‘You’re taking an interest in the poor now; that’s a silver lining to the siege!’

If the maid did not interrupt their squabbling, it could go on for hours.

‘They’re organising stoves for the town halls and they’re talking of handing out ration cards for bread and meat, because they’re starting to slaughter the livestock in the Bois de Boulogne, the Parc Monceau and the Luxembourg gardens; it would seem the animals there are all dead on their feet.’

‘Well then, Rosalie, take everything I have in my purse and use your domestic ingenuity to prepare an appropriate meal. And if you find any more cans, buy them! No matter what they are! Buy everything you can find!’

Clothilde looked at Casimir’s letter, turning it over and over.

‘It dates from three days ago, this letter. I don’t know why people are so despairing when the post has never been so swift. Here, read it to me. Tell me how my brother is faring.’

Auguste complied.

My dear son, and sister,

It is too late, we will not be coming to seek shelter with you in Paris. I’m using the last train to leave Saint-Germain tomorrow evening to send you this letter. It will be simpler for you to write to us, because it appears they will be implementing a postal system using zinc balls that will contain up to 700 letters and will follow the course of the Seine, like a bottle on the ocean. Or indeed hot air balloons. I have been informed that a postal hot air balloon will leave from Montmartre or La Villette at the end of every week. So do not leave us without news.

There have been various defensive measures taken around us here, with rampart defences constructed from trees and paving stones lifted from roadways in an attempt to slow the advance of the Prussians, but I hardly believe it will help, for we have neither an army nor cannons to defend the place. Nor are there any remaining gendarmes or forest wardens, and the town is as deserted as if stricken by the plague. The way things now stand, we have only ourselves to rely on.