A partial attempt is being made to relieve the population.
At the Mairies of the arrondissements, tickets are delivered to heads of families, giving them the right to a certain portion of meat per diem until January.

The restaurants are still fairly supplied; so that the system of rationing is not yet carried out in its integrity.
I am not entirely without hopes that the trial through which France is passing will in the end benefit it.

Although we still brag a good deal, there is within the last few days a slight diminution of bluster.

Cooped up here, week after week, the population must in the end realise the fact that the world can move on without them, and that twenty years of despotism has enervated them and made other nations their equals, if not their superiors.

As Sydney Smith said of Macaulay, they have occasional flashes of silence.