The Prussians on their side replied with their needle-guns. I got behind a tree, feeling that my last hour was come. There I remained about half an hour, for whenever I moved a bullet came whizzing near me. At last a thought, a happy thought, occurred to me. I rolled myself into a ditch, which ran alongside the road, and down this ditch I crept until I got close to the barricade, over which I climbed with more haste than dignity. The soldiers were greatly amazed at my having really believed a statement which I had read in the newspapers, and their observations respecting the Parisians and their "organs" were far from complimentary. On my way back by Montrouge, I stopped to gossip with some Breton Mobiles. They, too, spoke with the utmost scorn of the patriots within the walls. "We are kept here," they said, "to defend these men, all of whom have arms like us; they live comfortably inside the ramparts, whilst the provinces are being ravaged." These Breton Mobiles are the idols of the hour. They are to the Republic what the Zouaves were to the Empire. They are very far, however, from reciprocating the admiration which the Republicans entertain for them. They are brave, devout, credulous peasants, care far more for Brittany than they do for Paris, and regard the individuals who rule by the grace of Paris with feelings the reverse of friendly. The army and the Mobiles, indeed, like being cooped up here less and less every day, and they cannot understand why the 300,000 National Guards who march and drill in safety inside the capital do not come outside and rough it like them. While I was talking to these Bretons one of them blew his nose with his handkerchief. His companions apologised to me for this piece of affectation. "He is from Finisterre," they said. In Finisterre, it appears, luxury is enervating the population, and they blow their noses with handkerchiefs; in other parts of Brittany, where the hardy habits of a former age still prevail, a more simple method is adopted. The volunteering from the National Guard for active service has been a failure. 40,000 men were required; not 7,000 have sent in their names. The Ultras say that it is a scheme to get rid of them; the bourgeoisie say nothing, but volunteer all the less. The fact is, the siege as far as regards the Parisians has been as yet like hunting--all the pleasure of war, with one per cent. of the danger; and so long as they can help it they have no intention to increase that per-centage. As for the 1,500 cannon, they have not yet been made; but many of them have already been named. One is to be called the "Jules Favre," one the "Populace," "We already hear them thunder, and see the Prussians decimated," says the _Temps_, and its editor is not the first person who has counted his chickens before they are hatched.