most fashionable. She was walking along with a parcel under
her shawl, and six dogs were following her. She asked me to drive them
away, but they declined to go. I could not understand their sudden
affection for my fair friend, until she confided to me that she had two
pounds of mutton in her parcel. A tariff for horse-flesh is published
to-day; it costs--the choice parts, whichever they may be--1f 40c. the
kilo.; the rest, 80c. the kilo.

_Figaro_ yesterday published a "correspondence from Orleans." The
_Official Gazette_ of this morning publishes an official note from the
Prefect of Police stating that this correspondence is "a lie, such as
those which the _Figaro_ invents every day."

_Afternoon._

I have just returned from the Place de l'Hotel de Ville. When I got
there at about two o'clock six or seven thousand manifesters had already
congregated there. They were all, as is the nature of Frenchmen in a
crowd, shouting their political opinions into their neighbours' ears.
Almost all of them were Nationaux from the Faubourgs, and although they
were not armed, they wore a kepi, or some other distinctive military
badge. As well as I could judge, nine out of ten were working men. Their
object, as a sharp, wiry artizan bellowed into my ear, was to force the
Government to consent to the election of a Commune, in order that the
Chassepots may be more fairly distributed between the bourgeois and the
ouvriers, and that Paris shall no longer render itself ridiculous by
waiting within its walls until its provisions are exhausted and it is
forced to capitulate. There appeared to be no disposition to pillage;
rightly or wrongly, these men consider that the Government is wanting in
energy, and that it is the representative of the bourgeoisie and not of
the entire population. Every now and then, some one shouted out "Vive
la Commune!" and all waved their caps and took up the cry. After these
somewhat monotonous proceedings had continued about half an hour,
several bourgeois battalions of National Guards came along the quay, and
drew up in line, four deep, before the Hotel de Ville. They were not
molested except with words. The leading ranks of the manifesters
endeavoured by their eloquence to convince them that they ought not to
prevent citizens peacefully expressing their opinions; but the grocers
stood stolidly to their arms, and vouchsafed no reply. At three o'clock
General Trochu with his staff rode along inside the line,