ather, and as I sit writing this at my open window I have great
difficulty in believing that we are cut off from the rest of the world
by a number of victorious armies, who mean to burn or starve us out. M.
John Lemoinne in the _Journal des Debats_ this morning has a very
sensible article upon the position of the Government. He says that
between the first and the second of these two ultimatums there is a vast
difference, and he exhorts the Government to stand by the first, but not
to refuse peace if it can be obtained by the dismantling of Metz and
Strasburg. The _Temps_ of this evening takes the same view of the
proclamation. The ultra Republican journals, on the other hand, support
the policy of the Government. M. Felix Pyat, in his organ, _Le Combat_,
urges war to the death, and proposes that we should at once have Spartan
banquets, at which rich and poor should fare alike. A proposal has been
made to start a national subscription for a musket of honour to be given
to the man who shoots the King of Prussia. There are already 2,000
subscribers of one sou each to the testimonial. The latest proclamation
I have seen on the walls is one from the Mayor of Paris, informing the
public that the coachmen of Paris are not to be ill-treated by their
fares because they are not on the ramparts. As the coachmen of Paris are
usually excessively insolent, I shall not be sorry to hear that they
have at length met with their deserts. A coachman who was driving me
yesterday told me in the strictest confidence that he was a man who
never meddled in politics, and, consequently, it was a matter of
absolute indifference to him whether Napoleon or a "General Prussien"
lived in the Tuileries; and this, I suspect, is the view that many here
take, if they only dared say it.

It is amusing to observe how every one has entered into the conspiracy
to persuade the world that the French nation never desired war--to hear
them, one would suppose that the Rhine had never been called the
national frontier of France, and that the war had been entered into by
Badinguet, as they style the late Emperor, against the wishes of the
army, the peasantry, and the bourgeoisie. Poor old Badinguet has enough
to answer for already, but even sensible Frenchmen have persuaded
themselves that he, and he alone, is responsible for the war. He is
absolutely loathed here. I sometimes suggest to some Gaul that he may
possibly be back again some day; the Gaul immediately roll