All yesterday afternoon and evening the Fort of Issy, and the battery of the Bois de Boulogne, fired heavily on Brinborion and Meudon, with what result no one knows. Yesterday morning the _Combat_ announced that Marshal Bazaine was treating for the surrender of Metz in the name of Napoleon. The Government was interviewed, and denied the fact. In the evening the _Combat_ was burnt on the Boulevards. The chief of General Ducrot's staff has published a letter protesting against the assertions of certain journals that the fight at Malmaison produced no results. On the contrary, he says it gained us sixty square kilometres of ground in the plain of Genevilliers. CHAPTER IX. _October 28th._ 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 lines. The consumption of meat, consequently, at the rate of 100 grammes per diem, must amount to between 400,000 and 500,000lbs. per diem. Although mutton according to the tariff is cheaper than beef, I rarely see any at the restaurants. This tells its own tale, and I imagine that in three weeks from now at the very latest fresh meat will have come to an end. I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that there is no more fight in the working men than in the bourgeois. The National Guard in Montmartre and Batignolles have held an indignation meeting to protest against their being employed in the forts. A law was passed on August 10 calling under arms all unmarried men between 25 and 40. In Paris it has never been acted on; it would, however, be far better to regularly enrol this portion of the National Guard as soldiers than to ask for volunteers. As long as these "sedentary" warriors can avoid regular service, or subjecting themselves to the discipline and the hardships of real soldiers, they will do so. Before the Pantheon, the mayor of an arrondissement sits on a platform, writing down the names of volunteers. Whenever one makes his appearance, a roll of drums announces to his fellow-citizens that he has undertaken to risk his valuable life outside the ramparts. It really does appear too monstrous that the able-bodied men of this city should wear uniforms, learn the goose-step, and refuse to take any part in the defence within shot of the enemy. That they should object to be employed in a campaign away from their homes, is hardly in accordance with their appeal to the provinces to rise _en masse_ to defend France, but that they should decline to do anything but go over every twelve days to the ramparts, is hardly fighting even for their own homes. Surely as long as the siege lasts they ought to consider that the Government has a right to use them anywhere within the lines of investment They make now what they call military promenades, that is to say, they go out at one gate, keep well within the line of the forts, and come in at another gate. Some of the battalions are ready