As for the National Guard, they distinctly say that they will be no parties to any such act of folly.

Even in the councils of the Government there is a strong feeling against it; but General Trochu declines to allow the question, which he says is a purely military one, to be decided by the lawyers who are his colleagues.

They, on their side, complain that the General never quits the Louvre, has surrounded himself with a number of clerical dandies as his aides-de-camp, whose religious principles may be sound, but whose knowledge of war is nil; and that if he wished to make a sortie, he should not have waited until the Prussians had rendered its success impossible by completing their lines of investment.

It is said that the attempt will be made along the post road to Orleans, it being now considered impossible, as was at first intended, to open communications by the Havre railroad.

The general impression is either that the troops engaged in it will be driven back under the forts in confusion, or that some 50,000 will be allowed to get too far to return, and then will be netted like sparrows.
It is not, however, beyond the bounds of possibility that the Prussians will not wait until our great administrator has completed his preparations for attack, but will be beforehand with him, and open fire upon the southern posts from their batteries, which many think would effectually reduce to silence the guns of Vanves, Issy, and of the advanced redoubts.