On their side, Frenchmen could not believe that their great capital, with its bulwarks and ring of outer forts, could be taken; while the Germans--so it seems from the Diary of General von Blumenthal--looked forward to its speedy capitulation.

One man there was who saw the pressing need of foreign aid.

M.Thiers (whose personality will concern us a little later) undertook to go on a mission to the chief Powers of Europe in the hope of urging one or more of them to intervene on behalf of France.
The details of that mission are, of course, not fully known.

We can only state here that Russia now repaid Prussia's help in crushing the Polish rebellion of 1863 by neutrality, albeit tinged with a certain jealousy of German success.

Bismarck had been careful to dull that feeling by suggesting that she (Russia) should take the present opportunity of annulling the provision, made after the Crimean War, which prevented her from sending war-ships on to the Black Sea; and this was subsequently done, under a thin diplomatic disguise, at the Congress of London (March 1871).