What the result of M.Thiers' mission will be, it is almost impossible to say.

The Government will be anxious to treat, and probably it will put forward feelers to-morrow to see how far it may dare go.

Some of its members already are endeavouring to disconnect themselves from a capitulation, and, if it does take place, will assert that they were opposed to it.

Thus, M.Jules Favre, in a long address to the mayors of the banlieus yesterday, goes through the old arguments to prove that France never desired war.
This gentleman is essentially an orator, rather than a statesman.

When he went to meet Count Bismarck at Ferrieres, he was fully prepared to agree to the fortresses in Alsace and Lorraine being rased; but when he returned, the phrase, "_Ni un pouce du territoire, ni une pierre des forteresses_," occurred to him, and he could not refrain from complicating the situation by publishing it.
To turn for a moment to less serious matters.