_April 21st._--This morning the Chief wished to have an article written for the _Kölnische Zeitung_ calling attention to the contrast between the intellectual impotence of the French and their self-conceit, and to the circumstance that in recent times they have always had to trust to foreigners for their salvation--a theme for which he gave me the ideas. The article ran as follows: “The forces at the disposal of the insurgents number about 120,000. In addition to these may be reckoned some 10,000 or 12,000 more or less convinced Republicans who have come from abroad, from the provinces, from Belgium, and from England; and perhaps an equal number of criminals and misdemeanants. A large proportion of the National Guards, who are only serving under compulsion, long for the moment when they shall be obliged to lay down their arms. The remainder consist of workmen who prefer the pay of the Commune, the daily excitement and amusement of chasing former gendarmes and policemen, to a peaceful return to their workshops. That cannot last long. It would be unnatural if, among these thousands of idle workmen and insurgents under duress, a disgust for such a life did not make itself felt, together with a surfeit of the hardships of the soldier’s trade, and a loosening of discipline. For the moment, indeed, Dombrowski, who enjoys a certain popularity, succeeds in holding them together. This is a new symptom of the extraordinary intellectual poverty and weakness of will which characterises the Frenchman of to-day, and particularly the Parisian. They boast of being the centre of civilisation, the focus of the intelligence of our time; and yet, lo and behold, in the recent crises they have always selected foreigners for their leaders, and have sought their salvation abroad! After the fall of the Empire they allowed themselves to be tyrannised by Gambetta. At the same time they placed their hopes in Garibaldi, another Italian, who would now be Dictator in Paris had he desired it. Instead of Garibaldi, they must now depend upon Poles of the notorious guild of ‘barricade heroes’--such as Dombrowski, Okolowitch, &c.; while, finally, there is an almost universal wish entertained by the party of order, who are dissatisfied with the lack of energy manifested at Versailles, that the Germans--again foreigners--should undertake the restoration of law and order.” The following is an almost literal reproduction of the Chancellor’s own words: “Scarcely another people in the whole world would condescend in such a pitiful way to borrow its heroes from abroad. With the exception of these Parisians, who boast of being the cream of civilisation, but who in reality are merely the redskins of the pavement, as empty-headed and weak-willed as savages, none would submit to be driven by energetic, although otherwise insignificant, foreigners towards ends that are in every respect opposed to their own interests. Truly a repulsive and most pitiable degeneracy!”