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94 has been with the French, although I all along felt certain of their defeat."

Although the Dutt family stayed so much longer in England than in France, it was the latter country evidently which seized most forcibly on the imagination of the girls, especially of Toru. The strange contrast between the France of 1869, proud, joyous, beautiful and queen-like, and the France of 1871, conquered, blood-stained and distracted by internal feuds, made a deep impression on her, awakening her keenest sympathies and inspiring one of her most original poems.