The situation, however, was so interesting that I stayed on from day to day, until I found the German armies drawing their lines of investment round the city.

Had I supposed that I should have been their prisoner for nearly five months, I confess I should have made an effort to escape, but I shared the general illusion that--one way or the other--the siege would not last a month.
Although I forwarded my letters by balloon, or sent them by messengers who promised to "run the blockade," I had no notion, until the armistice restored us to communications with the outer world, that one in twenty had reached its destination.

This mode of writing, as Dr.William Russell wittily observed to me the other day at Versailles, was much like smoking in the dark--and it must be my excuse for any inaccuracies or repetitions.
Many of my letters have been lost _en route_--some of them, which reached the _Daily News_ Office too late for insertion, are now published for the first time.

The reader will perceive that I pretend to no technical knowledge of military matters; I have only sought to convey a general notion of how the warlike operations round Paris appeared to a civilian spectator, and to give a fair and impartial account of the inner life of Paris, during its isolation from the rest of Europe.

My bias--if I had any--was in favour of the Parisians, and I should have been heartily glad had they been successful in their resistance.