This is their last hope; their last resource." In order to encourage us to put up with our short commons, we are now perpetually being told that the Government has in reserve vast stores of potted meats, cheese, butter, and other luxuries, of which we have almost forgotten the very taste; and that when things come to the worst we shall turn the corner, and enter into a period of universal abundance.

These stores seem to me much like the mirage which lures on the traveller of the desert, and which perpetually recedes as he advances.

But the great difficulty of the moment is to procure fuel.

I am ready, as some one said, to eat the soles of my boots for the sake of my country; but then they must be cooked.

All the mills are on the Marne, and cannot be approached.