ion as far as regards what is called European good society.

The eighth _livraison_ of the Tuileries papers has appeared; it contains
two letters from General Ducrot to General Frossard, a despatch from the
French Foreign-office to Benedetti, a report on France by Magne, and a
letter from a prefect to Pietri. From the few papers of any importance
which have been discovered in the Imperial palaces, our friend Badinguet
must have had an inkling when he last left Paris that he might not
return, and must have put his papers in order, _i.e._, in the
fire-place.

CHAPTER VII.

_Evening._

I am very much afraid that it will be some time before my letters reach
you, if indeed they ever do. I had entrusted one to Lord Lyons' butler,
a very intelligent man, who was to accompany Mr. Hore, our naval
attache, to Tours; but, alas, they did not get further than the Prussian
lines at Epinay, and they are back again at the Embassy. Mr. Hore had
with him a letter from the Nuncio to the Crown Prince, but the officer
in command of the outpost declined to take charge of it. The Columbian
Minister, too, who was charged with the protest of the Corps
Diplomatique to Bismarck on account of his refusal to allow their
despatches to go out, has also returned, to re-peruse Grotius and
Puffendorf, in order to find more precedents with which to overwhelm
Bismarck. The Greek Minister has managed to run the blockade. A son of
Commodore Lynch made an attempt to get out, but after being kept twelve
hours at the Prussian outposts, and fired on by the French, he has
returned to share our imprisonment. This morning I read in one of the
papers a wonderful account of what Mr. Lynch had seen when with the
Prussians. Meeting him this evening, I asked him whether it was true. He
told me that he had already been to the newspaper to protest against its
appearance, as every statement in it was destitute of foundation. He
could, however, get no redress; the editor or his _locum tenens_ told
him that one of their reporters had given it him, and that he knew
nothing more about it. This is an instance of the reckless mode in which
the business of journalism is conducted here.

I made two visits this afternoon, one to a pothouse in Belleville, the
other to a countess in the Faubourg St. Germain. I went to the former in
order to find out what the Bellevillites thought of things in general. I
found them very discontented with the Government, and divided in op