SIEGE OF PARIS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 166, 16 July 1931, Page 9

SIEGE OF PARIS.

AUCKLANDER'S MEMORIES.

IN BELEAGUERED CITY.

HORRORS OF THE COMMUNE,

One would hardly expect to find in Auckland anyone with a personal recollection of the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, yet there is such a person—Mr. John Graham, land agent, of Exchange Lane. Although he lias a good Scottish name, and comes of purely Scottish stock, lie pronounces the letter "r" in the' peculiarly throaty manner which anyone familiar with French always associates with the Parisian —no other Frenchman has exactly the same accent. As a matter of fact, Mr. Graham was born and reared in Paris, and the family had become so French that he was quite grown up before he talked English. French, he says, is practically his mother tongue, although lie hasn't a drop of French blood in his veins. His father was a distinguished medical man, and was made a member of the Legion of Honour for his services during the famous siege. Mr. John Graham was a boy of 1years of age when the disastrous war broke out between the French and tlie Prussians —for there was then Ho German Empire—and he remembers the excitement in Paris when war was declared, with troops parading the street? with banners inscribed, "To Berlin!" Nothing had been further from the thoughts of the Parisians up to that time; they were given up entirely to pleasure, from the unfortunate Emperor, Napoleon 111., down to the gamins. The declaration came like a clap of thunder, and the storm ended inevitably in the disastrous siege of Paris. Mr. Graham recalls the pitiless way in which events moved during the fateful days of the latter part of 1870. Engagement after engagement was fought with disaster to the French arms, and swiftly and surely the Prussians drew closer and closer to the capital. Mr. Graham's father remained in Paris, as his medical skill was required, and a brother served in the famous National Guards, but the rest of the family took advantage of the permission that was granted foreign-

ers, and left the beleaguered city just immediately before the Prussians completed their implacable ring of steel. The family took refuge in Normandy at a little fishing village called Dives, near Houlgate, whence William the Conqueror one day set off 011 an expedition that had a not inconsiderable influence on the history of Great Britain. Even as a boy Mr." Graham was impressed by the tremendous energy with which the Parisians threw up the circle of fortifications that kept the Prussians at a respectful distance from the city, though they could not save it from capitulation. When Paris Burned. The Graham family returned to their home near the Champs Elysee immediately after Paris surrendered, and John Graham was there all through the terrible excesses of the Communards. No sooner had the Parisians settled with their foreign foe than they had to contend with the enemy within their gates —the Communists. When the Government troops, with their headquarters at Versailles, gradually wore down the Communist forces, and eventually retook the capital, the Communists "saw [ red," and destroyed as many of the public buildings as they could, their idea being to embarrass the Government. The Tuileries, the Hotel de Ville and scores of other priceless old buildings were "petrolised" and went up in flames. Mr. Graham still remembers most vividly the horror of the time. It seemed as though the whole of Paris was burning. Thousands of men were killed in the last stages of the fighting, and many were buried in the Champs Elysee quite near where the Grahams lived. Faithful Messenger. i One incident which happened during the siege impressed Mr. Graham very much. While the family was takingrefuge on the Normandy coast a stranger went from house to house offering to take letters to friends or relations in the besieged city. How he was to get through the lines of the Prussian investing armies was his own affair. He got quite a bundle of letters, but nothing more was heard of him or t!ie letters until one day, several years after the siege, there was recovered from the bed of the Seine a skeleton, attached to which was a hermetically sealed tin or box. Inside were the missing "letters. The man had been true to his trust, but had met with death in some mysterious manner. His bona fides were undoubted. He did not ask for money when colicrting the letters, but said he would only expect to be recompensed after the letters were delivered to the addressees. ,