Belleville now began a series of patriotic demonstrations at the Legation, which soon became a nuisance. When I first heard the drum and fife coming up the Rue Chaillot, and several respectable-looking citizens came in and inquired for Mr. Washburne, I was quite impressed with the interest of the occasion. Washburne went out upon the balcony and made them a speech, and thanked them for this dÉmonstration patriotique. But when they began to come daily, and the rag, tag, and bobtail at that, and day after day Washburne was called out to thank them for this dÉmonstration patriotique, I got very heartily sick of it. We were too busy to have our time wasted in this way. But as the siege progressed, and we did our duty in protecting the Germans, as we received news from the outside when others did not, and that news was uniformly unfavorable to the French, the dÉmonstrations patriotiques ceased; and it was only a fear of the law, and that "divinity that doth hedge in a" diplomate, that prevented our receiving a demonstration of a very different sort.

For the clubs were now rampant, another bane of the Defense. Had they been suppressed at the beginning, as they were at the end, of the siege by General Vinoy, the result might have been different. Their orators advocated the wildest and most destructive theories amidst the applause of a congenial audience. Blasphemy was received with special favor. I remember once, however, the orator seasoned his discourse too high even for that audience. He said he "would like to scale heaven, and collar [empoigner] the Deity." It was the day of balloons, and a wag in the audience called out, "Why don't you go up in a balloon?" This turned the laugh upon the orator, and he disappeared, for in Paris ridicule kills.

A curious and annoying feature in the Parisian character during the war was the unreasoning and unreasonable suspicion of the population. A gentleman from Philadelphia interested in Fairmount Park, which was then just opened, was struck with the beauty of the gates at the entrance to the Bois on the Avenue de l'ImpÉratrice—Avenue du Bois de Boulogne they call it now, certainly not a change for the better, for it was a beautiful avenue, appropriately named after a beautiful woman. Our Philadelphia friend called his daughter's attention to the gates, remarking that they would be appropriate at Fairmount, and took out his note-book to sketch them. He was at once surrounded by a mob, he and his daughter arrested, and hurried before the Maire of the arrondissement. They said he was a Prussian spy, and was sketching the fortifications. He explained who he was, and what he was doing, and offered the drawing in proof. There were the gates to speak for themselves, but this was no evidence to them. Mr. Justice Shallow insisted that he must be a spy. Happily for him, the mayor's clerk was a sensible man, and spoke a little English, and through his instrumentality our friend was discharged.

I have seen a mob collect about a gentleman who took from his pocket a piece of paper and a pencil to write down an address. I knew an American friend to be arrested, mistaken for Mr. Schneider, formerly President of the Corps LÉgislatif. My man was dark, and Schneider was fair; but that made no difference. During the petroleum madness, immediately after the suppression of the Commune, an American lady was followed to her home and very nearly maltreated because she had a bottle of fleur d'orange in her hand, which she had just bought at the druggist's. Our vice-consul had red curtains in his sitting-room. One evening he was disagreeably surprised by a visit of armed National Guards. They accused him of making signals to the enemy. On seeing the red curtains, they became satisfied. That a five-story house on the opposite side of a narrow street must effectually preclude his lights from being seen at a distance, was no answer to them. Mr. Washburne called the attention of the French Government to this outrage; but, as no harm had been done, we could not follow the matter up. Under our consular convention with France, a consul's house is inviolable; but a vice-consul has no official existence when the consul is present. When he is absent, his deputy succeeds to his privileges and immunities as consular representative of the country.

Mr. Washburne was not the man to submit to any outrage upon German or American property. A squad of National Guards entered and partially pillaged the house of the German school-master Hedler, where Washburne's son and other American boys were at school. Our Minister was in arms at once. The Government apologized, the battalion was paraded under arms, the Chief of Police made them a speech, the guilty men were called out and punished, and full damages were paid to Hedler, assessed to Mr. Washburne's satisfaction.

To resume my narrative. On the 18th of September, several of the principal members of the diplomatic corps left Paris. Their departure gave rise to a good deal of discussion, and much has been written and said upon the subject. The diplomatic corps, as a body, never left Paris. A few days before the siege, Lord Lyons called upon Jules Favre. Favre suggested that if the diplomatic corps wished to leave Paris—and it was natural that they should—he was prepared to accompany them. Lord Lyons replied that he saw no necessity for departure at that time. Favre thereupon said that, in this case, he should stay too.

On the morning of the 18th, Prince Metternich, the Austrian Embassador, came very early to the British Embassy, and said that he meant to go away that afternoon in company with the Turkish Embassador and the Italian Minister, and hoped that Lord Lyons would accompany them. Lord Lyons replied that he saw no necessity for haste, for Bismarck would let them go at any time. Metternich answered, "I don't want to ask any favors of Bismarck, and my Government doesn't want me to." Lord Lyons then finding that the Great Powers of Europe had left, or were about to leave, Paris, consented to go too, and called again upon Favre. But Favre told him that he had then made his arrangements to stay; but that he should send Count Chaudordy to represent his department at Tours.

As soon as it was known that the representatives of several of the Great Powers had left Paris, a meeting of the corps was called by the Nuncio, at the request of several of its members. The question was put, Shall the diplomatic corps leave Paris? and decided in the negative.

But the members departed one by one, till but a few were left. Another meeting was then called, and again it was decided not to leave Paris.

