An important letter by Doré on the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. The letter is written to Doré's friend the Rev. Frederick Kill Harford, the Minor Canon of Westminster Abbey. The letter is written in French and we have provided the following, rough, translation:

      Mardi 13 16 7bre 70¹

     My dear Harford,

              How shall I thank you for your kind and affectionate thoughts? And all the good they do my heart. With the day of distress came the souvenir and kind wishes of a sincere and dear friend.

               I believe, dear friend, I am taking advantage of the last mail to England: for the enemy is at the gates of Paris, and we are expecting at any moment to hear the sound of the cannon. Our misfortune is immense, and our agony is terrible. How shall we escape from the abyss of blood in which poor deserted France is plunged? No hope, no solution appears on the horizon; and yet it would be hard to think that our poor France - so innocent of this war - might be the object of universal disaffection.

                I shall carry my flask with me, dear friend, when I go to the ramparts, this object, so well chosen which friendship has prompted you to send to me. I think it will be tomorrow, for, as I have told you the peril is most imminent.

               I pray you please, my dear beloved Harford, to offer your prayers to heaven that the drama now beginning may have as quick an ending as possible, and that the gloom which already overwhelms us may not put the whole of France in mourning.

               No news at all about my poor brother, the captain. We are in the greatest mortal anxiety - I have tried everything, everything, even the help of several members of the Geneva Society, who they say ought to know certain things; I have searched everywhere!

               Adieu, my dear Harford, ‘tis with a heavy heart but with all my affection that I embrace you.

Your devoted friend,

 G^u. Doré

       P.S. I forgot to inform you that I have sent my thanks to Her Majesty the Queen by Colonel Ponsonby.

       The contents of this letter were translated in full in Blanche Roosevelt's Reminiscences of Gustave Doré ... (New York: Cassell, 1885) and in part on pages 33-34 of the recent work on Doré Fantasy and Faith: The Art of Gustave Doré, by Eric Zafran, Robert Rosenblum and Lisa Small (New Haven: 2007).

      "Between July 1870 and March 1871, France suffered a crushing defeat in its war with Prussia, the Second Empire of Napoleon III vanished almost overnight, and Paris endured a brief but bloody civil conflict known as the Commune. This unfortunate period, christened, L' année terrible... by Victor Hugo, was also a significant chapter in the personal and professional life of Gustave Doré. As a native of Strasbourg, a city routed and besieged by the Prussian army early in the war, Doré had particularly strong feelings about the evnts unfolding around him, which he expressed in numerous drawings, prints and paintings ... which range from documentary sketches and paintings of the siege and bombardment of Paris, to rousing battle fantasies and grim allegories of the war and its aftermath ...

                In July of 1870 Napoleon III received the alarming news that Leopold Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm I of Prussia, had been selected to ascend the Spanish throne. Napoleon demanded that the Hohenzollern candidate be withdrawn, fearing not only a Spanish-Prussian alliance but, more significantly, the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's ultimate goal - the unification of Germany. When negotiations broke down, Napoleon III declared war on Prussia. This declaration, on July 19, 1870 was the beginning of what would prove to be the swift end of an era. Criticized at home and abroad for its decadence and ostentation, the Second Empire had fallen by early September of 1870 and the Third Republic of France was born.

                At first France was confident of victory over Prussia ... with no allies, ill prepared conscripts, supply and transportation problems, and woeful planning it became clear within a few weeks of the war's commencement that there was little chance of France defeating the highly organized Prussians. By mid-August 1870 one of three Prussian armies surrounded Doré's hometown of Strasbourg, which to the artists eternal ire remained under brutal siege until September 28^th, and was ultimately ceded to Prussia. Doré's brother Emile, served in the French army in Strasbourg during the siege and was taken prisoner, worrying the artist greatly ..." (see letter above)

              After a series of military disasters, at Metz and Sedan, Napoleon III surrendered at Sedan on September 2, 1870 and was taken prisoner.

      "... The day after news of the emperors capitulation at Sedan on September 3, 1870 reached Paris, ... the leading republican deputies Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, Jules Simon and Leon Gambetta gathered on the steps of the Town Hall in front of a cheering crowd to declare the Third Republic of France... The government publicly pledged to carry on with the war, agreeing to arm only the officially sanctioned National Guard, for which many Parisians, including Doré, promptly volunteered.

             The people of Paris spent an anxious September as the new French Republic and its mobilized National Guard prepared for the Prussian artillery advance on the city. Doré recounted the tense atmosphere and despairing mood (in the present letter)

              By September 20^th Paris and its nearby suburbs were under siege by the Prussian army. Communication with the outside world was possible only via carrier pigeon and hot air balloon ... Reports of defeat in fierce close range combat in the suburbs further reduced the hopes and spirits of the city. But as winter approached and food supplies dwindled the most immediate concern became the threat of starvation ... and at the beginning of 1871 the Prussians began shelling the city itself ..." ²

      1. Tuesday (Mardi) 13 September 1870 was an actual date, the number 13 has been added above the number 16, apparently in another hand. The 16^th of September as written by Doré would have been a Friday (Vendredi).

       2. L'Année Terrible and Political Imagery, Lisa Small, pp. 33-44 of: Fantasy and Faith: The Art of Gustave Doré (2007)