NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE German Army is before Metz. Napoleon, shut up in Metz with two-thirds of his forces, the other third having been destroyed, demoralized, or driven to the rear, awaits with despair- ing courage the attack of the German Army. He is Cwsar, and his pledge never to return to Paris except "victorious or dead" has been circulated through France, which is half in despair and half in revolution. The 011ivier Ministry has fallen, killed by public and well-deserved contempt ; all passed soldiers unmarried and under thirty have been summoned to the ranks ; the new Ministry, headed by General Montauban, threatens Paris, and urges all troops not necessary to shoot Parisians to the frontier; while Paris stands, sword in hand, for the National Guard has been armed, waiting for intelligence. If the Germans are beaten, well, the reckoning may be postponed ; but if the Germans are victorious again, the Empire must disappear. The old majority in the Chamber—the 116—will in that case, it is believed, nominate a Provisional Government, with General Trochu at its head—that is, will try to restore the House of Orleans, now encamped en masse in Brussels—while the Left will demand a Republic under a Directory. There will be no possibility of defence by the Bonapartists, for their chief will be in exile—or, as he says, in his grave—and neither the Empress nor the little lad has claim or hold on France.
