He passes as a fighting general; they pass as writing generals.
As for Trochu, to write and to talk is with him a perfect mania.

"I have seen him on business," said a superior officer to me, "a dozen times, but I never have been able to explain what I came for; he talked so incessantly that I could not put in a word." I was out this morning along the Southern outposts, the forts were firing intermittently.

At Cachan there was a sharp interchange of shots going on between the Prussian sentinels and Mobiles.

It is a perfect mystery to me how the Prussians have been allowed to establish themselves at Clamart and at Chatillon, which are within range of the guns of three forts.

Our famous artillerists do not appear to have prevented them from establishing batteries exactly where they are most dangerous to us.