One afternoon on the Exchange a great piece of news broke forth; we had gained an immense victory, taken a considerable number of cannons, and made prisoners a whole division. Houses were actually beginning to be decorated, people were embracing one another in the street, when the falsehood of the news had to be acknowledged. There had been no battle. The victory had not seemed natural in the expected order of events, but the sudden contradiction, the trick played on a populace that had been too ready with its rejoicings and had to put off its enthusiasm to another day, struck a chill to my heart. All at once I felt an immense sadness, I felt the quivering wing of some unexampled disaster passing over us. I shall always remember that ill-omened Sunday. It was a Sunday again, and many people must have remembered the radiant Sunday of Magenta. It was early in August; the sunshine had not the young brightness of June. The weather was heavy, great flags of stormcloud weighed upon the city. I was returning from a little town in Normandy, and I was particularly struck by the funereal aspect of Paris. On the boulevards, people were standing about in groups of three or four, and talking in low tones. At last I heard the horrible news: we had been defeated at Wörth, and the torrent of invasion was flowing into France. I never beheld such deep consternation. All Paris was stupefied. What! Was it possible? We were conquered! The defeat seemed to us unjust and monstrous. It not only struck a blow at our patriotism; it destroyed a religion in us. We could not yet measure all the disastrous consequences of this reverse, we still hoped that our soldiers might avenge it; and yet we remained as it were annihilated. The despairing silence of the town was full of a great shame. That day and that evening were frightful. The public gaiety of victorious days was not. Women no longer wore that tender smile, nor did people pass from group to group making friends. Night fell black on this despairing populace. Not a firework in the street; not a lamp at a window. Early on the morrow I saw a regiment going down the boulevard. People were pausing with sad faces, and the soldiers passed, hanging their heads, as if they had had their share in the defeat. Nothing saddened me so much as that regiment, applauded by no one, passing over the same ground where I had seen the army from Italy marching past amid rejoicings that shook the houses.