A friend of mine, who is an authority with the Ambulance de la Presse, and who owns a carriage, has promised to call for me when next the ambulances are sent for; but, as I have already said, all my energy oozes out of me when the thermometer is below zero; and unless the next battle is fought on a warm day, I shall not witness it.

As a matter of fact, unless one is riding with the staff of the general who commands, one cannot form an idea of what is going on by hanging about, and it is a horrible sight to look with an opera-glass at men and horses being massacred.

When knights charged each other with lances there was a certain chivalry in war; but there is nothing either noble or inspiriting in watching a quantity of unfortunate Breton peasants, who cannot even speak French, and an equal number of Berlin grocers, who probably ask for nothing better than to be back in their shops, destroying each other at a distance of two or three miles with balls of lead and iron, many of them filled with explosive materials.

I confess that I pity the horses almost as much as the men.

It seems a monstrous thing that in order that the Alsacians should be forced into becoming subjects of King William of Prussia, an omnibus horse, who has honestly done his work in the streets of Paris, should be taken outside the walls of the town to have his head blown off or to stump about on three legs until he dies of cold and hunger.