Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris

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osed to command. Some of the battalions appear to be anxious to fight, but it unfortunately happens that these are the very ones which are most undisciplined. The battalions of the bourgeois quarters obey orders, but there is no go in them. The battalions of the artizan Faubourgs have plenty of go, but they do not obey orders. General Trochu either cannot, or does not, desire to enforce military discipline. Outside the enceinte, the hands of the Mobiles are against every man, but no notice is taken when they fire at or arrest officers of other corps. The Courts-martial which sit are a m

e have got a circular railroad, and we have armed men in numbers. General Trochu has announced that he has a plan, the success of which he guarantees; he declines to confide to a soul any of its details, but he announces that he has depos

ommanders of forts to be forced to keep up a continual fire in order to satisfy public opinion, is not an encouraging state of things. The assertion of the Government, that no reports of what is going on in France have been received from Tours, is discredited. They have got themselv

with more or less trouble will get his share. As the amount of both these articles is, however, finite, one of these days we shall hear that they are exhausted. The proprietors have been deprived of their power to sue for rents, consequently a family requires but little ready money to rub on from hand to mouth. My landlord every week presents me with my bill. The ceremony seems to please him, and does me no harm. I have pasted upon my mantlepiece the decree of the Government adjou

I have charged the barrières three times, and each time have had to retire discomfited. My friends describe the soldiers of the line in th

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nibuses are crowded; and I fear greatly that their horses will be far from tender when we eat them. The cabbies, once so haughty and insolent, are humble and conciliatory, for Brutus and Sc?vola have taught them manners, and usually pay their fares in patriotic speeches. At the Arc de Triomphe, at the Trocadero, and at Passy, near the Point du Jour, there are always crowds trying to see the Prussians on the distant hills, and in the Avenue de l'Impératrice (now the Avenue Uhrich), there are always numerous admirers of Mont Valérien gazing silently upon the object of their worship. In the Faubourg St. Antoine workmen are lounging about doing nothing, and watching others drilling. In the outer faubourgs much the same thing goes on, except where barricades are being built. Round each of these there is always a crowd of men and women, apparently expecting the enemy to assault them every moment. At the different gates of the town there are companies of Mobiles and National Guards, who sternly repel every civilian who seeks to get through them. On an average of every ten minutes, no matter where one is, one meets either a battalion of Nationaux or Mobiles, marching somewhere. The asphalt of the boulevards, that sacred ground of dandies and smart dresses, is deserted during the daytime. In the evening for about two hours it is thronged by Nationaux with their wives; Mobiles who ramble along, grinning vaguely, hand in hand, as though they were in their native villages; and loafers. There, and in the principal streets, speculators have taken advantage of the rights of man to stop up the side walks with tables on which their wares are displayed. On some of them there are kepi

à outrance, ni un pouce de terrain, ni une pierre de nos forteresses!" I trust that the news is true; but I have an ineradicable distrust of all French official utterances. A partial attempt is being made to relieve the population. At the Mairies of t

sommes bien tombés." This is a good sign, but will it outlive a single gleam of success? Shall we not in that case have the Gallic cock crowing as lustily as ever? The French have many amiable and engaging qualities, and if adversity would only teach them wisdom, the country is rich enough to rise from the ruin which has overtaken it. M. Jules Simon has published a plan of education which he says in twenty years will produce a race of virile citizens; but this is a little long to wait for a social regeneration. At present they are schoolboys, accustomed to depend on their masters for everything,

855, she writes for more, and says "the Emperor is too good to leave a woman whom he has tenderly loved in a false position." This and several other of her letters are addressed to the Emperor's Secretary, whose functions seem to have been of a peculiarly domestic character. Indeed, the person who fulfilled them would everywhere, exce

o live here and to mix with all classes to realise the fact that the Parisians have until now lived in an ideal world of their own creation. Their orators, their statesmen, and their journalists, have traded upon the traditions of the First Empire, and persuaded them that they are a superior race, and that their superiority is universally recognised. Utterly ignorant of foreign languages and of foreign countries, they believe that their literature is the only one in the world, and that a Frenchman abroad is adored as something little less than a divinity. They regard the Prussians round their city much as the citizens of Sparta would have regarded

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e thinks if I give him a letter by one o'clock to-day this diplomatist will take it. The Corps Diplomatique are excessively indignant with the reply they have received from Count Bismarck, declining to allow any but open despatches through the Prussian lines. They have held an indignation meeting. M. Kern, the Swiss Minister, has drawn up a protest, which has been signed by himself and all his colleagues. The Columbian Minister is to be the bearer of it. It bombards Bismarck with copi

d the lake the wood is swept clean away, and the stumps of the trees have been sharpened to a point. About 8,000 soldiers are encamped in the open air on the race-course and in the Bois. Near Suresnes there is a redoubt which throws shell and shot into St. Cloud. We are under the impression that the firing from this redoubt, from Valérien, Issy, and the gunboat Farcy, which took place on Thursday morning, between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m., has destroyed the batteries and earthworks which the Prussians were erecting on the heights of St. Cloud and Meudon-Clamart. You, however, are better informed resp

