" Another lady, who had installed an ambulance in her house, was
carried off to prison on an equally frivolous pretext; and I remember yet
another case in which a lady patron of the Societe de Secours aux Blesses
was ill-treated. Matters would, however, probably be far worse at the
present time, for Paris, with all her apaches and anarchists, now includes
in her population even more scum than was the case three-and-forty years
ago.
There were, however, a few authentic instances of spying, one case being
that of a young fellow whom Etienne Arago, the Mayor of Paris, engaged as
a secretary, on the recommendation of Henri Rochefort, but who turned out
to be of German extraction, and availed himself of his official position
to draw up reports which were forwarded by balloon post to an agent of the
German Government in London. I have forgotten the culprit's name, but it
will be found, with particulars of his case, in the Paris journals of the
siege days. There was, moreover, the Hardt affair, which resulted in the
prisoner, a former lieutenant in the Prussian army, being convicted of
espionage and shot in the courtyard of the Ecole Militaire.
Co-existent with "spyophobia" there was another craze, that of suspecting
any light seen at night-time in an attic or fifth-floor window to be a
signal intended for the enemy.
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