22 - MOUNTED BALLON. 12 January 1871. "General... Lot 22

22 - MOUNTED BALLON. 12 January 1871. "General Faidherbe" (probable), Empire laureate 30 c, for Belgium (Roclenge), with interesting correspondence: "Last Monday the pigeons brought something like fourteen to fifteen thousand private despatches. I expected to get one. At the time of writing I have not yet received anything. I find it funny! However, I do not despair yet. The deciphering of dispatches is an exceedingly long job", "no more coke, no more coal", "the merchants of the four seasons push before them carriages loaded with small wood as big as my finger and sell it for two cents a pound, poor people, so unhappy and yet so resigned," "the bombardment continues always, especially at night," "the St. Jacques and Mouffetard quarters are badly tried," "it seems that the shells are arriving at the Pantheon," "sparrows are sold for twenty-five cents, and beguineettes for fifty cents each! a meager chicken forty-five francs", "the horse is rationed, I eat it with a lot of certainty".