From the historian's notes

Paris, 1870

France · Europe · December 1870 — deep in the Siege · winter

What it was high

about two million people sealed inside fortifications by the Prussian armies since 19 September — the largest city ever besieged to that dateancient Lutetia; in 1870 the freshly Haussmannized capital of a just-fallen empire

That year

• the Siege of Paris: invested 19 September 1870; by December the city is cold, hungry and defiant — fresh meat gone to horse, then to cats, rats and finally the zoo's animals; the celebrated elephants Castor and Pollux are killed for meat at the end of December September 1870 - January 1871 (armistice late January) hightwo million people rationed; thousands dead of illness and cold
• BALLOON POST: with the wires cut, Paris mails itself out by manned gas balloons — the first airmail system in history, dozens of balloons carrying millions of letters over Prussian lines; microfilmed replies return by carrier pigeon, read back by projection from 23 September 1870 through the siege highroughly 60-plus balloons across the siege; a world-historical postal fact
• what she knows and no one else does: the bombardment of the city's left bank begins in early January; the armistice follows within the month; and in the spring, the Commune and its bloody suppression — the siege's misery is the FIRST act, not the last January-May 1871 highthe warning content of the card

Who held it high

the French Republic — proclaimed 4 September 1870 after Sedan; the Government of National Defense holds the capitalGeneral Trochu presides in Paris; Gambetta, having left BY BALLOON in October, runs the war from Toursthe polity changed weeks ago and the map of daily life with it: the Emperor is a prisoner, the Empress fled, the Prussians hold the heights, and the Republic's currency is endurance

Its name high

ParisWritten in Latin

The date, there high

1870Gregorian calendar; Paris time by the Observatory — and siege time by ration decree and communiqueChurch bells and the Observatory's civil time persist; but the siege runs on decree time — ration hours, gate hours, gun-signal alarms; newspapers (printed thin) are the city's pulse, twice daily rumor its second hand.

Money high for the postal tariff; medium for food prices

French franccentimes; a balloon letter's franking is 20 centimes for its weight classthe balloon card's own postage — 20 centimes — is the pack's one safe printed price; siege food prices (a rat at a few francs, per diaries) should be attributed to diaries when used

Weather high

December 1870: hard frost for long stretches, snow lying, the Seine running ice; the cold is a named character in every siege diarylate December 1870 brings deep sub-zero spells — firewood becomes as political as bread; trees of the boulevards and fences go into stoves

Things

Objectsballoon-mail cards with their 20-centime franking and 'par ballon monté' handling; ration cards and queue tokens; chassepot rifles on Guard shoulders; petroleum and tallow lamps as gas dims; the famous siege menus — Voisin's Christmas 'zoo menu' survives as artifactFoodbread increasingly gritty with substitutes; rationed formally in January; horse as the staple meat; cats, rats and dogs sold openly at market stalls; zoo exotica for the rich (elephant consommé at Voisin at Christmas is documented); wine remains plentiful — the cellars outlast the larders; coffee stretched with chicory to nothingClothevery coat the owner owns, worn at once; National Guard uniform mixtures — half military, half tailor's improvisation; furs out of trunks; blankets as outerwear in queuesGetting aboutwalking — horses are dinner; omnibus service withered; the circular railway and river steamers within the walls, intermittent; balloons OUT (one-way — none ever flew back in); pigeons INIn the aircoal and wood smoke thinning as fuel runs out — replaced by the smell of cold itself; horse butcheries; gunpowder drills and brazier charcoal on the ramparts; hospital carbolic beginning its long century

What she'd hear

French, in siege argot — new words for terrible menus ('salmis de rat'), gallows wordplay, communique-speak. Her fluent French with a foreign music fits the governess cover; English marks her as press-adjacent, occasionally useful.

Where she could stand

• the Gare du Nord or Gare d'Orléans balloon workshops — railway stations turned balloon factories — varnished calico envelopes sewn by seamstresses in the concourses, sailors training as aeronauts
• a butcher's queue in the frost — ration lines before dawn, chalked prices for horse, cat and rat, National Guard wives holding places
• the ramparts at a bastion — the enceinte walls manned by the National Guard — braziers, bored heroics, distant Prussian campfires
• the Jardin des Plantes menagerie — the emptying zoo — its animals entering the luxury-restaurant food chain, the elephants' stalls soon vacant
• a pigeon arrival at the central post — a returned pigeon's microfilm dispatches projected by magic lantern and transcribed by clerks

Researched for this card · confidence high