In the meantime no one broaches the question as to what is to be done when our provisions fail.

The members of the Government still keep up the theory that a capitulation is an impossible contingency.

The nearer the fatal moment approaches the less anyone speaks of it, just as a man, when he is growing old, avoids the subject of death.

Frenchmen have far more physical than civic courage.

They prefer to shut their eyes to what is unpleasant than to grapple with it.
How long our stores of flour will last it is difficult to say, but if our rulers wait to treat until they are exhausted, they will perforce be obliged to accept any terms; and, for no satisfactory object, they will be the cause that many will starve before the town can be revictualled.
They call this, here, sublime.