General Troche's proclamation to the people, dated Wednesday, 17th August,
is modest in tone, hopeful, and conciliatory. "To defend Paris," he says, "will be the pride of my life, and the crowning of a career till now unknown to most of you." He has "implicit faith in the success of the glorious enterprise," on the one imperative condition of order, order in men's minds as well as in the streets. " I will not refer, in order to secure to the situation that equilibrium which is so desirable, to the state of siege and of the law. I will demand it from your patriotism, I shall obtain it from your confidence, while I myself repose unbounded confidence in you." Paris herself is " to do justice on all who rise to satisfy detestable desires "—pillagers, who have already made their appear- ance in the outskirts—and "in order to accomplish my work—after which I shall retire to the obscurity from which I emerge—I adopt one of the old mottoes of my native province of Brittany, ' With God's help for my country.' " There, we believe, is the right man atlast ; but he may have come too late, and is not even now visible head of affairs.
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