one reads the inflated bombast of the newspapers, and hears the nonsense that is talked by almost everyone; when one sees the Gaul marching off to the ramparts convinced, because he wears a kepi and a sword, that he is a very Achilles; when regiments solemnly crown a statue with laurel crowns, and sign round robins to die for their country. All these antics ought not to make one forget that these men are fighting for the holiest of causes, the integrity of their country, and that the worst of Republics is better than the best of feudal monarchies; but I confess I frequently despair of their ever attaining to the dignity of free men, until they have been further tried in the school of adversity. Yesterday M. Jules Favre, in reply to a deputation from the Club of the Folies Bergeres, stated that he was not aware that the Orleans Princes were in France. "If the army of succour," he said, "comes to us, we will extend our hands to it; but if it marches under the Orleans banner, the Government will not recognise that banner. As a man, I deplore the law which proscribes this family; as a citizen and a politician, I maintain it. Even if these Princes were to abdicate their dynastic pretensions, the Government will remember Bonaparte, and how he destroyed the Republic in 1851, and energetically protest against their return." This reply when reported to the Club was greatly applauded. Probably none of its members had ever heard the proverb that beggars ought not to be choosers. The event of the day has been the arrest of M. Portales, the editor of the _Verite_. This newspaper, after asserting that the Government has received news from the provinces, asks a series of questions. In the afternoon the editor was arrested, and this morning the _Official Gazette_ thus replies to the queries: No news has been concealed. The last official despatch received is one from Gambetta, announcing his safe arrival at Montdidier. The Government has received an old copy of the _Standard_, but this journal, "notoriously hostile to France," contained sensational intelligence, which appeared absolutely untrue. To-day it has received a journal of Rouen of the 12th, and it hastens to publish the news derived from this source. Bismarck never proposed an armistice through Burnside. The General only unofficially informed Trochu that Bismarck's views were not altered since he had met Favre at Ferrieres, when he stated that "if he considered an armistice realizable for the convocation of an Assembly, he would only grant it for forty-eight hours; he would refuse to include Metz, or to permit provisions to enter Paris, and exclude from the Assembly our brave and unhappy compatriots of Alsace and Lorraine." The _Official Gazette_ then gives extracts from the Rouen paper, which are very contradictory. Our newspapers, however, in commenting on them, come to the conclusion that there are two armies in the field well equipped, and that they have already achieved important successes.