My own German was at
that time very limited, for I had not taken kindly to the study of the
language, and had secured, moreover, but few opportunities to attempt to
converse in it. However, I well remember some of the German soldiers
declaring that they were heartily sick of the siege, and expressing a hope
that the Parisians would speedily surrender, so that they, the Germans,
might return to the Fatherland in ample time to get their Christmas trees
ready. A good-looking and apparently very genial Uhlan also talked to me
about the Parisian balloons, relating that, directly any ascent was
observed, news of it was telegraphed along all the investing lines, that
every man had orders to fire if the aerial craft came approximately within
range, and that he and his comrades often tried to ride a balloon down.
After a wretched night, we washed at the pump in the basket-maker's yard,
and breakfasted off bread and _cafe noir_. Milk, by the way, was as scarce
at Brie as in Paris itself, the Germans, it was said, having carried off
all the cows that had previously supplied France with the far-famed Brie
cheese. We now discovered that, in order to reach Versailles, we should
have to proceed in the first instance to Corbeil, some fifteen miles
distant, when we should be within thirty miles of the German headquarters.
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