_Monday, October 24th._--Strange news comes from Marseilles. It appears that the Red Republicans have there gained the upper hand. Esquiros, the Prefect of the Mouths of the Rhone, belongs to this variety of French Republicans. He has suppressed the _Gazette du Midi_, because the clubs of his party maintain that it favours the candidature of the Comte de Chambord, whose proclamation it has published. He has also expelled the Jesuits. A decree has been issued by Gambetta, declaring the Prefect to be dismissed, and his measures against the newspaper mentioned and the Jesuits to be abrogated. Esquiros, however, supported by the working classes, has declined to obey this order of the Government Delegation at Tours, and continues to hold his post. The _Gazette du Midi_ is still suppressed, and the Jesuits are expelled. Just as little heed was paid to Gambetta’s decree disbanding the Civic Guard, which was recruited from Red Republicans, and is not to be confounded with the Marseilles National Guard. The Chief remarked with reference to this news: “It looks as if things were tending towards civil war; and it is possible that we may shortly have a Republic of South France.” I worked up this news into paragraphs, written in the sense of the foregoing comment. At 4 o’clock M. Gauthier, who comes from Chislehurst, called upon the Chancellor. _Tuesday, October 25th._--This morning the Chief said, in reference to a statement in the _Pays_ mentioning an indemnity of three and a half milliards: “Nonsense! I shall demand much more than that!” During dinner the subject of “William Tell” was introduced, I cannot now remember how, and the Minister confessed that, even as a boy, he could not endure that character; first, because he shot at his own son, and secondly, because he killed Gessler in a treacherous way. “It would have been more natural and noble to my mind if, instead of shooting at the boy, for after all the best archer might hit him instead of the apple, he had immediately shot down the Governor. That would have been legitimate wrath provoked by a cruel command. But the lurking and skulking is not to my taste. It is not the proper style for a hero, not even for franctireurs.” Two copies of the _Nouvelliste_ are pasted up daily in different parts of the town, and are read by the people, although, when a German passes by, the group engaged in perusing them greets him with such criticisms as, “_Mensonges!_” or “_Impossible!_” One of Stieber’s attendant spirits, or some other guardian of the truth, caught a working man to-day in the act of writing the word “Blague” on one of the copies posted up in the neighbourhood of the Prefecture. It is said that he is to be transported to Germany.