h interest to the conversation of this worthy man
with some of his neighbours who had dropped in to have a gossip, and to
congratulate him on his martial achievements, as he had been on guard in
a bastion. We first discussed why the Army of the Loire had not arrived,
and we came to the conclusion that it was engaged in rallying Bazaine.
"I should like to read your English newspapers now," said one; "your
_Tims_ told us we ought to cede Alsace and Lorraine, but its editor must
now acknowledge that Paris is invincible." I told him that I felt
convinced that he did so regularly every morning. "No peace," shouted a
little tailor, who had been prancing about on an imaginary steed,
killing imaginary Prussians, "we have made a pact with death; the world
knows now what are the consequences of attacking us." The all-absorbing
question of subsistence then came up, and some one remarked that beef
would give out sooner than mutton. "We must learn," observed a
jolly-looking grocer, "to vanquish the prejudices of our stomachs. Even
those who do not like mutton must make the sacrifice of their taste to
their country." I mildly suggested that perhaps in a few weeks the
stomachs which had a prejudice against rats would have to overcome it.
At this the countenance of the gossips fell considerably, when the
bootmaker, after mysteriously closing the door, whispered, "A secret was
confided to me this morning by an intimate friend of General Trochu.
There is a tunnel which connects Paris with the provinces, and through
it flocks and herds are entering the town." This news cheered us up
amazingly. My bootmaker's wife came in to help him off with his military
accoutrements; so, with a compliment about Venus disarming Mars, I
withdrew in company with an American, who had gone into the shop with
me. This American is a sort of transatlantic Bunsby. He talks little,
but thinks much. His sole observation to me as we walked away was this,
"They will squat, sir, mark my words, they will squat." I received this
oracular utterance with respect, and I leave it to others to solve its
meaning, I am myself a person of singular credulity, but even I
sometimes ask myself whether all I hear and read can be true. Was there
really, as all the newspapers this morning inform me, a meeting last
Sunday at London of 400,000 persons, who were addressed by eminent
M.P's, and by the principal merchants and owners of manufactories in
England, at which resolutions were ado