The Rump of the Corps Diplomatique has held a second meeting, and a messenger has been sent to Bismarck to know--1st, whether he means to bombard the city; 2nd, whether, if he does, he intends to give the usual twenty-four hours' notice. Diplomates are little better than old women when they have to act on an emergency. Were it not for Mr. Washburne, who was brought up in the rough-and-ready life of the Far West, instead of serving an apprenticeship in Courts and Government offices, those who are still here would be perfectly helpless. They come to him at all moments, and although he cannot speak French, for all practical purposes he is worth more than all his colleagues put together. Lord Lyons would, I believe, have remained, had he not been over persuaded by timid colleagues, who were ordered to do as he did. It is a great pity that he did not act according to his own judgment; but Republics, we know, are not in good odour with courtiers. As for that poor creature Metternich, he was utterly demoralized. He was more of a Chamberlain of Badinguet than an Ambassador, and, of course, when his friend disappeared, he took the earliest opportunity to follow his example. _September 29th._ We still are cut off from the outer world, but neither "the world forgetting," nor, we imagine, "by the world forgot." The inhabitants of the "Mecca of civilization" are still, like Sister Anne, looking out for some one to come to their assistance. I am utterly sick and tired of the eternal brag and bombast around me. Let the Parisians gain some success, and then celebrate it as loudly as they please: but why, in the name of common sense, will they rejoice over victories yet to come? "We are preserving," they say, "a dignified expectative attitude." Mr. Micawber put the thing in more simple vernacular when, he said that he was waiting for something to turn up. "First catch your hare" is a piece of advice which our patriots here would scoff at. They have not yet caught the Prussians, but they have already, by a flight of imagination, cooked and eaten them. Count Moltke may as well--if I am to believe one quarter of what I hear--like the American coon, come down. In a question of military strategy between the grocers of Paris and the Prussian generals I should have thought that the odds were considerably in favour of the latter, but I am told that this is not so, and that in laying siege to Paris they are committing a mistake for which a schoolboy would be deservedly whipped. If you eliminate the working-class element, which has not been corrupted by the Imperial system, the population of this town is much what I imagine that of Constantinople to have been when it was taken by the Turks. They are Greeks of the lower empire. Monsieur sticks his kepi on one side of his head, and struts and swaggers along the Boulevard as though he were a bantam cock. We have lost the _petits creves_ who formed so agreeable an element in society, but they have