Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris

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s. The consumption of meat, consequently, at the rate of 100 grammes per diem, must amount to between 400,000 and 500,000lbs. per diem. Although mutton according to the tariff is

defence within shot of the enemy. That they should object to be employed in a campaign away from their homes, is hardly in accordance with their appeal to the provinces to rise en masse to defend France, but that they should decline to do anything but go over every twelve days to the ramparts, is hardly fighting even for their own homes. Surely as long as the siege lasts they ought to consider that the Government has a right to use them anywhere within the lines of investment They make now what they call military promenades, that is to say, they go out at one gate, keep well within the line of the forts, and come in at another gate. Some of the battalions are ready to face the enemy, although they will not submit to any discipline. The majority, however, do not intend to fight outside the ramparts. I was reading yesterday the account of a court-martial on one of these heroes, who had fallen out with his commanding officer, and threatened to pass his sword through his body. The culprit, counsel urged, was a man of an amiable, though excitable disposition; the

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illery fire from the batteries at Stains and Dugny, which was replied to from the forts of Aubervilliers and l'Est, La Briche and St. Denis, heavy masses of infantry advanced from Staines and Gonesse. When they approached the village the fire which was concentrated on them was so heavy that they were obliged to fall back. At about twelve o'clock I went out by the gate of La Villette. Between the ramparts and the Fort of Aubervilliers there were large masses of troops held in reserve, and I saw several battalions of National Guards among them, belonging, I heard, to the Volunteers. I pushed on to an inn situated at the intersection of the roads to Bourget and Courneuve. There I was stopped. It was raining hard, and all I could make out was that Prussians and French were busily engaged in firing, the former into Bourget, the latter into Stains and Dugny. It appears to have been feared that the Prussians would make an attack from Bourget upon either

y all expect, when the party which they support is in power, to be given this red ribbon as a matter of course. It has been so lavishly distributed that anyon

ch, a play of Molière's without costumes, and an ode to Liberty. I can understand closing the theatres entirely, but it seems to me absurd increasing the general gloom, by opening them in order to make

conquer, and that the world is lost in wonder and admiration of their attitude. The siege is one long holiday to the working classes. They are as well fed as ever they were, and have absolutely nothing to do except to play at soldiers. Although the troops are unable to hold the villages within the fire of their forts, they are under the delusion that-to use the favourite expression-the circle in which we are inclosed is gradually but surely being enlarged. I was this morning buying cigars at a small tobacconist's. "Well," said the proprietor of the shop to me, "so we are to destroy the Prussians in twenty days." "Really," I said. "Yes," he replied, "I was this morning at the Mairie; there was a crowd before it complaining that they could not get meat. A gentleman-

ard sixteen millions. This is all very well, but surely it would be better to put off questions affecting education until the siege is over. The alteration in the nomenclature of the streets also continues. The Boulevard Prince Eugène is to be called the Boulevard Voltaire, and the statue of the Prince has been taken down, to be replaced by the statue of the philosopher; the Rue Cardinal Fesch is to be called the Rue de Chateaudun

otel. In the Palais it was impossible to regulate the ventilation. It was always either too hot or too cold. Another

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ks not. Some of our troops were trapped, the others got away, and fell back on the barricades in front of Aubervilliers. My friend observes that if it was not a rout, it was extremely like one. He thinks that we were only allowed to get into Bourget in order to be caught like rats in a trap. When my friend left the forts were firing on Pierrefitte and Etains, and the Prussians were established in front of Bourget. My friend,

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ent. To-day the official bulletin states that we retreated in good order, leaving "some" prisoners. From what I hear from officers who were engaged, the Mobiles fought well for some time, although their ammunition was so wet that they could only fire twelve shots with their cannon, and not one with their mitrailleuse. When they saw that they were l

t vast armies were forming in the provinces, and would, before the middle of November, march to the relief of Paris; that the investing army was starving, and that it had been unable to place a single gun in position within the range of the forts; that we had ample provisions until the month of February, and that there would not be the slightest difficulty in introducing convoys. Anyo

men would fight well, but I think so no longer. Under the Empire they got high wages for doing very little. Since the investment of the capital, they have taken their 1fr. 50c. and their rations for their families, and done hardly anything except drill, gossip, and about once a week go on the ramparts. So fond they are of this idle existence, that although workshops offer 6fr. a day to men, they cannot obtain hands. With respect to provisions, as yet the poorer classes have been better off than they ever were before. Every one gets his 50 or 100 grammes of meat, and his share of bread. Those persons alone who were accustomed to luxuries have suffered from their absence. Meat of some kind is, however, to be obtained by any person

prepared to agree to the fortresses in Alsace and Lorraine being rased; but when he returned, the phrase, "Ni un pouce du terri

is now all the fashion. When one is asked to dinner, as an inducement one is told that there will be donkey. The flesh of this obstinate, but weak-minded quadruped is delicious-in colour like mutton, firm and savoury. This siege will

