They were Bretons, and had been to Mass, I
ascertained, at the church of Notre Dame des Victoires--the favourite
church of the Empress Eugenie, who often attended early Mass there--and
were now returning to their quarters in the arches of the railway viaduct
of the Point-du-Jour. Many people uncovered as they thus went by
processionally, carrying on high their banners of the Virgin, she who is
invoked by the Catholic soldier as "Auzilium Christianorum." For a moment
my thoughts strayed back to Brittany, where, during my holidays the
previous year, I had witnessed the "Pardon" of Guingamp,
In the evening I went to the Boulevards with my father, and we afterwards
dropped into one or two of the public clubs. The Boulevard promenaders had
a good deal to talk about. General Ambert, who under the Empire had been
mayor of our arrondissement, had fallen out with his men, through speaking
contemptuously of the Republic, and after being summarily arrested by some
of them, had been deprived of his command. Further, the _Official Journal_
had published a circular addressed by Bismarck to the German diplomatists
abroad, in which he stated formally that if France desired peace she would
have to give "material guarantees.
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