I venture to repeat a question which I have already frequently asked--Where is the gentleman who enjoys an annual salary as British Consul at Paris? Why was he absent during the siege? Why is he absent now? Why is a banker, who has other matters to attend to, discharging his duties? I am a taxpayer and an elector; if "my member" does not obtain a reply to these queries from the official representative of the Foreign Office in the House of Commons, I give him fair notice that he will shake me by the hand, ask after my health, and affect a deep interest in my reply, in vain at the next general election; he will not have my vote. The _Electeur Libre_, the journal of M. Picard, has put forth a species of political programme, or rather a political defence of the wing of the Government of National Defence to which that gentleman belongs. For a French politician to praise himself in his own organ, and to say under the editorial "we" that he intends to vote for himself, and that he has the greatest confidence in his own wisdom, is regarded here as nothing but natural. PARIS, _February 9th._ "We have been conquered in the field, but we have gained a moral victory." What this phrase means I have not the remotest idea; but as it consoles those who utter it, they are quite right to do so. For the last two days long lines of cannon have issued from the city gates, and have been, without noise or parade, handed over to the Prussians at Issy and Sevran. Few are aware of what has taken place, or know that their surrender had been agreed to by M. Jules Favre. Representations having been made to Count Bismarck that 10,000 armed soldiers were insufficient for the maintenance of the peace of the capital, by an additional secret clause added to the armistice the number has been increased to 25,000. The greatest ill-feeling exists between the Army and the National Guards in the most populous quarters. A general quartered in one of the outer faubourgs went yesterday to General Vinoy, and told him that if he and his men were to be subjected to insults whenever they showed themselves in the streets, he could not continue to be responsible for either his or their conduct. Most persons of sense appear to consider that the armistice was an error, and that the wiser policy would have been to have surrendered without conditions. M. Jules Favre is blamed for not having profited by the occasion, to disarm the National Guards. Many of their battalions, as long as they have arms, and receive pay for doing nothing, will be a standing danger to order. The sailors have been paid off; and the fears that were entertained of their getting drunk and uproarious have not been confirmed. They are peaceably and sentimentally spending their money with the "black-eyed Susans" of their affections. The principal journalists are formally agitating the plan of a combined movement to urge the population to protest against the Prussian