3-039-045 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Relief of Paris: distribution of the English gift at the Magasin du Bon Marché, rue de Sèvres, 1871. Franco-Prussian War. It is certain that Paris was very near a state of famine - within a few hours of it - at the time of the capitulation; and it would have been impossible, by the most strenuous efforts of all Governments and all charitable societies, to have prevented thousands of human beings dying of hunger if the siege had been prolonged another week. The distribution of the large stores of provisions sent from London by the subscription of English benevolence for that purpose, under the personal care of Colonel Stuart Wortley, Mr. George Moore, Mr. Richard Wallace, Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, and others, has during the last fortnight been carried on with great activity, for there was urgent need...[one of the two chief places of this dispensation was] the premises of M. Boucicaut, commonly used as an extensive retail linen- draper's shop, called the Magasin du Bon Marché, in the Rue de Sèvres...Sixty of the young men and young women, ordinarily employed behind the counter in M. Boucicaut's establishment, had generously agreed with him to give their services twelve hours a day, as those employed by Mr. Moore's firm had likewise done, sometimes going on far into the night'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.