PREFACE. A S the ceaseless, dreary rain after a severe thunderstorm, when clap has succeeded clap with fearful rapidity, so, after the mighty struggles of the first weeks of the Franco-German War, followed the monotonous siege of Paris. And like the wanderer who, during the first violence of the storm, has gladly renounced all idea of pursuing his journey, to seek shelter under some friendly roof, as the echoes of the last thunderclap die away, looking again and again from the window on the misty landscape, impatient for the rain to cease, so we waited and watched for the hour which should conduct us to our hearths and homes in the brilliant rays of the Sun of Peace. But week after week, and month after month passed by, and no white flag appeared upon the walls of the forts. |