3-039-044 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Relief of Paris: the English gift of food - entrance to the Magasin du Bon Marché, rue de Sèvres, 1871. Franco-Prussian War. 'It is certain that Paris was very near a state of famine...at the time of the capitulation; and it would have been impossible...to have prevented thousands of human beings dying of hunger if the siege had been prolonged another week...Sixty of the young men and young women, ordinarily employed behind the counter in M. Boucicaut's establishment, had generously agreed to give their services twelve hours a day...sometimes going on far into the night; and they were constantly occupied in serving out various kinds of food to the poor people, who poured into the shop at the rate of 700 an hour...Every person brought a ticket...entitling him or her to so many rations of a specified kind, according to the number of the family. The ticket was exchanged for the provisions with remarkable quickness, and with scarcely any mistake...Five or ten thousand people at once were sometimes waiting outside the shop - some waiting all through the day, all through the night, and even two successive nights, in the cold and wet, for the chance of getting a little food to nourish those whom they loved. Most of these were women, old and young'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.