Schwilgué.

[Illustration: THE GREAT CLOCK.]

I found my bluebottle professor to be a Swiss, thirty years resident
in the city, very accessible and talkative, and, like every citizen by
adoption, more patriotic than even the native-born.

"It was a cheerless time for me, sir," said he as we contemplated
together the façade of the church, "when I saw that spire printed in
black against the flames of the town."

I begged frankly for his reminiscences.

"The bombardment of 1870," said the professor, "was begun purposely,
in contempt of the Bonapartist tradition, on the 15th of August,
the birthday of Napoleon. At half-past eleven at night, just as the
fireworks are usually set off on that evening, a shell came hissing
over the city and fell upon the Bank of France, crushing through the
skylight and shivering the whole staircase within: the bombardment
that time lasted only half an hour, but it found means, after much
killing and ruining among the private houses, to reach the buildings
of the Lyceum, where we had placed the wounded from the army of
Woerth. While the city was being touched off in every direction, like
a vast brush heap, we had to take these poor victims down into the
cellars."

"Do you think the bombs were purposely so directed?" I asked.

"Don't talk to me of stray shots!" said the burgher, hotly enough.