"I was," says Jules Favre, "at the Château de Ferrières by eleven A. M., but Count Bismarck did not leave the king's apartments before twelve. I then gathered from him the conditions that he demanded for an armistice. They were written in German, and he read them over to me. He desired to occupy, as a guarantee, Strasburg, Toul, and Phalsbourg;[1] and as I had the day before named Paris as the place for the meeting of the Assembly, he wished in that case to have possession of some fort commanding the city. He named Fort Valérien. Here I interrupted him. 'You had better ask for Paris at once,' I said. 'How can a French Assembly be expected to deliberate when covered by your guns? I hardly know whether I dare to inform my Government that you have made such a proposal.' Tours was then named as a place for the Assembly. 'But,' said Bismarck, 'Strasburg must be surrendered. It is about to fall into our hands. All I ask is that the garrison shall constitute themselves prisoners of war.' At this I could restrain myself no longer. I sprang to my feet and said: 'Count Bismarck, you forget you are speaking to a Frenchman! To sacrifice an heroic garrison which has won our admiration and that of the whole world, would be an act of cowardice. Nor will I even promise to mention that you ever made such a demand.' He answered that he had not meant to wound my feelings, he was acting in conformity with the laws of war; but he would see what the king said about the matter. He returned in a quarter of an hour, and said that his master accepted my proposal as to Tours, but insisted on the surrender of the garrison of Strasburg." [Footnote 1: Places still holding out against the Germans.] At this, the negotiation was broken off, Jules Favre concluding by saying that "the inhabitants of Paris were resolved on making any sacrifices, and that their heroism might change the current of events." The publication of this account of the interview with Bismarck produced through Paris a shiver of indignation. For a moment all parties were united, the very Reds crying out that there must be no more parties, only Frenchmen; and a slight success in a skirmish in one of the suburbs of Paris roused enthusiasm to its height in a few hours. The National Guard now did duty as police, and was also placed on guard on the ramparts. Each man received thirty sous a day. The Guard was divided into the Old Battalions and the New. The Old Battalions were composed almost entirely of gentlemen and _bourgeois_, who returned their pay to the Government; the New Battalions, which were fresh levies of working-men, preferred in general a franc and a half a day for doing nothing, to higher wages for making shoes, guns, and uniforms. In vain the Government put forth proclamations assuring the people that the man who made a chassepot rifle was more of a patriot than he who carried one.