reatened by armed men. Jules Favre sat
quietly in his chair; Jules Simon sketched upon his blotting-paper;
rifles were pointed at General Trochu. "Escape, General!" cried
some one in the crowd. "I am a soldier, Citizen," he answered,
"and my duty is to die at my post." One member of the Committee
managed, however to escape, and summoned the National Guard to
the assistance of his colleagues.

It was eight o'clock in the evening when the troops arrived. At
sight of their guns and bayonets the populace, grown weary of its
day's excitement, melted away. Before daylight, order was restored.
"Thus," says an American then in Paris, "in twelve hours Paris
had one Republican Government taken prisoner, another set up, and
the first restored."

So peace, after a fashion, returned; but Count Bismarck, learning
of these events, was strengthened in his determination to keep
Paris shut up within her gates till the factions in the city, in
the coming days of famine and distress, should destroy one another.

M. Thiers had almost concluded an agreement for an armistice of
thirty days, during which Paris was to be fed, while an election
should be held all over France for a National Assembly; but after
the disorders of October 31, Count Bismarck refused to hear of
any food being supplied to Paris, negotiations were broken off,
and the war went on.

Up to this time bread in Paris had been sufficient for its needs,
and not too dear. Wine was plenty, but meat was growing scarce.
Horses were requisitioned for food. It was the upper classes who
ate horse-flesh and queer animals out of the Jardin des Plantes;
the working-classes would not touch such things till driven to
eat them by absolute famine.

Butter rose to five dollars a pound, cabbages were sold by the
leaf. Early in the siege, eggs were three dollars a dozen, and milk
soon became unattainable. "Poor little babies died like flies," says
an eye-witness. Fuel, too, was growing very scarce and very dear.
The women supported their privations bravely, but it is terrible
to think what must have been the sufferings of mothers deprived
of wholesome food for their little children. The firmness and
self-sacrifice of the _bourgeoisie_ were above all praise.

All kinds of meats were eaten. Mule was said to be delicious,--far
superior to beef. Antelope cost eighteen francs a pound, but was
not as good as stewed rabbit; elephant's trunk was eight dollars
a pound, it being esteemed a delica