From the sound of the guns, it was supposed that they were only using field artillery.

The sailors insist that the enemy has been unable to place his siege-guns in position, and that our fire knocks their earthworks to pieces.

I am inclined to think that behind these earthworks there are masked batteries, for surely the Prussian Engineer Officers cannot be amusing themselves with making earthworks for the mere pleasure of seeing them knocked to pieces.
Anyhow they are playing a deep game, for, as far as I can hear, they have not fired a single siege-gun yet, either against our redoubts or forts.
_November 19th._ Burke, in his work on the French Revolution, augured ill of the future of a country the greater number of whose legislators were lawyers.

What would he have said of a Government composed almost exclusively of these objects of his political distrust?
When history recounts the follies of the French Republic of 1870, I trust that it will not forget to mention that all the members of the Government, with the exception of one; six ministers; 13 under-secretaries of State; the Prefet of Police; 24 prefets and commissaries sent into the provinces; and 36 other high functionaries; belonged to the legal profession.

The natural consequence of this is that we cannot get out of "Nisi prius." Our rulers are unable to take a large statesmanlike view of the situation.