get anything out of my pocket I have cautiously to unpin myself, with the dread of falling to pieces before my eyes. For my food, I allowance myself, in order to eke out as long as possible my resources. I dine and breakfast at a second-class restaurant. Cat, dog, rat, and horse are very well as novelties, but taken habitually, they do not assimilate with my inner man. Horse, doctors say, is heating; I only wish it would heat me. I give this description of my existence, as it is that of many others. Those who have means, and those who have none, unless these means are in Paris, row in the same boat. The society at my second-class restaurant is varied. Many are regular customers, and we all know each other. There are officers who come there whenever they get leave from outside--hardy, well-set fellows, who take matters philosophically and professionally. They make the most of their holiday, and enjoy themselves without much thought of the morrow. Then there are tradesmen who wear kepis, as they belong to the National Guard. They are not in such good spirits. Their fortunes are ebbing away, and in their hearts I think they would, although their cry is still "no surrender," be glad if all were over. They talk in low tones, and pocket a lump of the sugar which they are given with their coffee. Occasionally an ex-dandy comes in. I see him look anxiously around to make sure that no other dandy sees him in so unfashionable a resort. The dandy keeps to himself, and eyes us haughtily, for we are too common folk for the like of him. Traviatas, too, are not wanting in the second-class restaurant. Sitting by me yesterday was a girl who in times gone by I had often seen driving in a splendid carriage in the Bois. Her silks and satins, her jewellery and her carriage, had vanished. There are no more Russian Princes, no more Boyards, no more Milords to minister to her extravagances. She was eating her horse as though she had been "poor but honest" all her life; and as I watched her washing the noble steed down with a pint of vin ordinaire, I realized the alteration which this siege was effecting in the condition of all classes. But the strangest _habitues_ of the restaurant are certain stalwart, middle-aged men, who seem to consider that their function in life is to grieve over their country, and to do nothing else for it. They walk in as though they were the soldiers of Leonidas on the high road to Thermopylae--they sit down as though their stools were curule chairs--they scowl at anyone who ventures to smile, as though he were guilty of a crime--and they talk to each other in accents of gloomy resolve. When anyone ventures to hint at a capitulation, they bound in their seats, and cry, _On verra_. Sorrow does not seem to have disturbed their appetites, and, as far as I can discover, they have managed to escape all military duty. No human being can be so unhappy, however, as they look. They remind me of the heir at the funeral of a rich relative.