Saturday, January 28:
Work and children, all are well, and Fidi shining brightly. After lunch I lie down to rest. R. comes into the silent room and, uncertain whether I am asleep or not, says in Saxon dialect, "I am lighting a peace cigar; Paris has capitulated."
Electrified, I leap to my feet and ask if it is true. It really is true; Jakob brought the news from town, completely phlegmatic in the usual Swiss way. It was not unexpected, yet it comes to me as such a surprise, so breathtakingly sudden.
We shall not march into Paris, and that is splendid. In great excitement all evening, but read Gibbon attentively all the same.