ch, or issuing a single
proclamation since the commencement of the siege, and he alone of his
colleagues appears to me to be the right man in the right place. I do
not take my views of the working men from the nonsense which is printed
about them in official and semi-official organs. They are the only class
here which, to use an Americanism, is not "played out." The Government
dreads them as much as the Empire did; but although they are too much
carried away by their enthusiasm and their impulsiveness, they are the
only persons in Paris who appear to have a grain of common sense. "As
for the Army of the Loire," said one of them to me this morning, "no
one, except a fool or a Government employe, can believe that it will
ever be able to raise the siege, and as for all these bourgeois, they
consider that they are heroes because once or twice a week they pass the
night at the ramparts; they think first of their shops, then of their
country." "But how can you imagine that you and your friends would be
able to defeat the Prussians, who are disciplined soldiers?" I asked.
"We can at least try," he replied. I ventured to point out to my friend
that perhaps a little discipline in the ouvrier battalions might not be
a bad thing; but he insisted that the indiscipline was caused by their
distrust of their rulers, and that they were ready to obey their
officers. "Take," he said "Flourens' battalions. They do not, it is
true, march as regularly as the bourgeois, and they have nothing but
kepis and old muskets; but, as far as fighting goes, they are worth all
the bourgeois put together." I do not say that Trochu is not wise to
depend upon the bourgeois; all I say is, that as the Empire fell because
it did not venture to arm any except the regular soldiers, so will Paris
render itself the laughing stock of Europe, if its defence is to depend
upon an apocryphal Army of the Loire, marines from the Navy, peasants
from the provinces, and the National Guards of the wealthy quarters. To
talk of the heroic attitude of Paris, when the Parisians have not been
under fire, is simply absurd. As long as the outer forts hold out, it is
no more dangerous to "man the ramparts" than to mount guard at the
Tuileries. I saw to-day a company of mounted National Guards exercising.
Their uniforms were exquisitely clean, but I asked myself of what
earthly use they were. Their commander ordered them to charge, when
every horse butted against the one next to him.