t in the election of a Commune Paris will find her safety. The Government is accused of a want of energy. "Are we to remain cooped up here until we are starved out?" ask the Ultras. "As a military man, I decline to make a sortie," replies General Trochu. "We are not in '93. War is waged in a more scientific manner," whispers Ernest Picard. The plan of the Government, if plan it has, appears to be to wear out the endurance of the besiegers by a defensive attitude, until either an army from the provinces cuts off their communications, or the public opinion of Europe forces them to raise the siege. The plan of the Ultras is to save Paris by Paris; to make continual sorties, and, every now and then, one in such force that it will be a battle. I am inclined to think that theoretically the Government plan is the best, but it ignores the material it has to do with, and it will find itself obliged either to adopt the policy of the Ultras, or to allow them to elect a "Commune," which would soon absorb all power. The position appears to me to be a false one, owing to the attempt to rule France from Paris through an occasional despatch by balloon. What ought to have been done was to remove the seat of Government to another town before the siege commenced, and to have left either Trochu or some other military man

ber of young Frenchmen there, is borne out by facts. There have been, however, a vast number of petits crevés and others who have shirked military service by forming themselves into amateur ambulances. The "sergents de ville" have received orders to arrest anyone wearing the Red Cross who is unable to produce his certificate as an infirmier. This has thrown the

. I have a lively recollection of an old grandaunt of mine, who used to dun every one she met for a shilling for the benefit of the souls of the natives of Southern Africa, and as

anners is well known," to cause this bit of bunting, which is a scandal in their eyes, to be hauled down. I left Mr. Wodehouse consulting the text writers upon international law, in order to discover a precedent for the case. Colonel Claremont is doing his best to look after the interests of his fellow-co

ay, however, adopt a system of rations. I suspect most of the beef I have eaten of late is horse; anyhow, it does not taste like ordinary beef. To obtain a joint at home is almost impossible. In the first place, it is difficult to purchase it; in the second place, if, when bought, it is spotted by patriots going through the street, it is seized upon on the ground that any one who can obtain a joint for love or money must be an aristocrat who is getting more than his share. I me

of this morning publishes an official note from the Prefect of Police stating tha

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After these somewhat monotonous proceedings had continued about half an hour, several bourgeois battalions of National Guards came along the quay, and drew up in line, four deep, before the H?tel de Ville. They were not molested except with words. The leading ranks of the manifesters endeavoured by their eloquence to convince them that they ought not to prevent citizens peacefully expressing their opinions; but the grocers stood stolidly to their arms, and vouchsafed no reply. At three o'clock General Trochu with his staff rode along inside the line, and then withdrew. General Tamisier then made a speech, which of course no one could hear. Shortly afterwards there was a cry of "Voilà Flourens-Voilà nos amis," and an ouvrier battalion with its band playing the Marseillaise marched by. They did not halt, notwithstanding the entreaties of the manifesters, for they were bound, their officers explained, on a sacred mission, to deposit a crown before the statue of Strasburg. When I left the Place the crowd was, I think, increasing, and as I drove along the Rue Rivoli I met several bourgeois battalions marching towards the H?tel de Ville. I presume, therefore, that General Trochu

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still here, and he imagines that he will start to-morrow, so I shall give him my Columbian letter and this one. I understand that any one who is ready to give assurances that he will praise everything and every o

s I can make out, these battalions went to the H?tel de Ville on their own initiative. No one, however, seems to see any incongruity in the friends of the Government making an armed demonstration as a protest against armed and unarmed demonstrations in general. The question of the municipal elections will lie dormant for a few days, but I see no evidence that those who were

eagues appears to me to be the right man in the right place. I do not take my views of the working men from the nonsense which is printed about them in official and semi-official organs. They are the only class here which, to use an Americanism, is not "played out." The Government dreads them as much as the Empire did; but although they are too much carried away by their enthusiasm and their impulsiveness, they are the only persons in Paris who appear to have a grain of common sense. "As for the Army of the Loire," said one of them to me this morning, "no one, except a fool or a Government employé, can believe that it will ever be able to raise the siege, and as for all these bourgeois, they consider that they are heroes because once or twice a week they pass the night at the ramparts; they think first of their shops, then of their country." "But how can you imagine that you and your friends would be able to defeat the Prussians, who are disciplined soldiers?" I asked. "We can at least try," he replied. I ventured to point out to my friend that perhaps a little discipline in the ouvrier battalions might not be a bad thing; but he insisted that the indiscipline was caused by their distrust of their rulers, and that they were ready to obey their officers. "Take," he said "Flourens' battalions. They do not, it is true, march as regularly as the bourgeois, and they have nothin

amount of bread per diem upon application at their respective mairies. We are also told that if we wish

nday in Paris. A pigeon from. Gambetta's balloon has returned, but this