Turning from the Bois de Boulogne, which had become our principal ranch and sheep-walk, one found companies of National Guards learning the "goose-step" in the Champs Elysees and the Cours-la-Reine. Regulars were appropriately encamped both in the Avenue de la Grande Armee and on the Champ de Mars. Field-guns and caissons filled the Tuileries garden, whilst in the grounds of the Luxembourg Palace one again found cattle and sheep; yet other members of the bovine and ovine species being installed, singularly enough, almost cheek by jowl with the hungry wild beasts of the Jardin des Plantes, whose mouths fairly watered at the sight of their natural prey. If you followed the quays of the Seine you there found sightseers gazing at the little gunboats and floating batteries on the water; and if you climbed to Montmartre you there came upon people watching "The Neptune," the captive balloon which Nadar, the aeronaut and photographer, had already provided for purposes of military observation. I shall have occasion to speak of him and his balloons again. Among all that I myself saw on that memorable Sunday, I was perhaps most struck by the solemn celebration of Mass in front of the statue of Strasbourg on the Place de la Concorde. The capital of Alsace had been besieged since the middle of August, but was still offering a firm resistance to the enemy. Its chief defenders, General Uhrich and Edmond Valentin, were the most popular heroes of the hour. The latter had been appointed Prefect of the city by the Government of National Defence, and, resolving to reach his post in spite of the siege which was being actively prosecuted, had disguised himself and passed successfully through the German lines, escaping the shots which were fired at him. In Paris the statue of Strasbourg had become a place of pilgrimage, a sacred shrine, as it were, adorned with banners and with wreaths innumerable. Yet I certainly had not expected to see an altar set up and Mass celebrated in front of it, as if it had been, indeed, a statue of the Blessed Virgin. At this stage of affairs there was no general hostility to the Church in Paris. The _bourgeoisie_--I speak of its masculine element--was as sceptical then as it is now, but it knew that General Trochu, in whom it placed its trust, was a practising and fervent Catholic, and that in taking the Presidency of the Government he had made it one of his conditions that religion should be respected. Such animosity as was shown against the priesthood emanated from some of the public clubs where the future Communards perorated. It was only as time went on, and the defence grew more and more hopeless, that Trochu himself was denounced as a _cagot_ and a _souteneur de soutanes_; and not until the Commune did the Extremists give full rein to their hatred of the Church and its ministers.