Noah, when that patriarch with his family is lodged in a child's ark.
Having inspected the bishop and the doctor with respectful admiration,
and instituted a search for some bread and wine, I thought it was time
to see what was going on outside. On emerging from St. Denis everything
except the guns of the forts appeared quiet. I had not, however, gone
far in the direction of Le Bourget, which was still burning, when I was
stopped by a regiment marching towards St. Denis, some of the officers
of which told me that the village had been retaken by the Prussians--the
artillery, too, which I had left on the rise before Drancy, had
disappeared. At a farmyard close by Drancy I saw Ducrot and his staff.
The General had his hood drawn over his head, and both he and his
aide-de-camp looked so glum, that I thought it just as well not to
congratulate him upon the operations of the day. In and behind Drancy
there were a large number of troops, who I heard were to camp there
during the night. None seemed exactly to know what had happened. The
officers and soldiers were not in good spirits. On my return into Paris,
however, I found the following proclamation of the Government posted on
the walls:--"2 p.m.--The attack commenced this morning by a great
deployment from Mont Valerien to Nogent, the combat has commenced and
continues everywhere, with favourable chances for us.--Schmitz." The
people on the Boulevards seem to imagine that a great victory has been
gained. When one asks them where? They answer "everywhere." I can only
answer myself for what occurred at Le Bourget. I hear that Vinoy has
occupied Nogent, on the north of the Marne; the resistance he
encountered could not, however, have been very great, as only seven
wounded have been brought into this hotel, and only one to the American
ambulance. General Trochu announced this morning that 100 battalions of
the National Guards are outside the walls, and I shall be curious to
learn how they conduct themselves under fire. Far be it from me to say
that they will not fight like lions. If they do, however, it will
surprise most of the military men with whom I have spoken on the
subject. As yet all they have done has been to make frequent "pacts with
death," to perform unauthorised strategical movements to the rear
whenever they have been sent to the front, to consume much liquor, to
pillage houses, and--to put it poetically--toy with Amaryllis in the
trench, or with the tangles of Neara