3-039-016 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Prussian barricade on the Rueil road: French peasants waiting to pass to their villages, 1871. Franco-Prussian War. 'The villages of Rueil and Bougival, west of Mont Valérien, were occupied by a body of German troops, who had erected several barricades...across the roads from Paris...their materials being a strange mixture of stones, earth, and common timber, with the wreck of houses, household furniture, from the ruined habitations of the people lately dwelling near there. When an opening was made for the passage of the Prussian artillery to the forts, a crowd of poor people, who had fled into Paris from the suburban villages at the beginning of the siege, came out from the city, and begged leave to pass, to see what had become of their homes...one poor fellow, standing cap in hand, with the tears trembling in his eyes [said] "My wife, children, mother - all my family - I left at St. Germains nearly five months ago. I have never once heard of them since. I do not know whether they be alive or dead"...Of course, nothing could be done for these poor suffering people. The strictest orders had been issued that no one should be permitted to pass - a most necessary precaution; otherwise, the Germans would have been overwhelmed with fugitives'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.