Apart from these somewhat peculiar details, I’m certain that nothing has changed in your parts, that Paris is just as carefree and the cafés just as full. Jules assures me it would be impossible for the Prussians to invade because there are two million of you and fewer than two hundred thousand of them, as long as Bazaine and his army keep them occupied somewhere. That said, they will lay siege and reduce you to starvation, so I do entreat you: stock up on supplies. Buy all the food and candles you are able to find, for if we should believe our friend Pélissier, who endured the siege of Sebastopol, those will be the first items to go. You must also bring in some wood, for if the siege lasts through until winter, I know you sufficiently well, my dear Clothilde, to know that you would sooner freeze to death than sacrifice so much as a stool.

Auguste paused to observe his aunt’s reaction.

‘Ah, very funny! If we’re cold, we shall go to the Folies Bergère and dance. That’s what we shall do!’

‘The chief of police has closed all the theatres; a question of propriety, it would appear —’

‘What a nuisance!’

‘— But since last week the theatres have been hosting club meetings where people discuss the resistance. I’ve already attended a few debates. There’s much laughter, hurling of insults, shouting and whistling, and people being ejected . . . People come to blows almost every evening. You would find it very entertaining. There is also a whole host of unsung geniuses who come to jabber on about their heroic inventions to free Paris, like Satan’s Rocket or Prussic Fingers, or other hare-brained ideas such as poisoning the Seine or releasing the animals from the Jardin des Plantes to attack the Prussians. Frankly, the Folies Bergère has become a lot more appealing.’

‘Prussic Fingers, did you say?’

‘A rubber sleeve featuring a little sack filled with prussic acid and a needle in the tip, which ladies would slip over their finger. The lady gives a coquettish wink to a Prussian, and should he approach, she pricks him with her finger and he falls down dead as a doornail.’

‘Did they say where one might procure such a thing?’

‘Come, come now, Aunt. It’s a scam! For a start, why would prussic acid kill Prussians?’

‘Oh, you’re no fun! Continue reading, then.’

And he resumed.