projectile had fallen a hundred yards distant and hit the top of a house
in the Rue de Hanovre. The _pompiers_ were on the spot within three
minutes, having been summoned by the fire-alarm box near the Bourse. No
serious damage was done, but little lead pellets were found in
profusion. When I heard the explosion, I looked up and saw an aeroplane
at an altitude of about fourteen hundred meters vanishing towards the
northeast. It was pale yellow, and white near the after part. It was a
German _taube_. A sand-bag with a German Uhlan's pennant was
dropped, bearing a card reminding Parisians that it was "the anniversary
of Sedan, that they would soon be obliged to surrender the city, and
that the Russians had been crushed on the Prussian frontier." Another
bomb had been dropped on the roof of Number 29 Rue du Mail and broke
into an empty room, but did not explode. A third bomb fell on a
schoolhouse in the Rue Colbert; ricochetting off the wall, it fell into
a courtyard, where it exploded and made a hole in the ground. Other
bombs were dropped in the Rue de Londres and in the Rue de la Condamine;
the last one injured a woman and a little girl, who were hit in the
chest and head by fragments of the projectile. As the _taube_
passed over the Pepiniere barracks, and the Place de l'Opera, at an
altitude of perhaps twelve hundred meters, some soldiers fired at it
with their rifles, but without effect. The German air-lieutenants have
so far avoided the Eiffel Tower, where machine guns are placed.

The War Office announces that a flotilla of armored aeroplanes provided
with machine guns has been organized to attack the German aeroplanes
that fly over Paris. Spectacular sights are thus in store for us.

[Photograph: Photo. Henri Manuel, Paris. 29th Infantry Reserves, Army
of the Defence of Paris.]