274    BEFORE AND DURING  THE BOMBARDMENT.
" The cold is not so intense as yesterday. The papers
this morning speak of the awful sufferings of the troops.
Many have frozen to death. I take it, that all military
movements are at an end for the present. The papers
say that bad fortune pursues the French everywhere.
We are now getting long accounts from the German pa-
pers of the fighting on the Loire, and fearful work it must
have been ; and yet the Prussians go everywhere, but
they purchase their successes at a dear price.
" There is now high talk in the clubs. This last ter-
rible defeat has produced intense feeling. Trochu is de-
nounced as a traitor and an imbecile. They say he is
staying out at one of the forts, and doesn't care about
coming back into the city. He cannot fail more than
once more without going to the wall. Never in the his-
tory of the world has any army of half a million men cut
such an ignoble figure. It should not be said that the
soldiers are not brave, for they are. It is the want of a
leader that has paralyzed France for fourteen mortal
weeks. I hope my despatch bag may get out to-morrow
morning, and that I may get something in return ; but
I am so often disappointed that I do not make any great
calculations for the future.
" Evening (I add to my diary). This has been a very
cold day, and the sufferings of the troops must have been
intense. I did not leave the legation until six o'clock
p.m., having been busy in getting my despatches and let-
ters ready for the bag which leaves in the morning. A
great many people of all nations calling ; a greater num-
ber of poor Germans than ever. The total number I
have been feeding up to to-night is fifteen hundred and
forty-seven, and more are coming. It is now a question
of fuel as well as food. Wood riots have commenced.
The large square across the street, diagonally, from our