Well may General Trochu look up to the sky when it is overcast, and wish that he were in Brittany shooting woodcocks.

He has undertaken a task beyond his own strength, and beyond the strength of the greatest general that ever lived.

How can the Parisians expect to force the Prussians to raise the siege?
They decline to be soldiers, and yet imagine that in some way or other, not only is their city not to be desecrated by the foot of the invader, but that the armies of Germany are to be driven out of France.
_October 30th._ We really have had a success.

Between the north-eastern and the north-western forts there is a plain, cut up by small streams.

The high road from Paris to Senlis runs through the middle of it, and on this road, at a distance of about six kilometres from Paris, is the village of Bourget, which was occupied by the Prussians.