?" some one
suggested. "My opinion of General Trochu," said a General, who was
sitting reading a newspaper, "is that he is a man of theory, but
unpractical. I know him well; he has utterly failed to organise the
forces which he has under his command." The general opinion about Trochu
seemed to be that he is a kind of M'Clellan. "Will the Garde Nationale
fight?" some one asked. A Garde National replied, "Of course there are
brave men amongst us, but the mass will give in rather than see Paris
destroyed. They have their families and their shops." "And the Mobiles?"
"The Mobiles are the stuff out of which soldiers are made, but they are
still peasants, and not soldiers yet." On the whole, I found the tone in
"fashionable circles" desponding. "Can any one tell me where Jules Favre
has gone?" I asked. Nobody could, though everybody seemed to think that
he had gone to the Prussian headquarters. After playing a few rubbers, I
went home to bed at about one o'clock. The streets were absolutely
deserted. All the cafes were shut.

Nothing in the papers this morning. In the _Figaro_ an article from that
old humbug Villemessant. He calls upon his fellow-citizens in Paris to
resist to the death.

"One thing Frenchmen never forgive," he says,--"cowardice."

The _Gaulois_ contains the most news. It represents the Prussians to be
all round Paris. At Versailles they have converted the Palais into a
barrack. Their camp fires were seen last night in the forest of Bondy.
Uhlans have made their appearance at St. Cloud. "Fritz" has taken up his
quarters at Ferrieres, the chateau of Baron Rothschild. "William"--we
are very familiar when we speak of the Prussian Royal family--is still
at Meaux. "No thunderbolt," adds the correspondent, "has yet fallen on
him." The Prussian outposts are at the distance of three kilometres from
St. Denis. Near Vitry shots have been heard. In the environs of
Vincennes there has been fighting. It appears General Ambert was
arrested yesterday. He was reviewing some regiments of Nationaux, and
when they cried, "Vive la Republique" he told them that the Republic did
not exist. The men immediately surrounded him, and carried him to the
Ministry of the Interior, where I presume he still is. The _Rappel_
finds faults with Jules Favre's circular. Its tone, it says, is too
humble. The _Rappel_ gives a list of "valets of Bonaparte, _ce coquin
sinistre_," who still occupy official positions, and demands that they
shall at