His estimate of General Trochu was, on the whole, the fairest that was made at the period. During the earliest days of the siege it was supposed that Trochu had a plan, and, on being questioned about it, he admitted that he had. He went on to say that he guaranteed its success, but that he should reveal it to no one, until the right moment--in fact, he had deposited it for safety with his notary, Maître Duclos, who, in the event of his being killed, would produce it. As time wore on and no plan was forthcoming from the General, it became very evident that it could have been nothing more elaborate than a determination to capitulate as soon as Paris was starved out. When the siege was nearly five weeks old Labouchere wrote: "Every day this siege lasts, convinces me that Gen. Trochu is not the right man in the right place. He writes long-winded letters, utters Spartan aphorisms, and complains of his colleagues, his generals, and his troops. The confidence which is felt in him is rapidly diminishing. He is a good, respectable man, without a grain of genius, or of that fierce, indomitable energy which sometimes replaces it. He would make a good minister of war in quiet times, but he is about as fit to command in the present emergency as Mr. Cardwell[10] would be. His two principal military subordinates, Vinoy and Ducrot, are excellent Generals of division, but nothing more. As for his civilian colleagues they are one and all hardly more practical than Professor Fawcett. Each has some crotchet of his own, each likes to dogmatise and to speechify, and each considers the others to be idiots, and has a small following of his own, which regards him as a species of divinity. They are philosophers, orators, and legists, but they are neither practical men nor statesmen." And when the siege was over he summed up the case for Trochu thus: "What will be the verdict of history on the defence? Who knows! On the one hand, the Parisians have kept a powerful army at bay for longer than was expected; on the {137} other hand, every sortie that they have made has been unsuccessful--every attempt to arrest the approach of the besiegers has failed. Passively and inertly they have allowed their store of provisions to grow less and less, until they have been forced to capitulate, without their defences having been stormed, or the cannon silenced. The General complains of his soldiers, the soldiers complain of their General; and on both sides there is cause of complaint. Trochu is not a Todleben. His best friends describe him as a weak sort of military Hamlet, wise of speech, but weak and hesitating in action--making plans and then criticising them, instead of accomplishing them. As a commander his task was a difficult one; when the siege commenced he had no army; when the army was formed it was encompassed by earthworks and redoubts so strong that even better soldiers would have failed to carry them. As a statesman, he never was master of