Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris

"At the extremity of the Rue Faubourg St. Antoine is a dark passage, and in a room which opens into this passage is the Club de la Revendication. The audience is small, and cons...

The vote is being taken to-day whether the population of Paris maintains in power the Government of National Defence. On Saturday each of the twenty arrondissements is to elect...

Our forts still, like breakwaters before a coast, keep back the storm which the Prussians are directing against us. I went out yesterday by the Vincennes gate to see how matters...

I sent off a letter yesterday in a balloon; whether it reaches its destination, or is somewhere in the clouds, you will know before I do. The difficulties of getting through the...

The Government of National Defence has almost disappeared from notice. It has become a Committee to preside over public order. The world may calumniate us, they said in a procla...

I am by no means certain that I should be a hero at the Equator, but I am fully convinced that I should be an abject coward at the North Pole. Three mornings ago I stood for two...

I have sent you numerous letters, but I am not aware whether you have received them. As very probably they are now either in the clouds or in the moon, I write a short resume of...

Real Christmas weather--that is to say, the earth is as hard as a brickbat, and the wind freezes one to the very marrow. To the rich man, with a good coal fire in his grate, tur...

It is very curious how close, under certain conditions of wind and temperature, the cannonade appears to be, even in the centre of the town. This morning I was returning home at...

From a military, or rather an engineering point of view, Paris is stronger to-day than it was two weeks ago. The defences have been strengthened. With respect, however, to its d...

Prisoners have before now endeavoured to while away their long hours of captivity by watching spiders making their webs. I can understand this. In the dreary monotony of this dr...

I bought a dozen newspapers this morning. Every one of them, with the exception of the _Gaulois_, in more or less covert language, insists upon peace upon any terms. Our "mainsp...

I am very much afraid that it will be some time before my letters reach you, if indeed they ever do. I had entrusted one to Lord Lyons' butler, a very intelligent man, who was t...

The attempt of the "Ultras" to force Trochu to resign has been a failure. On Friday bands issuing from the outer Faubourgs marched through the streets shouting "No capitulation!...

I see at a meeting of the mayors, the population of Paris is put down at 2,036,000. This does not include the regular army, or the Marines and Mobiles outside and within the lin...

No one walking on the Champs Elysées or on the Boulevards to-day would suppose that 300,000 Prussians are within a few miles of the city, and intend to besiege it. Happy, said L...

I write this, as I hear that the last balloon is to start to-night. How lucky for the English public that, just when the siege of Paris ceases, the conscript fathers of the nati...

From morning to evening cannon were rolling and troops were marching through the streets. Since Saturday night the gates of the town had been rigidly closed to all civilians, an...

A despatch is published this morning from M. Gambetta, giving a very hopeful account of things in the provinces. As, however, this gentleman on his arrival at Tours issued a pro...

We are still beating our tom-toms like the Chinese, to frighten away the enemy, and our braves still fire off powder at invisible Uhlans. The Prussians, to our intense disgust,...

it, as Isaac Walton did with the worm, "as though they loved" you. They were perfectly cowed with the rough bullying of their masters. It is most astonishing--considering how go...

At 4 o'clock p.m. on Wednesday I took my departure from Paris, leaving, much with the feelings of Daniel when he emerged from the lions' den, its inhabitants wending their way t...