tter to-day to
the _Combat_ denouncing the Government, and demanding that the Republic
"should decree victory," and shoot every unsuccessful general. Blanqui
says that he lost his election as commander of a battalion, through the
intrigues of the Jesuits. It was proposed on Saturday, at a club, to
make a demonstration before the Hotel de Ville, in favour of M. Mottu,
the Mayor of the eleventh arrondissement, who was dismissed on account
of his crusade against crucifixes. An amendment, however, was carried,
putting it off until famine gives the friends of a revolution new
adherents. Crucifixes were denounced by an orator in the course of the
evening, as "impure nudities, which ought not to be suffered in public
places, on account of our daughters."

The great meat question is left to every arrondissement to decide
according to its own lights. As a necessary consequence of this, while
in one part of Paris it takes six hours to get a beef-steak, in others,
where a better system of distribution prevails, each person can obtain
his ration of 100 grammes without any extraordinary delay. Butter now
costs 18fr. the pound. Milk is beginning to get scarce. The "committee
of alimentation" recommends mothers to nourish their babies from what
Mr. Dickens somewhere calls "nature's founts."

I had a conversation yesterday with one of the best writers on the
French press, and I asked him to tell me what were the views of the
sensible portion of the population respecting the situation. He replied,
"We always were opposed to the Empire; we knew what the consequences
eventually would be. The deluge has overtaken us, and we must accept the
consequences. In Paris, few who really are able to form a just estimate
of our resources, can expect that the siege can have any but a
disastrous termination. Everyone, however, has lost so much, that he is
indifferent to what remains. We feel that Paris would be disgraced if at
least by a respectable defence she does not show that she is ready to
sacrifice herself for France." "But," I said, "you are only putting off
the inevitable hour at a heavy cost to yourself." "Perhaps," he replied,
"we are not acting wisely, but you must take into consideration our
national weaknesses; it is all very well to say that we ought to treat
now, and endeavour to husband our resources, so as to take our revenge
in twenty years, but during that twenty years we should not venture to
show ourselves abroad, or hold up our