the Government, their
most powerful ally is the cry, "No division; let us all be united." They
are both, however, in a radically false position. They have called upon
the world to witness how a great capital can die rather than surrender;
and yet, if no external agency prevents the surrender, they have no
intention to fulfil their boast of dying. Any loophole for escape from,
the alternative in which they have thrust themselves they would welcome.
"Our provisions will last three months," they say; "during this time
something must happen to our advantage." "What?" I inquire. "The Army of
the Loire will advance, or Bazaine will get out of Metz, or the
Prussians will despair of success, or we shall be able to introduce
convoys of provisions." "But if none of these prophecies are
realised.--what then?" I have asked a hundred times, without ever
getting a clear answer to my question. By some strange process of
reasoning in what, as Lord Westbury would say, they are pleased to call
their minds, they appear to have arrived at the conviction that Paris
never will be taken, because they are unable to realise the possibility
of an event which they seem to consider is contrary to that law of
nature, which, has made her the capital and the mistress of the world. A
victorious army is at their gates; they do not dare even to make a
formidable sortie; there is no regular army in the field outside; their
provisions have a limit; they can only communicate with the rest of the
world by an occasional balloon; and yet they regard the idea of a
foreign occupation of Paris much as we do a French invasion of
England--a thing so improbable as to be barely possible.

Yesterday there were a few groups on the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, but
they were rather curious spectators than "manifesters." At about two
o'clock the rappel was beaten in the Place Vendome, and several
battalions of the National Guard of the quartier marched there and
broke up these groups. M. Jules Ferry's head then appeared from the
window, and he aired his eloquence in a speech congratulating the
friends of order on having rallied to the defence of the Government. It
is a very strange thing that no Frenchman, when in power, can understand
equal justice between his opponents and his supporters. The present
Government is made up of men who clamoured for a Municipal Council
during the Empire, and whose first step upon taking possession of the
Hotel de Ville was to decree the im