The departure took place after all, for the balloons went up again.
We paid a visit to Notre Dame, which has been admirably restored.
We also went to see the Tour Saint Jacques. While our carriage was standing there one of the delegates of the other day (from the Eleventh Arrondissement) came up and told me that the Eleventh Arrondissement had come round to my views, concluded that I was right in insisting upon a vote of the whole city upon a single list of candidates, begged me to accept the nomination upon the conditions I had imposed, and wanted to know what ought to be done should the Government refuse to permit an election. Ought force be resorted to? I replied that a civil war would help the foreign war that was being waged against us and deliver Paris to the Prussians.
On the way home I bought some toys for my little ones—a zouave in a sentry-box for Georges, and for Jeanne a doll that opens and shuts its eyes.
October 8.—I have received a letter from M. L. Colet, of Vienna (Austria), by way of Normandy. It is the first letter that has reached me from the outside since Paris has been invested.
There has been no sugar in Paris for six days. The rationing of meat began to-day. We shall get three quarters of a pound per person and per day.
Incidents of the postponed Commune. Feverish unrest in Paris. Nothing to cause uneasiness, however. The deep-toned Prussian cannon thunder continuously. They recommend unity among us.
The Minister of Finance, M. Ernest Picard, through his secretary, asks me to “grant him an audience;” these are the terms he uses. I answer that I will see him on Monday morning, October 10.
October 9.—Five delegates from the Ninth Arrondissement came in the name of the arrondissement to *forbid me to get myself killed*.
October 10.—M. Ernest Picard came to see me. I asked him to issue immediately a decree liberating all articles pawned at the Mont de Piété for less than 15 francs (the present decree making absurd exceptions, linen, for instance). I told him that the poor could not wait. He promised to issue the decree to-morrow.