f
it continues, eventually every man of rank will be dubbed by his own
countrymen either a knave or a fool.

_January 31st._

_Finita la Comedia._ Let fall the curtain. The siege of Paris is over;
the last balloon has carried our letters through the clouds; the last
shot has been fired. The Prussians are in the forts, and the Prussian
armies are only not in the streets because they prefer to keep watch and
guard outside the vanquished city. What will be the verdict of history
on the defence? Who knows! On the one hand the Parisians have kept a
powerful army at bay far longer than was anticipated; on the other hand,
every sortie that they have made has been unsuccessful--every attempt to
arrest the approach of the besiegers has failed. Passively and inertly
they have allowed their store of provisions to grow less and less, until
they have been forced to capitulate, without their defences having been
stormed, or the cannon silenced. The General complains of his soldiers,
the soldiers complain of their General; and on both sides there is cause
of complaint. Trochu is not a Todleben. His best friends describe him as
a sort of military Hamlet, wise of speech, but weak and hesitating in
action--making plans, and then criticising them instead of accomplishing
them. As a commander, his task was a difficult one; when the siege
commenced he had no army; when the army was formed, it was encompassed
by earthworks and redoubts so strong that even better soldiers would
have failed to carry them. As a statesman, he never was the master of
the situation. He followed rather than led public opinion, and
subordinated everything to the dread of displeasing any section of a
population, which, to be ruled--even in quiet times--must be ruled with
a rod of iron. Success is the criterion of ability in this country, and
poor Trochu is as politically dead as though he never had lived. His
enemies call him a traitor; his friends defend him from the charge by
saying that he is only a vain fool.

As regards the armed force, the sailors have behaved so well that I
wonder at the ease with which our own tars have always beaten them. They
have been kept under a rigid discipline by their naval commanders. The
line, composed of depot battalions, and of the regiments which Vinoy
brought back from Mezieres, without being equal to old seasoned troops,
have fought creditably. Their great defect has been an absence of strict
discipline. The Mobiles, raw p