of Paris, the latter by the
Sedentary Garde Nationale. Which of these courses will be adopted, it is
impossible to say; the latter, however, is the only one which seems to
present even a chance of ultimate success. With respect to the second, I
do not think that the Mobiles could stand for days or even for hours
against the artillery and musketry force of their opponents. They are
individually brave, but like all raw troops they become excited under
fire, shoot wildly, then rush forward in order to engage in a
hand-to-hand encounter, and break before they reach the Prussian lines.
In this respect the troops of the line are not much better. The
Prussian tactics, indeed, have revolutionized the whole system of
warfare, and the French, until they have learnt them, will always go to
the wall.

Every day that this siege lasts, convinces me more and more that General
Trochu is not the right man in the right place. He writes long-winded
letters, utters Spartan aphorisms, and complains of his colleagues, his
generals, and his troops. The confidence which was felt in him is
rapidly diminishing. He is a good, respectable, honest man, without a
grain of genius, or of that fierce indomitable energy which sometimes
replaces it. He would make a good Minister of War in quiet times, but he
is about as fit to command in the present emergency as Mr. Cardwell
would be. His two principal military subordinates, Vinoy and Ducrot, are
excellent Generals of Division, but nothing more. As for his civilian
colleagues, they are one and all hardly more practical than Professor
Fawcett. Each has some crotchet of his own, each likes to dogmatize and
to speechify, and each considers the others to be idiots, and has a
small following of his own, which regards him as a species of divinity.
They are philosophers, orators, and legists, but they are neither
practical men nor statesmen. I understand that General Trochu says, that
the most sensible among them is Rochefort.

We want to know what has become of Sergeant Truffet. As the Prussians
are continually dinning it into Europe that the French fire on their
flags of truce, the following facts, for the truth of which I can vouch,
may, perhaps, account for it; if, indeed, it has ever occurred. A few
days ago, some French soldiers, behind a barricade a little in advance
of the Moulin Saqui, saw a Bavarian crawl towards them, waving a white
flag. When he stopped, the soldiers called to him to come forward,