At 4 o'clock p.m. on Wednesday I took my departure from Paris, leaving, much with the feelings of Daniel when he emerged from the lions' den, its inhabitants wending their way to the electoral "urns;" the many revolving in their minds how France and Paris were to manage to pay the little bill which their creditor outside is making up against them; the few--the very few--still determined to die rather than yield, sitting in the cafes on the boulevard, which is to be, I presume, their "last ditch." Many correspondents, "special," "our own," and "occasional," had arrived, and were girding up their loins for the benefit of the British public. Baron Rothschild had been kind enough to give me a pass which enabled me to take the Amiens train at the goods station within the walls of the city, instead of driving, as those less fortunate were obliged to do, to Gonesse. My pass had been signed by the proper authorities, and the proper authorities, for reasons best known to themselves--I presume because they had elections on the brain--had dubbed me "Member of the House of Commons, rendering himself to England to assist at the conferences of the Parliament." I have serious thoughts of tendering this document to the doorkeeper of the august sanctuary of the collective wisdom of my country, to discover whether he will recognise its validity. The train was drawn up before a shed in the midst of an ocean of mud. It consisted of one passenger carriage, and of about half a mile of empty bullock vans. The former was already filled; so, as a bullock, I embarked--I may add, as an ill-used bullock; for I had no straw to sit on. At St. Denis, a Prussian official inspected our passes, and at Gonesse about 200 passengers struggled into the bullock vans. We reached Creil, a distance of thirty miles, at 11.30. I and my fellow-bullocks here made a rush at the buffet. But it was closed. So we had to return to our vans, very hungry, very thirsty, very sulky, and very wet; for it was raining hard. In this pleasant condition we remained until 9 o'clock on Thursday; occasionally slowly progressing for a few miles; then making a halt of an hour or two. Why? No one--not even the guard--could tell. All he knew was, that the Prussians had hung out a signal ordering us, their slaves, to halt, and therefore halt we must. We did the forty miles between Creil and Breteuil in ten hours. There, in a small inn, we found some eggs and bread, which we devoured like a flight of famished locusts. It was very cold, and several of us sought shelter in a room at the station, where there was a fire. In the middle of this room there were two chairs, on one of them sat a Prussian soldier, on the other reposed his legs. He was a big red-haired fellow, and evidently in some corner of his Fatherland passed as a man of wit and humour. He was good enough to explain to us, with a pleasant smile, that in his eyes we were a very contemptible sort of people, and that if we did not consent to