Of Paris we have heard nothing trustworthy during the last
week. The Daily News published on Wednesday a very amus- ing letter from a Paris resident, but this was wholly written on the first day of the investment and the day before it (18th and 19th September). This gentleman certainly had not much belief in the military spirit of the troops in Paris, but then he was exceedingly uncomfortable himself, and the chief part of his statements refer to the day of the cowardly flight of the Zouaves. He also gives us his coachman's opinions of the troops in Paris, which he seems to regard as a very valuable one. " Lor' bless you, Sir, I'd rather have 10,000 Englishmen than the lot of them. In my stable I make my men obey me, but these chaps don't seem to care what their hofficers say to them. I seed them drill this morning ; a pretty green lot they was. Why, Sir, giving them fellers Chassepots is much like giving watches to naked savages." The inutility of giving watches to naked savages seems to depend chiefly on the difficulty which indi- viduals without clothes would have in finding watch-pockets for them, otherwise a sharp savage might learn, we think, the proper use of a watch in a few hours. Apparently the Gardes Mobiles promise to make very fine troops, and undoubtedly they behaved very well both in the disastrous engagement of the 19th, when the Zouaves ran away, and in the three successful recon- naissances of the 23rd September, which, if we may trust uniform statements in the balloon despatches to that effect, really restored the military spirit in Paris and the confidence of the garrison.
