estimate of the Emperor of the French. 'He is a dreamer—a mere dreamer,' he said. 'I went to see him at Biarritz in order to come to some understanding about our relations, and, if possible, to clear the sky. I had practical questions to propose and settle but I could not get him to grapple with a single one. He wished to entertain me with his theories for the removal of the causes of poverty, and for meeting the dangers of an educated proletariat. I was only anxious to lay the way for peace; but, no! he would have none of it. Now see what we have come to!'
"My interview with Count Bismarck lasted two hours, during which he spoke almost uninterruptedly, with great vivacity, generally in French, frequently breaking out into English, and he quoted Shakespeare at least twice.
"At the close of the interview I asked him to procure me a Legitimation, without which I could not accompany the army. "I am not the man for that. General von Roon is your man.' 'But I do not know him, sir.' 'Well, perhaps he will do it for me—we will see.'
"The Legitimation business detained us several days in Berlin. In the meanwhile, the mobilization of the army was rapidly going on. It was almost impossible to obtain horses, and we could get no vehicles. I will tell you how we managed to get one. One day we saw a Berlin egg-cart, a sort of flat van on wheels. An idea struck us. Why not buy an egg-cart, get a light frame to go over the top, and cover it with canvas? Excellent. So we bought a cart and rigged it up. But how to distinguish it? Another happy thought. My crest is a goat, so we painted a big black goat on the canvas. All through the campaign vulgar boys and people would point at it and cry—'Ba-a-a! Ba-a-a!' to the great annoyance of my servant. One curious thing occurred in connection with my waggon. An English officer attached to the French army as one of the Geneva Cross Association saw this cart in the French lines, and inferred that the German army had been defeated and my cart captured. I lost my egg-cart on the march to Versailles."
At last Dr. Russell got away from Berlin with Lord R. Gower and Colonel Pemberton. His military railway ticket—the number of the train and the time-table of the stations were printed on it—was dated some time before war was declared! At Worms they left the train and took a carriage for Landau. Their coachman was not a man to be sought after. At one spot he refused to go any farther with the pair of horses, which had been obtained after much trouble, and they only got to Wissembourg the night after the battle, in rear of the Crown Prince's staff. The result was that Dr. Russell and Lord Ronald Gower were arrested as spies, and sentries placed over them, with orders to shoot them if they stirred.
"A false alarm roused the sentries," the old war correspondent explained. "They left us. We made good our escape into the inn, where a good Samaritan gave us some delicious hot coffee. Years afterwards I came across the landlord's son who had so befriended us, as a waiter at the Salthill Hotel, Dublin."
Dr. Russell was at the battle of Wörth. The Crown Prince's dinner was very simple, consisting of soup served in metal cups, and boiled ration-meat, bread, cheese, and beer. There was silver on the table, however. It belonged to the camp equipment of Frederick the Great, and was, and is always, carried at the Royal headquarters in war time. He spoke of the great anguish of the Crown Prince as he read the names of his fallen officers.
Dr. Russell was at the siege and fall of Paris, which he entered with the Crown Prince, and took a cartload of fresh meat and vegetables over the bridge into Paris, the first day it opened, to the British Embassy. There he found Sir Richard Wallace in his shirt-sleeves, serving out horse-flesh to the starving English grooms, tutors, and governesses. He remained in Paris till the massacre by the Communists in the Place Vendôme, and returned the night after the Commune expired in ashes and blood. He looked on at the gay city in flames.
"As I watched millions of fiery tongues leaping up towards the sky," continued Dr. Russell, "my mind went back to the extravagant splendour of the year in which the Great Exhibition was held, when I served on the jury in the arms department. There, on the grand-stand of the racecourse, I saw the Emperor. With him were two Emperors and several Kings. He was reviewing part of the great army which in a few years was to be swept into captivity. What an inconceivable change! I stood behind the Emperor of Germany on the same grandstand from which he reviewed the German army previous to its triumphant march into Paris. I could scarcely believe the evidence of my senses when I rode under the Arc de Triomphe in the train of the conqueror
