for about one-tenth part of
what was asked for them two months ago, and even that need not be paid.
Few shops are shut; but their proprietors sit, hoping against hope, for
some customer to appear. The grocers, the butchers, and the bakers, and
the military tailors, still make money; but they are denounced for doing
so at the clubs as bad patriots. As for the hotels, almost all of them
are closed. At the Grand Hotel, there are not twenty persons. Business
of every kind is at a standstill. Those who have money, live on it;
those who have not, live on the State: the former shrug their shoulders
and say, "Provided it does not last;" the latter do not mind how long it
lasts. All are comparatively happy in the thought that the eyes of
Europe are on them, and that they have already thrown Leonidas and his
Spartans into the shade.

The Government has placarded to-day a despatch from Tours. Two armies
are already formed, we are told--one at Lyons, and the other at----. The
situation of Bazaine is excellent. The provinces are ready. The
departments are organising to the cry of "Guerre a 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 the arrondissements, tickets are delivered to heads of
families, giving them the right to a certain portion of meat per diem
until January. The restaurants are still fairly supplied; so that the
system of rationing is not yet carried out in its integrity.

I am not entirely without hopes that the trial through which France is
passing will in the end benefit it. Although we still brag a good deal,
there is within the last few days a slight diminution of bluster. Cooped
up here, week after week, the population must in the end realise the
fact that the world can move on without them, and that twenty years of
despotism has enervated them and made other nations their equals, if not
their superiors. As Sydney Smith said of Macaulay, they have occasional
flashes of silence. They sit, now and then, silent and gloomy, and mourn
for the "Pauvre France." "Nous sommes bien tombes." 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
wi