Before Paris the result of the sorties of the 29th
and 30th is very difficult to define. On the 29th (Tuesday), General Trochu issued a proclamation throwing the responsibility of the blood about to be shed " on those whose detestable ambition tramples under foot the principles of justice and modern civiliza- tion." General Ducrot very unwisely swore "before the whole nation not to re-enter Paris except dead or victorious,"—an oath which has a savour of one of the letters of the prisoner of Wil- helmshohe about it, and was not of good augury. However, General Ducrot's fighting seems to have been at least as brave as his boasting. He led on the night between the 29th and 30th a great sortie on the south-east towards Mealy and Mont- mealy—places on the Fontainebleau road—which he occupied, but was driven out of by the Germans,—and finally seems, as far as we can judge, to have established himself at Champigny, a posi- tion conquered from the Wiirtembergers, at the bend of the Marne. On the 1st of December an armistice for the burial of the dead was asked for by the French, and apparently granted,—a circum- stance tending to show that they still occupied the positions won in the open, and had not left their dead to the Germans to burr Of course, the fighting would be resumed yesterday, but we have as yet heard nothing of the result. Vice-Admiral de la Itonciere and General Vinoy co-operated with General Ducrot, and the former carried, it is said, a German position near Longjumesu. The German reports declare all the sorties to have been success- fully "repulsed," but do.not in explicit terms say the French were driven back into Paris, which is, indeed, highly improbable. Whether they can eventually break through is altogether another matter.
