If the war had been decided upon fashion, the French would have won handily. But the bloated pretensions of the Second Empire were no match for the hardened Prussian war machine. After the French defeat at Sedan in September, 1870, life in Paris deteriorated rather precipitously. Artists were faced with the choice of fleeing, as Boudin, Diaz, Monet, Daubigny, Pissarro, and Bonvin did, to London or Brussels. Or enlisting, as did Bazille, Manet, Degas, Rouart, and Renoir. Or, they could hide out in the south of France, as did Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Zola (who was exempt from military service, being the only son of a widow). Degas and Manet remained in Paris, trying all along to convince their female counterpart, Berthe Morisot and her family to leave (which she refused to do). Likewise, Courbet remained behind and was made chairman of a committee to safeguard the country's art treasures. Principally he managed to save his OWN works by shipping them to London. Needless to say, there was very little painting being done.

Things got infinitely worse when Paris fell under siege in early January of 1871. Prussian canons pounded the city day and night for over three weeks. The food supply became tenuous at best. Signs went up on the street advertising the meat from cats, dogs, and even rats. The lucky ones could obtain horse meat. Manet complained in a letter that donkey meat was too expensive. And by the time the city surrendered near the end of the month, even those delicacies, which must have challenged the fine artists of French cuisine, were completely gone. Paris was a city where the "starving artist" was the rule, rather than the exception.