1870—1872 191 



from the thrilling moments of battle, giviag to hatred and 

 cruelty a cold-blooded sanction of discipline; in the vanquished 

 nation, an irrepressible revolt, an intoxication of sacrifice. 

 Those who have not seen war do not know what love of the 

 mother country means. 



France was the more loved that she was more oppressed*, 

 she inspired her true sons with an infinite tenderness. SuUy- 

 Prudhomme, the poet of pensive youth, renouncing his love for 

 Humanity in general, promised himself that he would hence- 

 forth devote his life to the exclusive love of France. A greater 

 poet than he, Victor Hugo, wrote at that time the first part 

 of his Annee Terrible, with its mingled devotion and despair. 



The death of Henri Regnault was one of the sad episodes of 

 the war. This brilliant young painter — he was only twenty- 

 seven years of age — enlisted as a garde nationale, though 

 exempt by law from any military service through being a 

 laureate of the prix de Rome} He did his duty valiantly, and 

 on January 19, at the last sortie attempted by the Parisians, at 

 Buzenval, the last Prussian shot struck him in the forehead. 

 The xicademie des Sciences, at its sitting of January 23, ren- 

 dered homage to him whose coffin enclosed such dazzling 

 propects and some of the glory of France. The very heart of 

 Paris was touched, and a great sadness was felt at the funeral 

 procession of the great artist who seemed an ideal type of aU 

 the youth and talent so heroically sacrificed — and all in vain — 

 for the surrender of Paris had just been officially announced. 



Regnault 's father, the celebrated physicist, a member of the 

 Institute, was at Geneva when he received this terrible blow. 

 Another grief — not however compcirable to the despair of a 

 bereaved parent — befell him — an instance of the odious side of 

 war, not in its horrors, its pools of blood and burnt dwellings, 

 but in its premeditated cruelty. Regnault had left his labora- 

 tory utensils in his rooms at the Sevres porcelain manufactory, 

 of which he was the manager. Everything was apparently 

 left in the same place, not a window was broken, no locks 

 forced; but a Prussian, evidently an expert, had been there. 

 ^'Nothing seemed changed," writes J. B. Dumas, *'in that 

 abode of science, and yet everything was destroyed; the glass 

 tubes of barometers, thermometers, etc., were broken; scales 



1 Pri^ de Rome. A competition takes place every year amongst the 

 students of the Ecole des Beaux Arts for this prize; the successful com- 

 petitor is sent to Rome for a year at the expense of the Ecole. [Trans.] 



