But the sun is shining still, and the little birds are twittering merrily upon the house-tops, and the caged canaries chirp at windows, and perchance there is the merry laugh of children. All these things heed not the terror and desolation of the city. It is shining still--into huge churches also, where thick masses of straw are littered down, and the wounded lie in hundreds to overflowing--into courts, where again is scattered straw, and again groan wounded and dying--upon street-side pavements, where again are strewn these sad beds of the victims of civil contention, excited by the most frantic of delusions--and through narrow windows, into prison vaults and palace cellars, where are crowded together masses of prisoners, who, for the most part, regret not the part they have played in the scenes of blood, and sit gloomily upon the damp stone, brooding over schemes of vengeance upon the detested _bourgeois_, should they escape, and the Red Republic ever be triumphant! It is shining still; and every where it shines, it smiles upon misery: it seems to mock the doomed unhappy city. But there are still stirring, striking, unaccustomed scenes limned in the Parisian Sketch-book. Paris has been declared in a state of siege by the military autocrat, into whose hands the salvation of the capital and the country from utter anarchy has been given. The scenes of marching men and torrents of bayonets coming down the broad boulevards, and sentinels at street corners, and patrols, and military manœuvres, and galloping dragoons, and of drums beaten from daybreak until late into the night, are nothing new to Paris: such scenes have been traced upon its Sketch-book again and again, for the last four disastrous months. But Paris has gone further now. See! in these sketches it represents one vast camp. All along the broad vast vista of the boulevards are whole regiments bivouacking: the horses of the cavalry are stabled upon straw along the pavements, or around the triumphal arches; arms are piled together at street corners: some sleep upon the straw, while others watch as if in battle array. The shops are still shut, although pale faces look from windows; and the grateful inhabitants shower blessings upon those who have saved the terrified people from the horrors of the Red Republic, the pillage, and the guillotine; and ladies bring out food and wine from the houses; and none think that they can find words enough to express their gratitude, and praise the heroism of their defenders. Alas! those who fought in that evil desperate cause showed equal heroism, equal courage, still more reckless rage! What a strange scene it is, this scene sketched in the streets! The closing scene of a battle-field of unexampled carnage amidst a peaceful population--the soldier and the tenderly nurtured lady placed side by side amidst the wounded and the weary! the mourning of the bereaved family upon the same spot with the first emotion of victory! Since the agitated and