CHAPTER XXIII

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The siege -- The food-supply of Paris -- How and what the Parisians eat and drink -- Bread, meat, and wine -- Alcoholism -- The waste among the London poor -- The French take a lesson from the alien -- The Irish at La Villette -- A whisper of the horses being doomed -- M. Gagne -- The various attempts to introduce horseflesh -- The journals deliver their opinions -- The supply of horseflesh as it stood in '70 -- The Academie des Sciences -- Gelatine -- Kitchen gardens on the balcony -- M. Lockroy's experiment -- M. Pierre Joigneux and the Englishman -- If cabbages, why not mushrooms? -- There is still a kitchen garden left -- Cream cheese from the moon, to be fetched by Gambetta -- His departure in a balloon -- Nadar and Napoleon III. -- Carrier-pigeons -- An aerial telegraph -- Offers to cross the Prussian lines -- The theatres -- A performance at the Cirque National -- "Le Roi s'amuse," at the Theatre de Montmartre -- A dejeuner at Durand's -- Weber and Beethoven -- Long winter nights without fuel or gas -- The price of provisions -- The Parisian's good-humour -- His wit -- The greed of the shopkeeper -- Culinary literature -- More's "Utopia" -- An ex-lieutenant of the Foreign Legion -- He gives us a breakfast -- He delivers a lecture on food -- Joseph, his servant -- Milk -- The slender resources of the poor -- I interview an employe of the State Pawnshop -- Statistics -- Hidden provisions -- Bread -- Prices of provisions -- New Year's Day, and New Year's dinners -- The bombardment -- No more bread -- The end of the siege 429

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