er
than the rest of the world. Does not every Englishman feel this to be
true of his own countrymen? It is consequently not absurd that Frenchmen
should think the same of themselves. The French are intensely
patriotic--country with them is no abstraction. They moan over its ruin
as though it were a human being, and far then be it from me to laugh at
them for doing so. When, however, I find persons dressing themselves up
in all the paraphernalia of war, visiting tombs and statues in order to
register with due solemnity that they intend to die rather than yield,
and when, after all this nonsense, these same persons decline to take
their share in the common danger on the score that they have a mother,
or a sister, or a wife, or a child, dependent upon them, and when month
after month they drum and strut up and down the Boulevards, I consider
that they are ridiculous, and I say so. When a man does a silly thing it
is his own fault--not that of the person who chronicles it. Was it wise,
for instance, of General Ducrot to announce a fortnight ago that he was
about to lead his soldiers against the enemy, and that he himself
intended either to conquer or die? Was it wise of General Trochu six
weeks ago to issue a proclamation pledging himself to force the
Prussians to raise the siege of Paris. The Prussians will have read
these manifestoes, and they will form their own estimate respecting
them. That I call them foolish does not "keep up illusions in Germany."
The other day the members of an Ultra club, in the midst of a discussion
respecting the existence of a divinity, determined to decide the
question by a general scrimmage. I think that these patriots might have
been better employed. It does not follow, however, that I do not regret
that they were not better employed. The siege of Paris is in the hands
of General Moltke, and the _Gaulois_ may depend upon it that this wary
strategist is not at all likely to give up the task by any number of
journalists informing him that he is certain to fail.

I have got a cold, so I have not been out this morning. I hear that some
of the troops have come in from Aubervilliers, and several regiments
have marched by my windows. At Neuilly-sur-Marne and Bondy, it is said,
earthworks are being thrown up; and it is supposed that Chelles will, as
the Americans say, be the objective point of any movement which may take
place in that direction. The _Patrie_ has been suspended for three days
for all