_Finita la Comedia._ Let fall the curtain. The siege of Paris is over; the last balloon has carried our letters through the clouds; the last shot has been fired. The Prussians are in the forts, and the Prussian armies are only not in the streets because they prefer to keep watch and guard outside the vanquished city. What will be the verdict of history on the defence? Who knows! On the one hand the Parisians have kept a powerful army at bay far longer than was anticipated; on the other hand, every sortie that they have made has been unsuccessful--every attempt to arrest the approach of the besiegers has failed. Passively and inertly they have allowed their store of provisions to grow less and less, until they have been forced to capitulate, without their defences having been stormed, or the cannon silenced. The General complains of his soldiers, the soldiers complain of their General; and on both sides there is cause of complaint. Trochu is not a Todleben. His best friends describe him as a sort of military Hamlet, wise of speech, but weak and hesitating in action--making plans, and then criticising them instead of accomplishing them. As a commander, his task was a difficult one; when the siege commenced he had no army; when the army was formed, it was encompassed by earthworks and redoubts so strong that even better soldiers would have failed to carry them. As a statesman, he never was the master of the situation. He followed rather than led public opinion, and subordinated everything to the dread of displeasing any section of a population, which, to be ruled--even in quiet times--must be ruled with a rod of iron. Success is the criterion of ability in this country, and poor Trochu is as politically dead as though he never had lived. His enemies call him a traitor; his friends defend him from the charge by saying that he is only a vain fool.