Page:The Siege of London - Posteritas - 1885.djvu/79

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HE French were now virtually in possession of London, and it was felt that to prolong the struggle was only to pour out torrents of blood to no purpose. The regular troops and Volunteers had been reduced to a mere handful of men; and of food there was absolutely none for the starving population. Diseases of the most loathsome character were raging, for the stench from the unburied dead was awful and deadly to the living. Miles and miles of streets were simply heaps of blackened ruins. All the wonderful magnificence, the grandeur, and the greatness of the greatest city of the world had passed away, and London was now little more than a stupendous reeking heap of ruin and death. Nothing remained, therefore, but capitulation, because there was no longer any means of defending the place. An armistice of twenty-four hours was arranged in order that the terms of capitulation might be drawn up, and the next day the French troops took entire possession of the British metropolis. As they surveyed it after its fall they were met by sights so appalling that even the most hardened soldier shuddered. The place was a vast tomb of uncoffined dead in every stage of decomposition, and mingling with the festering dead were the gaunt and ghastly living, looking spectral and horrible with their sunken eyes and cadaverous faces, their maniacal stare and trembling limbs. Truly the dead were to be envied. For not only were they spared the physical suffering of the living, but also the burning shame and indignation which Englishmen experienced all the world over.

The struggle had been a terrific one, and the political changes it brought about were truly no less terrific. "Proud England," proud no longer, was humbled and crushed into the dust; on her mangled and bleeding limbs was fettered the yoke of an unforgiving and cruel conqueror. And from the unhappy country was wrung the enormous war indemnity of three hundred and fifty millions sterling. But England's disgrace and England's woe ended not there.