ives_, are, I understand, to make another
start, as soon as the "feller" condescends to answer a letter which has
been forwarded to him, asking him to fix a day for their departure.

We are daily anticipating an attack on the Southern side of the city.
The Prussians are close into the forts on their line from Meudon to
Choisy-le-Roi. Two days ago it was supposed that they were dragging
their siege guns to batteries which they had prepared for them,
notwithstanding our fire, which until now we proudly imagined had
rendered it impossible for them to put a spade to the ground. Our
generals believe, I know not with what truth, that the Prussians have
only got twenty-six siege guns. If they are on the plateau of Meudon,
and if they carry, as is asserted, nine kilometres, a large portion of
the city on the left bank of the Seine will be under fire. On our side
we have approached so close to the villages along the Prussian line in
this direction that one side or the other must in self-defence soon make
an attack. The newspapers of yesterday morning having asserted that
Choisy-le-Roi was no longer occupied by the enemy, I went out in the
afternoon to inspect matters. I got to the end of the village of Vitry,
where the advanced posts, to whom I showed my pass, asked me where I
wanted to go. I replied, to Choisy-le-Roi. A corporal pointed to a house
at some distance beyond where we were standing. "The Prussians are in
that house," he said. "If you like, you can go forward and look at them;
they are not firing." So forward I went. I was within a hundred yards of
the house when some Francs-tireurs, hid in the field to the right of
the road, commenced firing, and the Fort d'Ivry from behind opened fire.
The Prussians on their side replied with their needle-guns. I got behind
a tree, feeling that my last hour was come. There I remained about half
an hour, for whenever I moved a bullet came whizzing near me. At last a
thought, a happy thought, occurred to me. I rolled myself into a ditch,
which ran alongside the road, and down this ditch I crept until I got
close to the barricade, over which I climbed with more haste than
dignity. The soldiers were greatly amazed at my having really believed a
statement which I had read in the newspapers, and their observations
respecting the Parisians and their "organs" were far from complimentary.
On my way back by Montrouge, I stopped to gossip with some Breton
Mobiles. They, too, spoke with the utm