ide of Paris they are
endeavouring to erect batteries; but they are unable to do so on account
of the fire of Fort Nogent. It seems to me that we are shouting before
we are quite out of the wood; but we are already congratulating
ourselves upon having sustained a siege which throws those of Saragossa
and Richmond into the shade. If we have not yet been bombarded, we have
assumed "an heroic attitude of expectation;" and if the Prussians have
not yet stormed the walls, we have shown that we were ready to repel
them if they had. Deprived of our shepherd and our sheep-dogs, we civic
sheep have set up so loud a ba-ba, that we have terrified the wolves who
wished to devour us. In the impossible event of an ultimate capitulation
we shall hang our swords and our muskets over our fire-places, and say
to our grandchildren, "I, too, was one of the defenders of Paris." In
the meantime, soldiers who have run away when attacked are paraded
through the streets with a placard on their breasts, requesting all good
citizens to spit upon them. Two courts-martial have been established to
judge spies and marauders, and in each of the nine sections there is a
court-martial to sit upon peccant National Guards. "The sentence," says
the decree, "will at once be executed by the detachment on duty." We are
preparing for the worst; in the Place of the Pantheon, and other
squares, it is proposed to take up the paving stones, because they will,
if left, explode shells which may strike them. The windows of the Louvre
and other public edifices are being filled with sand bags. This morning
I was walking along the Rue Lafayette, when I heard a cry "A bas les
cigares!" and I found that if I continued to smoke, it was thought that
I should set light to some ammunition waggons which were passing.

Yesterday evening there was a report, which was almost universally
credited, that a revolution had broken out in London, because the
English Government had refused to aid Paris in driving back the
Prussians. The Parisians find it impossible to understand that the world
at large can see little distinction between a French army entering
Berlin and a Prussian army entering Paris. Their capital is to them a
holy city, and they imagine that the Christian world regards the
Prussian attack upon it much as the Mahometan world would regard a
bombardment of Mecca. No doubt it will be a shocking thing to bombard a
city such as this, filled with women and children; still, bei