The publication of this account of the interview with Bismarck
produced through Paris a shiver of indignation. For a moment all
parties were united, the very Reds crying out that there must be
no more parties, only Frenchmen; and a slight success in a skirmish
in one of the suburbs of Paris roused enthusiasm to its height in
a few hours.

The National Guard now did duty as police, and was also placed
on guard on the ramparts. Each man received thirty sous a day.
The Guard was divided into the Old Battalions and the New. The
Old Battalions were composed almost entirely of gentlemen and
_bourgeois_, who returned their pay to the Government; the New
Battalions, which were fresh levies of working-men, preferred in
general a franc and a half a day for doing nothing, to higher wages
for making shoes, guns, and uniforms. In vain the Government put
forth proclamations assuring the people that the man who made a
chassepot rifle was more of a patriot than he who carried one.

All through September the weather was delightful, and mounting
guard upon the ramparts was like taking a pleasant stroll. The
Mobiles occupied the forts outside of Paris, and were forbidden
to come into the city in uniform. Of course there was much hunting
for Prussian spies, and many people were arrested and maltreated,
though only one genuine spy seems to have been found. The French
in any popular excitement seem to have treachery upon the brain.
One phase of their mania was the belief that any light seen moving
in the upper stories of a house was a signal to the Prussians;
and sometimes a whole district was disturbed because some quiet
student had sat reading late at night with a green shade over his
lamp, or a mother had been nursing a sick child.