PARIS IN THE SIEGE.
"AND Uncle Joe is in France, where the fathers and brothers of those
little Prussian boys have been fighting. Suppose and suppose I could see
it."
There was a thunder and a whizzing in the air and a sharp rattling noise
besides; a strange, damp, unwholesome smell too, mixed with that of
gunpowder; and when Lucy looked up, she found herself down some steps in
a dark, dull, vaulted-looking place, lined with stone, however, and open
to the street above. A little lamp was burning in a corner, piles of
straw and bits of furniture were lying about, and upon one of the
bundles of straw sat a little rough-haired girl.
[Illustration: "Ah! Mademoiselle, good morning. Are you come here to
take shelter from the shells?"
_Page 123._]
"Ah! Mademoiselle, good morning," she said. "Are you come here to take
shelter from the shells? The battery is firing now; I do not think Mamma
will come home till it slackens a little. She is gone to the
distribution of meat, to get a piece of horse for my brother, who is
weak after his wounds. I wish I could offer you something, but we have
nothing but water, and it is not even sugared."
"Do you live down here?" asked Lucy, looking round at the dreary place
with wonder.
"Not always. We used to have a pretty little house up over, but the
cruel shells came crashing in, and flew into pieces, tearing everything
to splinters, and we are only safe from them down here. Ah, if I could
only have shown you Mamma's pretty room! but there is a great hole in
the floor now, and the ceiling is all tumbling down, and the table
broken."
"But why do you stay here?"
"Mamma and Emily say it is all the same. We are as safe in our cellar as
we could be anywhere, and we should have to pay elsewhere."
"Then you cannot get out of Paris?"
"Oh no, while the Prussians are all round us, and shut us in. My
brothers are all in the Garde Mobile, and, you see, so is my doll. Every
one must be a soldier now. My dear Adolphe, hold yourself straight" (and
there the doll certainly showed himself perfectly drilled and
disciplined). "March--right foot forward--left foot forward." But in
this movement, as may be well supposed, little Coralie had to help her
recruit a good deal.
Lucy was surprised. "So you can play even in this dreadful place?" she
said.
"Oh yes! What's the use of crying and wearying oneself? I do not mind as
long as they leave me my kitten, my dear little Minette."
"Oh! what a pretty long-haired kitten! but how small and thin!"
"Yes, truly, the poor Minette! The cruel people ate her mother, and
there is no milk--no milk, and my poor Minette is almost starved, though
I give her bits of my bread and soup; but the bread is only bran and
sawdust, and she likes it no more than I."
"Ate up her mother!"
"Yes. She was a superb Cyprus cat, all grey; but, alas I one day she
took a walk in the street, and they caught her, and then indeed it was
all over with her. I only hope Minette will not get out, but she is so
lean that they would find little but bones and fur."
"Ah, how I wish I could take you and her home to Uncle Joe, and give you
both good bread and milk! Take my hand, and shut your eyes, and we will
suppose and suppose very hard, and, perhaps, you will come there with
me. Paris is not so very far off."