The Ultras bitterly complain that the members of the Government agreed to the election of a Commune, on the recommendation of all the mayors, and that now they are going back from their concession, and are following in the steps of the Empire and taking refuge in a Plebiscite. They, therefore, recommend their friends to abstain from voting. The fact is, that the real question at issue is, whether Paris is to resist to the end, or whether it is to fall back from the determination to do so, which it so boldly and so vauntingly proclaimed. The bourgeois are getting tired of marching to the ramparts, and making no money; the working-men are thoroughly enjoying themselves, and are perfectly ready to continue the _status quo_. I confess I rather sympathise with the latter. They may not be over wise, but still it seems to me that Paris ought to hold out as long as bread lasts, without counting the cost. She had invited the world to witness her heroism, and now she endeavours to back out of the position which she has assumed. I have not been down to Belleville to-day, but I hear that there and in the other outer Faubourgs there is great excitement, and the question of a rising is being discussed. Flourens and some other commanders of battalions have been cashiered, but they are still in command, and no attempt is being made to oblige them to recognise the decree. Rochefort has resigned his seat in the Government, on the ground that he consented to the election of the Commune. The general feeling among the shopkeepers seems to be to accept an armistice on almost any terms, because they hope that it will lead to peace. We will take our revenge, they say, in two years. A threat which simply means that if the French army can fight then, they will again shout "_a Berlin_!" M. Thiers is still at Versailles. There appears to be a tacit truce, but none knows precisely what is going on. A friend of mine saw General Trochu yesterday on business, and he tells me that this worthy man was then so utterly prostrated, that he did not even refer to the business which he had come to transact. Never was a man more unfit to defend a great capital. "Why do you not act with energy against the Ultras?" said my friend. "I wish," replied Trochu, "to preserve my power by moral force." This is all very well, but can the commander of a besieged town be said to have preserved his power when he allows himself to be imprisoned by a mob for six hours, and then does not venture to punish its leaders? Professor Fustel de Coulanges has written a reply to Professor Mommsen. He states the case of France with respect to Alsace very clearly. "Let Prussia double the war-tax she imposes on France, and give up this iniquitous scheme of annexation," ought to be the advice of every sincere friend of peace. In any case, if Alsace and Lorraine are turned with the German Rhine Provinces into a neutral State, I do hope that we shall have the common sense not to