Seine is now under fire; but even should it be seriously bombarded, I doubt if the effect will be at all commensurate with the expense of powder and projectiles. When shells fall over a very large area, the odds against each separate person being hit by them are so large that no one thinks that--happen what may to others--he will be wounded. _January 11th._ The spy mania, which raged with such intensity at the commencement of the siege, has again broken out. Every day persons are arrested because they are supposed, by lighted candles and other mysterious devices, to be in communication with the enemy. Sergeant Hoff, who used to kill his couple of brace of Germans every day, and who disappeared after Champigny, it is now said was a spy; and instead of mourning over his wife, who had been slain by the Prussians, kept a mistress in splendour, like a fine gentleman. Foreigners are looked upon suspiciously in the streets. Very black looks are cast upon the Americans who have established and kept up the best ambulance there is in Paris at their own cost. Even the French ambulances are suspected, since some of their members, during a suspension of arms, broke bread with the Prussians; for it is held that any one who does not hate a German must be in the pay of Bismarck. But this is not all: the newspapers hint that there are spies at headquarters. General Schmitz has a valet who has a wife, and this wife is a German. What more clear than that General Schmitz confides what passes at councils of war to his valet--generals usually do; that the valet confides it to his wife, who, in some mysterious manner, confides it to Bismarck. Then General Trochu has an aide-de-camp, a Prince Bibesco. He is a Wallachian, and a son of an ex-Hospodar--I never yet heard of a Wallachian who was not more or less. Can a doubt exist in the mind of any reasonable being that this young gentleman, a harmless lad, who had passed the greater part of his existence dancing cotillons at Paris, is in direct communication with the Prussians outside? A day or two ago two National Guards were exchanging their strategical views in a cafe, when they observed a stranger write down something. He was immediately arrested, as he evidently intended to transmit the opinions of these two military sages to General Moltke. I was myself down at Montrouge yesterday, when I was requested by two National Guards to accompany them to the nearest commissary. I asked why, and was told that a woman had heard me speak German. I replied that I was English. "Zat ve saal soon zee," said one of my captors. "I spek Anglish like an Anglishman, address to me the vord in Anglish." I replied that the gentleman spoke English with so perfect an accent that I thought he must be a fellow-countryman. The worthy fellow was disarmed by the compliment, and told a crowd which had collected round us to do prompt justice on the spy, that I not only was an Englishman, but _un Cockne_; that is to say, he explained, an