meat on or about the 20th of this month.

Yesterday, all the hidden stores which had been hoarded up with an eye
to a great profit were thrown on the market. To-day they have again
disappeared. Lamb is, however, freely offered for sale, and curiously
enough, at the same time, live dogs are becoming scarce.

Several Ultras have been elected mayors of the different
arrondissements; among them Citizen Mottu, who was turned out of his
mayorship about a fortnight ago because he refused to allow any child to
attend a place of worship except with his own consent. It is all very
well for M. Jules Favre to say that the election of mayors is a negation
of a Commune. As I understand it, a Commune is but a council of elected
mayors. If the Government loses its popularity, the new mayors will
become a Commune. The more, however, the majority desire peace, the less
likely will they be to throw themselves into the arms of Citizen Mottu
and his friends, who are all for war _a outrance_.

_Monday, November 7th._

The newspapers of to-day, with the exception of the Ultra organs, are
loud in their expressions of regret that the armistice has not been
agreed to. The Government gives no further details, but yesterday
afternoon M. Jules Favre informed several members of the press who
"interviewed" him, that Prussia refused to allow the introduction of
provisions into Paris during the duration of the armistice. I have long
ceased believing any assertion of a member of the French Government,
unless supported by independent evidence. But if this be really true, I
must say that Count Bismarck has been playing a game with the Neutral
Powers, for it can hardly be expected that Paris would consent to
suspend all military operations against the Prussians, whilst their
process of reducing the town by starvation was uninterrupted. Besides,
as such a condition would have amounted practically to a capitulation,
it would have been more frank on the part of Count Bismarck to have
submitted the question in that form. I anticipate very shortly a sortie
in force. An attempt will be made with the Second Army to pierce the
Prussian lines. There appears no reason to doubt that it will fail, and
then the cry for peace will become so strong that the Government will
be obliged to listen seriously to it.

General Trochu's new organization is severely criticised. I hear from
military men that he elaborated it himself with his personal friends. So
secret was i