3-034-681 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ruins of St. Cloud, from the river, 1871. 'The destruction both of the Palace and little town of St. Cloud by the fire of artillery during the siege of Paris was an incident of the late [Franco-Prussian] war that excited general attention...There is a peculiar piquancy this year in this annual fair...which has made it more popular than it has ever been before. To go with one's wife and family and picnic on a glorious Sunday afternoon amid the charred and blackened debris of this once bright and favoured spot seems to possess a peculiar fascination for the Paris bourgeois...Stretching for more than a quarter of a mile into the park, parallel with the river, is a temporary street of tents and booths. Here may be bought calcined specimens of glass and china ware, picked up from the ruins of the palace, objects of art and virtù so twisted and melted that it is impossible to know what they were, or of what value; photographs of ruins and of horrors of the Commune, all mixed up with bonbons and mirlitons...We forbear to make any reflections on the propriety, in taste and feeling, of such a public entertainment at such a time and in such a place. French people and English people do not think alike, and need not criticise each other's ways'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.