicating between the billiard-room and the saloon, and there read the telegram aloud. It was from the Emperor, and it announced that, two hours before, Count Bismarck and M. Jules Favre had set their hands to a convention, in terms of which an armistice to last for twenty-one days had already come into effect.”