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esticulating. The people round me said that the mayors of Paris had been summoned by Arago, and were in one room inside deliberating, whilst in another was the Government. I managed to squeeze inside the rails, and stood near the open door. At about 2.30 the Mobiles who guarded it were pushed back, and the mob was forcing its way through it, when Trochu appeared, and confronted them. What he said I could not hear. His voice was drowned in cries of "A bas Trochu!" Jules Simon then got on a chair, to try the effect of his eloquence; but in the midst of his gesticulations a body of armed men forced their way through the entrance, and with about 300 of the mob got inside the Hotel. Just then three or four shots were fired. The crowd outsid

of the room, and I heard that the old Government had been arrested, and that a consultation was to take place between it and the new one. Feeling hungry, I now went to the door of the H?tel to get out, but I was told I could not do so without a permission from the citizen Blanqui. I observed that I was far too independent a citizen myself to ask any one for a permit to go where I liked, and, as I walked on, the citizen sentinel did not venture to stop me. As I passed before Trochu's headquarters at the Louvre I spoke to a captain of the Etat-Major, whom I knew, and whom I saw standing at the gate. When he heard that I had just come from the H?tel de Ville, he anxiously asked me what was going on there, and whether I had seen Trochu. General Schmitz, he said, had received an order signed by the mayors of Paris to close the gates of the town, and not on any pretext to let any one in or out. At the Louvre he said all was in confusion, but he understood that Picard had escaped from the H?tel de Ville, and was organizing a counter-movement at the Ministry of Finance. Having dined, I went off to the Place Vend?me, as the generale was beating. The National Guards of the quarter were hurrying there, and Mobile battalions were marching in the same direction. I found on my arrival that this had become the headquarters of the Government; that an officer who had come with an order to Picard to go to the H?tel de Ville, signed by Blanqui, had been arrested. General Tamisier was still a prisoner with the Government. Soon news arrived that a battalion had got inside the H?tel de Ville and had managed to smuggle Trochu out by a back door. Off I went to the Louvre. There Trochu, his uniform considerably deteriorated, was haranguing some battalions of the Mobiles,

German army. They showed their sense by demanding that Dorian should be at the head of the new Government. He is not a Demagogue, he has written no despatches, nor made any speeches, nor decreed any Utopian reforms after the manner of his colleagues. But, unlike them, he is a practical man of business, and this the working men have had discernment enough to discover. They are hardly to be blamed if they have accepted literally the rhetorical figures of Jules Favre. When he said that, rather than yield one stone of a French fortress, Paris would bury itself beneath its ruins, they believed it. I need hardly say that neither the Government nor the bourgeoisie have the remotest intention to sacrifice either their own lives or their houses merely in order to rival Saragossa. They have got themselves into a ridiculous position by their reckless vaunts, and they have welcomed M. Thiers, as an angel from heaven, be

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s to be taken to-morrow: "Does the population of Paris maintain

but I hear that there and in the other outer Faubourgs there is great excitement, and the question of a rising is being discussed. Flourens and some other commanders of battalions have been cashiered, but they are still in command, and no attempt is being made to oblige them to recognise the decree. Rochefort has resigned his seat in the Government, on the ground that he consented to the election of the Commune. The general feeling among the shopkeepers seems to be to accept an armistice on almost any terms, because they hope that it will lead to peace. We will take our revenge, they say, in two years. A threat which simply means that if the French army can fight then, they will again shout "à Berlin!" M. Thiers is still at Versailles. There appears to be a tacit truce, but none knows precisely what is going on. A friend of mine saw General Trochu yesterday on business, and he tells me that this worthy man was then so utterly prostrated, that he did not even refer to the business which he had come to transact. Never was a man more unfit to defend a great ca