He says that many think that he and his friends ought to be in the Government, and that eventually they all will be; he added "the Reds are determined to fight, and so long as the Government does not make a humiliating peace they will support it." I tried to get out what he considered a humiliating peace, but he rather fenced with the question.

He tells me that at the Folies Bergeres, the headquarters of the ultras, great dissatisfaction is felt with the Committees of the "Clubs" for having gone yesterday to the Hotel de Ville, and endeavoured to force the Government to declare that it would not treat with the Prussians whilst they were on French soil, and to allow them to establish a "Commune" as an _imperium in imperio_.

"The army of the Loire," said my friend, "will soon fall on the rear of the Prussians; we have only to hold out for a few weeks, and this, depend upon it, we shall do." Now, to the best of my belief, the army of the Loire only exists on paper, but here was a sensible man talking of it as though it consisted of some 200,000 seasoned troops; and what is more strange, he is by no means singular in his belief.

A fortnight ago it was the army of Lyons, now it is the army of the Loire.

How reasonable men can allow themselves to put their faith in these men of buckram, I cannot imagine.
_September 23rd._ Firing has been going on since three o'clock this morning.