venture to ask for payment under the present
circumstances, and if he does he will not get it. If my funds run out
before the siege is over I shall have at least the pleasure to think
that this has not been caused by improvidence.

Some acquaintances of mine managed in the course of yesterday to get out
to Villejuif without being arrested. I have not been so fortunate. I
have charged the _barrieres_ three times, and each time have had to
retire discomfited. My friends describe the soldiers of the line in the
front as utterly despising their allies the Mobiles. They camp out
without tents, in order to be ready at any moment to resist an attack.

_October 7th._

Paris would hardly be recognised under its present aspect by those
citizens of the Far West who are in the habit of regarding it as a place
where good Americans go when they die. In the garden of the Tuileries,
where _bonnes_ used to flirt with guardsmen, there is an artillery camp.
The guns, the pickets of horses, the tents, the camp-fires, and the
soldiers in their shirt-sleeves, have a picturesque effect under the
great trees. On the Place de la Concorde from morning to evening there
is a mob discussing things in general, and watching the regiments as
they defile with their crowns before the statue of Strasburg. In the
morning the guns of the forts can be heard heavily booming; but the
sound has now lost its novelty, and no one pays more attention to it
than the miller to the wheel of his mill. In the Champs Elysees there
are no private carriages, and few persons sitting on the chairs. The
Palais de l'Industrie is the central ambulance; the Cirque de
l'Imperatrice a barrack. All the cafes chantants are closed. Some few
youthful votaries of pleasure still patronise the merry-go-rounds; but
the business cannot be a lucrative one. Along the quays by the river
side there are cavalry and infantry regiments under tentes d'abri. The
Champ de Mars is a camp. In most of the squares there are sheep and
oxen. On the outer Boulevards lines of huts have been built for the
Mobiles, and similar huts are being erected along the Rue des Remparts
for the Nationaux on duty. Everywhere there are squads of Nationaux,
some learning the goose-step, others practising skirmishing between the
carts and fiacres, others levelling their guns and snapping them off at
imaginary Prussians. The omnibuses are crowded; and I fear greatly that
their horses will be far from tender when we eat