re no longer promenaders. They have come
out because they were obliged: without that they would have remained at
home. The distances seem enormous now, and people who used to saunter
about from morning till night will tell you now that "the Madeleine is a
long way off." Very few men in black coats or blouses are to be seen;
only very old men dare show themselves out of uniform. In front of the
cafe's are seated officers of the Federal army, sometimes seven or eight
around a table. When you get near enough, you generally find they are
talking of the dismissal of their last commander. Here and there a lady
walks rapidly by, closely veiled, mostly dressed in black, with an
unpretending bonnet. The gallop of a horse is distinctly audible--in
other times one would never have noticed such a thing; it is an express
with despatches, a Garibaldian, or one of the _Vengeurs de Flourens_,
who is hoisted on a heavy cart-horse that ploughs the earth with its
ponderous forefeet. Several companies of Federals file up towards the
Madeleine, their rations of bread stuck on the top of their bayonets.
Look down the side-streets, to the right or the left, and you will see
the sidewalks deserted, and not a vehicle from one end to the other of
the road. Even on the Boulevards there are times when there is no one to
be seen at all. However, beneath it all there is a longing to awaken,
which is crushed and kept down by the general apathy.

In the evening one's impulses burst forth; one must move about; one must
live. Passengers walk backwards and forwards, talking in a loud voice.
But the crowd condenses itself between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue du
Faubourg Montmartre. Solitude has something terrible about it just now.
People congregate together for the pleasure of elbowing each other, of
trying to believe they are in great force. Quite a crowd collects round
a little barefooted girl, who is singing at the corner of a street. A
man seated before a low table is burning _pastilles_; another offers
barley-sugar for sale; another has portraits of celebrities. Everybody
tries hard to be gay; but the shops are closed, and the gas is sparingly
lighted, so that broad shadows lie between the groups.

Some few persons go to the theatres; the playbills, however, are not
seductive. If you go in, you will find the house nearly empty; the
actors gabble their parts with as little action as possible. You see
they are bored, and they bore us. Sometimes when