I am beginning to regret Cluseret. He was impatient, especially in speech. He used to say “Every man a National Guard!” But with Cluseret, as with one’s conscience, there were possible conciliations. You had only to answer the decrees of the war-delegate by an enthusiastic “Why I am delighted, indeed I was just going to beg you to send me to the Porte-Maillot;” which having done, one was free to go about one’s business without fear of molestation. As to leaving Paris, in spite of the law which condemned every man under forty to remain in the city; nothing was easier. You had but to go to the Northern Railway Station, and prefer your request to a citizen, seated at a table behind a partition in the passport office.[87] When he asked you your age you had only to answer “Seventy-eight,” passing your hand through your sable locks as you spoke—“Only that? I thought you looked older,” the accommodating individual would answer, at the same time putting into your hand a paper on which was written some cabalistic sign. One day I had taken it into my head to go and spend two hours at Bougival, and my pass bore the strange word “Carnivolus” written on it. Provided with this mysterious document, I was enabled to procure a first-class ticket and jump into the next train that started. I was free, and nothing could have prevented my going, if such had been my wish, to proclaim the Commune at Mont Blanc or Monaco. How the times are changed! The Committee of Public Safety and the Central Committee now join together in making the lives of the poor _réfractaires_[88] a burthen to them. I do not speak of the disarmaments, which have nothing particularly disagreeable about them, for an unarmed man may clearly nourish the hope that he is not to be sent to battle. But there are other things, and I really should not object to be a little over eighty for a few days. Domiciliary visits have become very frequent. Four National Guards walk into the house of the first citizen they please, and politely or otherwise, explain to him that it is his strict duty to go into the trenches at Vanves and kill as many Frenchmen as he can. If the citizen resists he is carried off, and told that on account of his resistance he will have the honour of being put at the head of his battalion at the first engagement. These visits often end in violence. I am told that in the Rue Oudinot a young man received a savage bayonet thrust because he resisted the corporal’s order; and as these occurrences are not uncommon, the _réfractaires_ cannot be said to live in peace and comfort. They are subject to continual terror, the sour visage of their _concierge_ fills them with misgivings, he may be one of the Commune. As to going to bed, it must not be thought of; it is during the hours of night that the Communal agents are particularly active. This necessity of changing domicile has lead to certain Amélias and Rosalines and other ladies of