Part 68

O mesdames les hétaires Dans vos greniers, je me nourris: Moi qui mourais de vos sourires, Je vais vivre de vos souris.

After next week there will be no more washing done in Paris, because there is no more coal.

Lieutenant Farcy, commander of the gunboat, dined with me.

It is bitterly cold. For three days I have worn my cloak and hood whenever I have had to go out.

A doll for little Jeanne. A basketful of toys for Georges.

Shells have begun to demolish the Fort of Rosny. The first shell has fallen in the city itself. The Prussians to-day fired 6,000 shells at us.

In the Fort of Rosny a sailor working at the gabions was carrying a sack of earth. A shell knocked it off his shoulder. “Much obliged,” commented the sailor, “but I wasn’t tired.”

Alexandre Dumas died on December 5. On looking over my notebook I see that it was on December 5 that a large hearse with an “H” on it passed before me in the Rue Frochot.

We have no longer even horse to eat. *Perhaps* it is dog? *Maybe* it is rat? I am beginning to suffer from pains in the stomach. We are eating the unknown!

M. Valois, representing the Société des Gens de Lettres, came to ask me what was to be done with the 3,000 francs remaining from the proceeds of the three readings of Les Châtiments, the guns having been delivered and paid for. I told him that I wanted the whole amount turned over to Mme. Jules Simon for the fund for the victims of the war.

January 1, 1871.--Louis Blanc has addressed to me through the newspapers a letter upon the situation.

Stupor and amazement of little Georges and little Jeanne at their basketful of New Year presents. The toys, when unpacked from the basket, covered a large table. The children touched all of them and did not know which to take. Georges was nearly furious with joy. Charles remarked: “It is the despair of joy!”

I am hungry. I am cold. So much the better. I suffer what the people are suffering.

Decidedly horse is not good for me. Yet I ate some. It gives me the gripes. I avenged myself at dessert with the following distich:

Mon diner m’inquiete et même me harcêle, J’ai mange du cheval et je songe a la selle.

The Prussians are bombarding Saint Denis.

January 2.--Daumier and Louis Blanc lunched with us.

Louis Koch gave to his aunt as a New Year gift a couple of cabbages and a brace of living partridges!

This morning we lunched on wine soup. The elephant at the Jardin des Plantes has been slaughtered. He wept. He will be eaten..

The Prussians continue to send us 6,000 bombs a day.

January 3.--The heating of two rooms at the Pavillon de Rohan now costs 10 francs a day.

The Mountaineers’ club again demands that Louis Blanc and I be added to the Government in order to direct it. I continue to refuse.

There are at present twelve members of the French Academy in Paris, among them Ségur, Mignet, Dufaure, d’Haussonville, Legouvé, Cuvillier-Fleury, Barbier and Vitet.

Moon. Intense cold. The Prussians bombarded Saint Denis all night.

From Tuesday to Sunday the Prussians hurled 25,000 projectiles at us. It required 220 railway trucks to transport them. Each shot costs 60 francs; total, 1,500,000 francs. The damage to the forts is estimated at 1,400 francs. About ten men have been killed. Each of our dead cost the Prussians 150,000 francs.

January 5.--The bombardment is becoming heavier. Issy and Vanves are being shelled.

There is no coal. Clothes cannot be washed because they cannot be dried. My washerwoman sent this message to me through Mariette:

“If M. Victor Hugo, who is so powerful, would ask the Government to give me a little coal-dust, I could wash his shirts.”