all but its own immediate organs.
The offices of the sententious "Siecle," the mercurial "Presse," the
satiric "Charivari," the jovial "Journal pour Rire," were occupied by the
military; and, to us English, they whispered even of a park of artillery
in the Rue Vivienne, and of a government proof-reader in the
printing-office of "Galignani's Messenger," striking out obnoxious
paragraphs by the dozen. The provisions were in a state of siege, the milk
was out, and no one would volunteer to go to the _cremiers_ for more; the
cabs, the _commissionnaires_ with their trucks, were besieged; the very
gas was slow in coming from the main, as though the pipes were in a state
of siege. Nobody could think or speak of any thing but this confounded
siege. Thought itself appeared to be beleaguered; for no one dared to give
it any thing but a cautious and qualified utterance. The hotel was full of
English ladies and gentlemen, who would have been delighted to go away by
the first train on any of the railways; but there might just as well have
been no railways, for all the good they were, seeing that it was
impossible to get to or from the termini with safety. The gentlemen were
valorous, certainly--there was a prevalence of "who's afraid?" sentiments;
but they read the French Bradshaw earnestly, and gazed at the map of Paris
with nervous interest--beating, meanwhile, the devil's tattoo. As for the
ladies, dear creatures, they made no secret of their extreme terror and
despair. The lone old lady, who is frightened at every thing, and who will
not even travel in an omnibus with a sword in a case, for fear it should
go off, was paralyzed with fear, and could only ejaculate, "Massacre!" The
strong-minded lady of a certain age, who had longed for the "pride, pomp,
and circumstance of glorious war," had taken refuge in that excellent
collection of tracts, of which "The Dairyman's Daughter," is one; and gave
short yelps of fear whenever the door opened. Fear, like every other
emotion, is contagious. Remarking so many white faces, so much subdued
utterance, so many cowed and terrified looks, I thought it very likely
that I might get frightened, too. So, having been up all the previous
night, I went to bed.

I slept; I dreamt of a locomotive engine blowing up and turning into the
last scene of a pantomime, with "state of siege" displayed in colored
fires. I dreamt I lived next door to an undertaker, or a trunk-maker, or a
manufacturer of fire-wo