University of Virginia Library

9. MAP OF PARIS.

To the Reader.

The accompanying map explains itself.

The idea of this map is not original with
me, but is borrowed from the great metropolitan
journals.

I claim no other merit for this production
(if I may so call it) than that it is accurate.
The main blemish of the city paper maps,
of which it is an imitation, is that in
them more attention seems paid to artistic
picturesqueness than geographical reliability.

Inasmuch as this is the first time I ever
tried to draft and engrave a map, or attempted
anything in any line of art, the
commendations the work has received and
the admiration it has excited among the
people have been very grateful to my feelings.
And it is touching to reflect that by
far the most enthusiastic of these praises
have come from people who know nothing
at all about art.

By an unimportant oversight I have
engraved the map so that it reads wrong
end first, except to left-handed people. I
forgot that in order to make it right in
print it should be drawn and engraved
upside down. However, let the student
who desires to contemplate the map stand
on his head or hold it before a looking-glass.
That will bring it right.

The reader will comprehend at a glance
that that piece of river with the “High
Bridge” over it got left out to one side by
reason of a slip of the graving-tool, which
rendered it necessary to change the entire
course of the River Rhine, or else spoil
the map. After having spent two days in
digging and gouging at the map, I would
have changed the course of the Atlantic
Ocean before I would have lost so much
work.

I never had so much trouble with anything
in my life as I had with this map. I
had heaps of little fortifications scattered
all around Paris at first, but every now
and then my instruments would slip and
fetch away whole miles of batteries, and
leave the vicinity as clean as if the Prussians
had been there.

The reader will find it well to frame this
map for future reference, so that it may
aid in extending popular intelligence, and
in dispelling the wide-spread ignorance of
the day.

Mark Twain.

Official Commendations.

It is the only map of the kind I ever
saw. U. S. Grant.

It places the situation in an entirely new
light. Bismarck.

I cannot look upon it without shedding
tears. Brigham Young.

It is very nice large print.

Napoleon.

My wife was for years afflicted with
freckles, and, though everything was done
for her relief that could be done, all was
in vain. But, sir, since her first glance at
your map, they have entirely left her.
She has nothing but convulsions now.

J. Smith.

If I had had this map, I could have got
out of Metz without any trouble.

Bazaine.

I have seen a great many maps in my
time, but none that this one reminds
me of. Trochu.

It is but fair to say that in some respects
it is a truly remarkable map.

W. T. Sherman.

I said to my son Frederick William, “If
you could only make a map like that, I
should be perfectly willing to see you die
—even anxious.” William III.