It was late in the afternoon when the intelligence arrived of a decisive victory for the army of General PALADINES, who had been manoeuvring for nearly a fortnight to draw the Germans into a sort of _cul-de-sac_ formed by the extension of the French lines from Le Mans to Nogent and Etamps. It came from such an authentic source, and had about it such appearances of probability, that I immediately retired to the silence of my chamber for the purpose of preparing a graphic review of the French situation, a review in fact for which I had long sought some such opportunity. I had made considerable progress with my paper, and was about to enter upon that branch of the subject devoted to discussing the bearings of such a victory upon the future prospects of France, when a tap at my door was heard, and the red head of my landlady's first-born appeared. "Monsieur is wanted down stairs," said the boy, with an alarmed look. I hurried down and out into the street, only to be met by a messenger from the Hotel de Ville, with the information that later despatches contradicted the victory. The shock to my feelings can only be appreciated by a writer who feels that he has consumed thirty or forty pages of foolscap in vain. I had been over two hours at that work. I had put all the brains I possessed in it. Many of the sentences so pleased me that I had turned back with pardonable conceit to read them over and admire them: but now, like a destroying angel, came the news that shook from beneath my beautiful superstructure its very foundations, and left me nothing but the humiliation of so much time and labor lost. I went back to my room, and cast myself on the bed in deep affliction. If I had been a single man I believe I could have hanged myself without a pang. Sheer mortification soon lulled me to sleep, however, and when a second banging at my door awakened me it was nightfall, and there were sounds of rapid movement and confusion outside. I put my head out of the window and heard a voice below, shouting: "The Germans are coming!" "S'death!" said I to myself, "what am I going to do?" My last stitch of clothing, save what I had on my back, was in the hands of the _blanchisseuse_, and PIERRE of the carrot "top" had possession of my only pair of trousers for the purpose of cleaning them the following morning. It would not have been a pleasant paragraph for me to read in the newspapers that a correspondent bearing my name had been captured _in puris naturalibus_. It would never do for an American to be taken _sans culottes_, and then have the story of his surprise reviewed by English and Yankee critics.