already well-known and popular, for he had taken the part of Romeo in
Gounod's well-known opera based on the Shakespearean play. Like many
another singer, Victor Capoul might have become forgotten before very
long, but a curious circumstance, having nothing to do with vocalism,
diffused and perpetuated his name. He adopted a particular way of dressing
his hair, "plastering" a part of it down in a kind of semi-circle over the
forehead; and the new style "catching on" among young Parisians, the
"coiffure Capoul" eventually went round the world. It is exemplified in
certain portraits of King George V.

In those war-days Capoul sang the "Marseillaise" either at the Opera
Comique or the Theatre Lyrique; but at the Opera it was sung by Marie
Sass, then at the height of her reputation. I came in touch with her a few
years later when she was living in the Paris suburbs, and more than once,
when we both travelled to the city in the same train, I had the honour of
assisting her to alight from it--this being no very easy matter, as la
Sass was the very fattest and heaviest of all the _prime donne_ that I
have ever seen.

On the same day that MacMahon was defeated at Woerth, Frossard was badly
beaten at Forbach, an engagement witnessed by my elder brother Edward,
[Born January 1, 1847, and therefore in 1870 in his twenty-fourth year.]
who, as I previously mentioned, had gone to the front for an American
journal. Finding it impossible to telegraph the news of this serious
French reverse, he contrived to make his way to Paris on a locomotive-
engine, and arrived at our flat in the Rue de Miromesnil looking as black
as any coal-heaver. When he had handed his account of the affair to Ryan,
the Paris representative of the _New York Times_, it was suggested that
his information might perhaps be useful to the French Minister of War. So
he hastened to the Ministry, where the news he brought put a finishing