although their shabby treatment caused them two weeks ago to temporarily evacuate their lines in a fit of moroseness....  This is what has happened until now, for the French have set their teeth, and now everyone almost believes that nothing—­not even mines, shells, myriads of bullets, and foolish order after order from headquarters ordering men to be sent elsewhere —­will beat them back.  And yet they cannot keep on this way for ever.  All round them the connecting posts and blockhouses are losing more and more men, and matters are reaching a dangerous point.

It is now nearly four weeks since the first bullet flicked out the brains of the first French sailor ten minutes after the opening of hostilities at barricades far away down Customs Street, and in these twenty-five days which have elapsed the French positions have been beaten into such shapeless masses that they are quite past recognition.  I had not been there for a week, and was shocked when I saw how little remains.  The Chinese have, foot by foot, gained more than half of the Legation, and all that is practically left to the defenders is their main-gate blockhouse, a long barricaded trench and the remains of a few houses.  These they have sworn to retain until they are too feeble to hold.  Then, and then only, will they retreat into the next line behind them, the fortified Hotel de Pekin, which has already four hundred shell holes in it.

Yesterday’s losses at the French lines were five men wounded, four blown up by a mine, of whom two never have been seen again, and two men killed outright by rifle-fire.  Then the last houses were set fire to by Chinese soldiers, who, able to push forward in the excitement and confusion of the mine explosions, attempted to seize and hold these strategic points, and were only driven out by repeated counter-attacks.  Such events show that for some occult reason the Chinese commands are trying to carry the French lines by every possible device....  It has been like this for a week now.

For, from the 7th of July, the Chinese commands having prepared the ground for their attacks by a heavy cannonade lasting for sixty hours, which riddled everything above the ground level with gaping holes, started pushing forward through the breaches, and setting fire, by means of torches attached to long bamboo poles, to everything which would burn.  No living men, no matter how brave, can hold a glowing mass of ruins and ashes, and the Chinese were showing devilish cunning.  Isolated combats took place along the whole French line—­in a vain effort to drive off the incendiaries, little sorties of two or three men furiously attacking the persistent enemy, and each time driving him back with loss, only to find him dribbling in again like muddy water through every hole and cranny in the imperfect defences.  But even this did not do much good.  No one could keep an accurate record of these curious encounters during the first few days, for they have succeeded one another with such rapidity that men have become too tired, too sleepy to wish to talk.  They try to act, and some of their adventures have been astonishing.