s and presided over by the Empress, at which the fatal march on
Sedan was determined upon, all combined to ruin the national cause. The
Empress would not comprehend, notwithstanding the instances of the
Emperor, of Mac-Mahon, of Prince Napoleon, that "it was at Paris alone
that the Empire could be defended, at Paris that France could be armed,
at Paris that the allies, who had promised their aid, could be
constrained to pronounce their adherence." Through a false conception of
the interests of the dynasty, it was resolved to go to Sedan,
notwithstanding the Emperor, who said to Mac-Mahon: "Since it is so, let
us go and get our heads broken." The last volume of M. Ollivier's work,
_L'Empire liberal: etudes, recits et souvenirs_, has appeared in this
present year (1898), and completes an able and very interesting defence
of a dynasty which has not found many apologists as yet.

General Trochu, military commandant of Paris during the siege, has also,
in his _Memoires_, published in 1896, dwelt upon the all-important part
which the capital might have played in the great drama of the national
defence. "I dreamed," he says, "of a Parisian population forgetting
before the grandeur of the common peril its animosity toward the Empire,
in order to associate itself with us in the supreme effort which we were
about to make in conjunction with it; of Paris, with its immense
resources, put in a state of defence by the labor of a hundred thousand
arms and, after a brief delay, rendered impregnable." This theory of the
great importance of the capital is, however, by no means held by all the
military critics of the war.

[Illustration: AVENUE DE L'OBSERVATOIRE, FROM THE CARREFOUR.]

It is, perhaps, well to dwell, at some length, in any effort--however
superficial--to appreciate the present condition and the promise for the
future of this nation and this capital, on this period of the war with
Germany, for the burden of contemporary testimony seems to be that there
has been, practically, no recovery from the blow. Nothing is more
interesting in contemporary sociology than the tone of depression,
almost of humility, of lack of national elasticity and self-assertiveness,
in the current French literature. There are still to be met with, of
course, the familiar assertions that France is "the cradle of
enlightened liberties," the "hope of struggling nationalities," and
similar vague phrases, but always qualified with some allusion to the
pr