ve that everything which
tells against France is suppressed, and what is published is headed with
a notice, that as the source is English the truth is questionable. Thus
does the press, while abusing the Government for keeping back
intelligence, fulfil its mission.

The plan for the redistribution of the troops, and their change from one
corps to another, which was announced on Sunday in a decree signed
Trochu, has not yet been carried out. Its only effect has been as yet to
render confusion twice confounded. Its real object, I hear, was to place
General Ducrot in command of the left bank of the Seine, instead of
General Vinoy, because it is expected that the fighting will be on that
side of the river. So indignant is General Vinoy at being placed under
the orders of General Ducrot, that he threatens to give in his
resignation on the ground that by military law no officer can be called
to serve under a general who has capitulated, and who has not been tried
before a court-martial. The dispute will, I imagine, in some way or
other, be arranged, without its coming before the public. General
Vinoy's retirement would produce a bad effect on the army; for, both
with officers and men, he is far more popular than either Ducrot or
Trochu. He passes as a fighting general; they pass as writing generals.
As for Trochu, to write and to talk is with him a perfect mania. "I have
seen him on business," said a superior officer to me, "a dozen times,
but I never have been able to explain what I came for; he talked so
incessantly that I could not put in a word."

I was out this morning along the Southern outposts, the forts were
firing intermittently. At Cachan there was a sharp interchange of shots
going on between the Prussian sentinels and Mobiles. It is a perfect
mystery to me how the Prussians have been allowed to establish
themselves at Clamart and at Chatillon, which are within range of the
guns of three forts. Our famous artillerists do not appear to have
prevented them from establishing batteries exactly where they are most
dangerous to us. General Trochu has not confided to me his celebrated
plan, but I am inclined to think, that whatever it may have been, he
will do well to put it aside, and to endeavour to dislodge the enemy in
Chatillon and the adjacent villages, before their batteries open fire. I
suggested this to an officer, and he replied that the troops, thanks to
the decree of Sunday, hardly knew who commanded them, o