# Aleriel/Part 1/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.
BESIEGED IN PARIS.
I WENT up to Paris by the next morning's train, Galton, whose foot was much better, accompanying me. His walking tour was necessarily terminated by his accident, and so, as I did not wish to lionise Brittany alone, we resolved to stay a little while in Paris together. The gay city looked gay as ever—bright, cheerful, and frivolous. How few in those two millions dreamt of the catastrophe hanging over them, an unseen Damocles' sword suspended by a hair in the midst of all that gaiety and splendour. I am sure I as little foresaw the peril to Paris as any one, nor, still worse, the catastrophe hanging over myself.
One morning, just as the papers were getting excited about the Spanish succession question, I thought it would be a pleasant change to have a trip to Versailles. Galton had gone off to Brussels that morning, so I was left alone. ​I little dreamt of what that little trip would cost me. We had just got to near Sevres station, when, in a moment, I heard a tremendous crash, the panels and roof of my carriage fell in masses about me, and amidst the screams of the passengers, the wounded and the frightened, I felt a sudden blow and then an intense agony in my leg, and then ——
I will not dwell on that painful time at the Hôpital de S. Clotilde. I was put in the accident ward, and must say that I shall ever feel grateful to the careful and kind nurses and doctors who attended me. My injuries were tedious and painful rather than dangerous; my leg was fractured, and the shock of the accident had shaken my nervous system.
While in the hospital I heard the patients one day talking of a remarkably able young doctor, whose wonderful cures were attracting great attention in medical circles. I listened with avidity to these stories, and resolved directly I was able to consult him.
In a few days I was well enough to be removed to my hotel in the Rue Pelletière. Here, directly I was ensconced in my own chamber, I wrote a note to Dr. Posela (the young doctor of whom I had heard so much in ​the hospital) asking him to come and see me.
In about a couple of hours after my note was sent, the garçon announced Dr. Posela. He entered, and, to my astonishment, I beheld again my deformed little friend of Mont St. Gabriel. He was now somewhat better dressed, but, though the day was warm, was wrapped up in a cloak. There was the same soft, strange expression on his face—a peaceful repose—and yet a je ne sais quoi of mystery and solemnity about him. He was surprised as well as I was.
"I am glad to meet you," he said, "and yet sorry to see you thus. You suffer, I fear. Oh! frail humanity. What man has to go through in his earth-life I I wish I could make you well at once, but what you say in the report of your case you have enclosed in your letter shows me it is just a case where I can do least. A broken limb! Only nature can cure that. But I can relieve your pain."
He then questioned me on my symptoms, and, on leaving me, gave me a potion which marvellously relieved my nervous depression.
Day by day news became more anxious in the political world. The war had broken out. The march à Berlin had commenced, and the ​shouting had even reached us when I was in the hospital. Now the papers formed an occupation for my thoughts even in my sick-bed. Posela's treatment gave me wonderful relief; but the broken bone needed rest for cure, and I had to stay in my room a prisoner while the busy and memorable scenes of the war—Gravelotte, Mezières, Sedan—were exciting the minds of every one around me.
I saw nothing of Posela after that visit. I learnt that next day he had started with an ambulance in connexion with the army of Marshal MacMahon.
I was really beginning to get very anxious. I at length quite recovered from my illness and was able to get about; but the line of "blood and iron" bound me, like every one else, within the besieged city. There was no lack of excitement indeed. The news of every day was thrilling, and one often saw terrible scenes of war. It was like being a spectator of a vast tragedy, and the Parisians viewed it as such. Their strong dramatic sentiment was excited and almost amused, at first, by the spectacle of war at their very gates. I could not resist the contagion; but still I had a good deal to be anxious about, as they had. My autumn term was hopelessly lost at Oxford, of ​course, and possibly my Lent term would be also, for it looked as if this siege would go on for a long time; indeed, the Parisians declared they would hold out to the last. If so, my prospects of getting away were bad indeed, and I was in danger of this wretched Franco-Prussian War doing a permanent injury to my career.
I remember one evening walking along the Tuileries gardens watching the flashes of the Prussian artillery, and seeing the French troops marching up to the ramparts, with their drums beating before them. The cannon were roaring as a thunderstorm, and yet the Parisian crowd was looking on calmly, as if merely witnessing a tragedy, instead of themselves being in a beleaguered city. Suddenly I noticed Dr. Posela passing close by me.
"Where are you going?" I said.
"To the ramparts. I must do my best for the wounded. Oh, it is a terrible war! How can men ever carry on and systematise this horrid mode of settling national differences? Hark! how the cannon are roaring! Many a soul is being launched into eternity. How terrible! How unfit are some to go!"
"You take it more to heart than most ​around you. But you are in danger in the front."
"Do not trouble yourself about me; think of yourself and of the poor soldiers; I am in no danger," and he smiled.
"Yes; but you are in the front. The cannon kill doctors as well as combatants. It is really a dreadful system of war—this long range. It is almost worse than the hand-to-hand strife of the days of chivalry. Every one suffers. I heard only yesterday of a shell bursting in a bedroom of a school where nine little boys were sleeping, and killing three. I only wish I could get out of the city, for I have nothing to do with this quarrel."
"Perhaps not. However, let us have a talk again to-morrow. Au revoir!"
I went home to my hotel, and as I woke in the night and heard the distant roar of the cannon, and saw the flashes through my window-blind, I thought once or twice of brave, kind Posela, and his errand of mercy in the ramparts.