Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Wednesday, 2 July 1879

Having read more depositions from English soldiers, I arrived at the studio so disturbed that I had to scrape off my painting and leave — I could have done nothing. Until Saturday I shall have time to do a profile of Dina, who has grown more beautiful in the exact measure that I have grown ugly.
These engravings and photographs of the poor child hurt me, but I am moved to tears reading the praises of this "brave lad," this "heroic child."
An ambassador said, on leaving Saint-Augustin, that the Napoleonic legend had just recovered such brilliance that the Republic was eclipsed by it.
The death of this brave man, this martyr, has made me truly Bonapartist and an enemy of the Republicans — though these wretches [adopted a quite] decent and almost becoming attitude in the face of this dreadful misfortune.
The young hero has washed away Sedan.
But how sad to think that he died so gloriously, that another might profit by his death.