failure. He was a man of plans, and never could alter
the details of these plans to suit a change of circumstances. What his
grand plan was, by which Paris was to be saved, no one now, I presume,
ever will know. The plans of his sorties were always elaborately drawn
up; each divisional commander was told in the minutest details what he
was to do. Unfortunately, General Moltke usually interfered with the
proper development of these details--a proceeding which always surprised
poor Trochu--and in the account the next day of his operations, he would
dwell upon the fact as a reason for his want of success. That batteries
should be opened upon his troops, and that reinforcements should be
brought up against them, were trifles--probable as they might seem to
most persons--which filled him with an indignant astonishment. At the
last sortie Ducrot excuses himself for being late at La Malmaison
because he found the road by which he had been ordered to advance
occupied by a long line of artillery, also there by Trochu's orders.
General Vinoy, who has replaced him, is a hale old soldier about seventy
years old. He has risen from the ranks, and in the Crimea was a very
intimate friend of Lord Clyde. When the latter came, a few years before
his death, to Paris, the English Ambassador had prepared a grand
breakfast for him, and had gone to the station to meet him. On the
platform was also Vinoy, who also had prepared breakfast for his old
comrade in arms; and this breakfast, very much to the disgust of the
diplomatist, Lord Clyde accepted. General Vinoy has to-day issued a
proclamation to the troops, which in its plain, simple, modest language
contrasts very favourably with the inflated bombast in which his
predecessor was so great an adept.

The newspapers are already commencing to prove to their own satisfaction
that the battle of last Thursday was not a defeat, but an "incomplete
victory." As for the National Guard, one would suppose that every one of
them had been in the action, and that they were only prevented from
carrying everything before them by the timidity of their generals. The
wonderful feats which many of these heroes have told me they performed
would lead one to suppose that Napoleon's old Guard was but a flock of
sheep in comparison with them. I cannot help thinking that by a certain
indistinctness of recollection they attribute to themselves every
exploit, not only that they saw, but that their fertile imaginations