Napoleon III and
his confidential advisers well knew, however, what to think on that point,
and the delusions of the man in the street departed when, on July 20,
Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt announced their intention
of supporting Prussia and the North German Confederation. Still, this did
not dismay the Parisians, and the shouts of "To Berlin! To Berlin!" were
as frequent as ever.
It had long been one of my dreams to see and participate in the great
drama of war. All boys, I suppose, come into the world with pugnacious
instincts. There must be few, too, who never "play at soldiers." My own
interest in warfare and soldiering had been steadily fanned from my
earliest childhood. In the first place, I had been incessantly confronted
by all the scenes of war depicted in the _Illustrated Times_ and the
_Illustrated London News_, those journals being posted to me regularly
every week whilst I was still only a little chap at Eastbourne. Further,
the career of my uncle, Frank Vizetelly, exercised a strange fascination
over me. Born in Fleet Street in September, 1830, he was the youngest of
my father's three brothers. Educated with Gustave Dore, he became an
artist for the illustrated Press, and, in 1850, represented the
_Illustrated Times_ as war-artist in Italy, being a part of the time with
the French and at other moments with the Sardinian forces.
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