really sharp fighting took place, an officer who was in command tells me that there were about 300 killed. For the sake of humanity, it is to be hoped that we shall have no more of these blind sorties. The French get through the first Prussian lines; they are then arrested by the fire of the batteries from the second line; reinforcements are brought up by the enemy; and the well-known movement to the rear commences. "Our losses," say the official reports the next morning, "are great; those of the enemy enormous. Our troops fought with distinguished valour, but----" _January 21st._ It was so wet last night that there were but few groups of people on the Boulevards. At the clubs Trochu was universally denounced. Almost every one is now in despair. Of what use, they say, are the victories of Bourbaki; he cannot be here in time. We had pinned our faith on Chanzy, and the news of his defeat, coupled with our own, has almost extinguished every ray of hope in the breasts even of the most hopeful. The Government, it is thought, is preparing the public mind for a capitulation. _La Liberte_, until now its strongest supporter, bitterly complains that it should publish the truth! Chandordy's despatch went first to Jules Favre. He stood over the man who was deciphering it. When he read the opening sentence, "Un grand malheur," he refused to read more, and sent it undeciphered to Trochu. When it reached the Governor, no one on his staff could decipher it, so it had to be returned to the Foreign-office. The moment for the quacks is at hand. A "General" offers to raise the siege if he be given 50,000 men. A magician offers a shell which will destroy the Prussians root and branch. M. Felix Pyat, in his organ, observes that Sparta never was taken, and that the Spartans used to eat in common. He proposes, therefore, as a means to free Paris, that a series of public suppers should be inaugurated. I can only say that I hope that they may be, for I certainly shall attend. Even Spartan broth would be acceptable. The bread is all but uneatable. If you put it in water, straw and bits of hay float about. A man, who ought to know, solemnly assured me this morning that we had only food for six days; but then men who ought to know are precisely those who know nothing. I do not think that we are so badly off as this; but the end is a question no longer of months, but of days, and very soon it will be of hours. Those who desire a speedy capitulation are called _les capitulards_, and they are in a majority of nine to one. There are still many who clamour for a grand sortie, but most of those who do so, are persons who, by no possibility, can themselves share in the operation. The street orators are still at poor Jonah Trochu, and their hearers seem to agree with them. These sages, however, do not explain who is to replace him. Some of the members of the Government, I hear, suggest an admiral; but what admiral would accept this _damnosa haereditas_? Among the generals, each