A Diplomat's Memoir of 1870 being the account of a balloon escape from the siege of Paris and a political mission to London and Vienna

I began by telling him of the situation in France, comparing its actual condition with that of the days before the 4th of September. I tried to show him what had been done since...

I should like to do as much for the long interview which I had later with Mr. Gladstone, at that time Prime Minister in the English Cabinet. The words of this eminent statesman...

It was the last week in the month of October, 1870. M. Jules Favre, at that time Vice-President and Minister for Foreign Affairs in the National Defence Government, summoned me...

From the first day of my arrival, it was clear to me that the good people of Austria were with us in their hearts and were praying for our success--but that was all. Our Ambassa...

My first stopping-place was the Grand Duchy of Baden, then Wurtemburg and, finally, Bavaria. I was everywhere able to confirm that our Government had received untrue reports and...

As a rule I am bad at topography, and do not easily find my way in places that I see for the first time. But my faculties had been made keen by danger during our aerial voyage a...

We were, however, all three very glad and proud of our journey. We were in excellent spirits, and our hearts beat more rapidly at the thought of doing something for the wonderfu...

The danger was here, and our position seemed absolutely desperate. Death is not the most fearful thing in the destinies of man. It was when we first embarked on the “Vauban” tha...

It was a beautifully fresh and clear day. The sky was cloudless and the sun sent its fairest rays over the earth, while an icy wind swept the calm and deserted streets of the ca...

I had therefore to go back to France, and could only do so by going a long way round. Part of the north was already occupied. The trains no longer went regularly, and in order t...

I will try and set down what I saw. The balloon was above the tempest that was forming; the storm was in preparation, so to speak, under our eyes. The sky above our heads did no...

The wind, whistling ceaselessly, finished by somewhere picking up a few clouds which had been almost imperceptible in the four corners of the horizon. The balloon’s course began...

In the absence of our Ambassador, the Embassy in London had been since the 4th of December under the charge of the First Secretary, and it was this gentleman who presented me to...

The distance we now had to go was very much shorter, but it was also more difficult, and we only arrived at the frontier the next morning, between ten and eleven. Had it not bee...