It is quite generally supposed that Mr. Washburne was the only Minister who remained during the whole siege. This is incorrect. There were six in all—the representatives of Northern powers—Norway and Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United States. In their relations to the French Government, and in their correspondence with Count Bismarck upon their right to communicate with their respective governments during the siege, and to due notice in case of proposed bombardment, these gentlemen acted in unison as the diplomatic corps at Paris.

The division of diplomatic representatives into embassadors and ministers appears to me to be a mistake. It is certainly pleasant for the embassadors. They have the right of direct communication with the sovereign, for they are held to represent the person of their own sovereign, which the ministers do not. At Paris, at the court festivities, they occupied arm-chairs by the side of the Emperor and Empress, while the ministers were seated on benches in a loge. They had precedence on the reception-days of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. A minister might have waited two hours; an embassador dropped in, and entered before him. Some of them, like Lord Lyons, did not abuse this privilege. He transacted his business as quickly as possible, and gave place to another. The Turkish Embassador, on the other hand, used to gossip by the hour. That he kept a dozen of his colleagues waiting seemed rather to please him. I once heard Lord Lyons remonstrate with him for doing so, and he giggled as if he thought it rather a good joke. In Prussia this is not permitted: first come, first served, is the rule at Berlin, and it seems to me to be the just one. Mr. Bancroft got this rule established, and deserves great credit for the stout fight he made on the occasion. Count Bismarck is stated to have said that if there had been no embassadors, there would have been no war; for the French Government could not have invented the story that their Embassador had been insulted by the King. However this may be, there can be no doubt that the system leads to the formation of cliques, and, consequently, to separate action by a clique instead of by the whole corps. This is bad under any circumstances, but particularly unfortunate in great emergencies.

In regard to the right of free communication with their respective governments claimed by the diplomatic corps at Paris, Count Bismarck refused to accord it. He argued that if these gentlemen saw fit to shut themselves up in a besieged place when they could go away for the asking, and when the French Government had made provision for this case by establishing a branch of the Government at Tours, they must take the consequences; but as a favor he would permit correspondence if it were left unsealed. Of course the corps declined these terms. To Mr. Washburne he wrote (and Bismarck writes and speaks admirable English) that his position as protector of the North Germans in France entitled him to a different answer; that as an evidence of his gratitude for the fidelity and energy with which the duties of this position had been discharged, it had given him great pleasure to obtain from the King permission for Mr. Washburne to receive a sealed bag containing his dispatches and his private correspondence as often as military necessities would permit.

There has been much difference of opinion expressed as to the right of a diplomatic body voluntarily remaining in a besieged place to receive and answer dispatches in sealed correspondence. Mr. Washburne contended that they had such a right; and in this he was energetically supported by Mr. Fish. I confess, however, that to my mind the right is by no means clear. To me Bismarck's argument is unanswerable. "You see fit to stay when the Great Powers of Europe have gone, and when the French Government has made arrangements for the due discharge of your duties elsewhere. By so doing you put yourselves in the position of other inhabitants of the besieged place, and can claim no privileges not accorded to them." In the case of Mr. Washburne, charged with the protection of the Germans at the request of the German Government itself, the necessity for remaining at Paris may have existed. At all events, if he thought that it did, it did not lie in the mouth of that Government to say that it did not. By choosing as their agent the representative of a friendly and independent power, they left his judgment unfettered as to the manner of discharging his duties. The same remark applies to M. Kern, the Minister of Switzerland, who was charged with the protection of the Bavarians and the Badois. But as regards the other gentlemen, I can not but agree with Count Bismarck. I was confirmed in this view, after the siege was over, by General Sheridan. Dining at my table one day in company with Mr. Washburne, he said to him, "If I had been in Moltke's place, you would not have had your bag."

The siege commenced on the 19th of September. For some days previous the streets of Paris had presented an unwonted and curious appearance. They were thronged with the quaintest-looking old carts, farm-wagons, Noah's arks of every kind, loaded with the furniture of the poor inhabitants of the neighborhood flying to Paris for safety. On the other hand, the stations were thronged with the carriages of the better classes leaving the city. The railroads were so overworked that they finally refused to take any baggage that could not be carried by the passenger himself. Imagine the painful situation of some of our fair countrywomen, Worth's admirers and patrons! To have come to Paris amidst all the dangers of war to procure something to wear, to have procured it, and then to be unable to carry it away! But what will not woman's wit and energy do under such circumstances? A clever and energetic friend of mine hired a bateau-mouche, one of the little steamers that ply on the Seine from one part of Paris to another, and, embarking with her "impedimenta," sailed triumphantly for Havre.

It had been agreed between Mr. Washburne and myself that if the diplomatic corps left Paris, and he accompanied them, I should remain to take charge of the Legation, and look after American and German property; and he so reported to Mr. Fish. I had quite a curiosity to be a besieged. I had been a besieger at Port Hudson, and thought that I would like to experience the other sensation. The sensation is not an unpleasant one, especially in a city like Paris. If you have been overworked and harassed, the relief is very great. There is a calm, a sort of Sunday rest, about it that is quite delightful. In my experience the life of the besieged is altogether the most comfortable of the two. You live quietly in your own house, and with your own servants; and with a little forethought you may be amply provisioned. You sleep in your own room, instead of in a cold, damp, and muddy tent; and if an Éclat d'obus—as the French delicately call it—strikes your house on one side, you move into the other. There has been a great deal of fine writing about famous sieges, and the suffering and heroism of the inhabitants. I imagine that there was not so much suffering, after all, at Saragossa; and that the "Maid" and her companions in arms had plenty of corn-meal and good mule-meat to eat—not a disagreeable or unwholesome diet for a while!