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MOBILE DIGITAL LIBRARY - SOCIETY OF YOUNG NIGERIAN ...

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emember, with a heavy heart at the thought of all the closed doors of Paris and thefighting going on under her walls, in the suburbs which were now on the frontier. I foundthe old gentleman sitting up in bed jubilant and proud."Well," he said, "the siege has begun."I looked at him in amazement. "So you know now, Colonel?"His grandchild turned to me; "Why, yes, doctor. That is the great news to-day. The siegeof Berlin has begun."And while she spoke, she went on with her sewing as calmly as you please. How couldhe suspect what was happening? He couldn't hear the guns at the fortifications. Hecouldn't see the city in its fear and sorrow.From his bed he could see one side of the Arc de Triomphe, and his room was filled withodds and ends of the period of the First Empire—all admirably fitted to sustain hisillusions. Portraits of Napoleon's marshals, battle prints, a picture of the little King ofRome in his baby dress; big stiff consoles decorated with trophies, covered with imperialrelics, medallions, bronzes, a piece of the rock of St. Helena under a glass case,miniatures all representing the same blue-eyed lady, now with hair curled, now in a balldress, now in a yellow gown with leg-of-mutton sleeves. And all this—consoles, King of

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