Paris after Two Sieges. By W. Woodall. (Tinsley.)—Mr. Woodall reprints
here some papers contributed to Once a Week. A true British "correspondent," he was on the spot as soon as the time had come, entering Paris for the first time during the armistice, and for the second time on the day after the city gates had been opened, after the victory of the Versailles troops. His impressions must be weighed against or com- pared with the impressions of other writers. Eye-witnesses, if the object is sufficiently large, and sometimes even if it is small, see very different things, and the historian of the future will have tho labour—enormous, if wo consider the amount of material collected— of comparing their testimony. Did we think there was any chance of the said historian seeing what we are now writing, we would commend to his favourable notice Mr. Woodall, who seems to be a candid and moderate-minded observer, and who certainly writes with sufficient force and liveliness. We note one fact ; the barricades of the Commune were defended by but a few actual combatants. If all the army which took the pay of the insurgent Government had been as resolute as the handful of men who believed in something else than plunder or riot, the second taking of Paris would have cost tenfold more than it did.
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