3-039-047 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The ruin around Paris: the town of St. Cloud destroyed by fire, 1871. Franco-Prussian War. View of '...the ruins of the little town of St. Cloud, burnt after the French sortie of Jan. 19, by order of the Prussian commanders, to prevent its affording cover for any future attack on the besiegers' position...Some of these houses...contained most valuable collections of paintings, sculpture, antiquarian relics, and diverse works of art, which can never be replaced. These are entirely destroyed, and both the streets and the detached houses around the town exhibit a hideous spectacle of blackened and broken walls, through which the German soldiers lounge with cool indifference, while the poor people gather the unconsumed fragments of woodwork from the floors and doorways, to carry away for fuel...It is yet more distressing to accompany the scattered groups of French people coming out of Paris after five months of close confinement there, to look for what may be left of their old homes...Some of them find their dwellings in the possession of the enemy's troops, and must beg for shelter where they used to live at ease...Hundreds of such hard cases may be witnessed at this moment in the neighbourhood of Paris, and in other parts of France'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.