The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-08-13 00:00:00

PARIS IN ITS JOY AND SADNESS.
_a

The following letter, written on Sunday night, is
from an Occasional Correspondent of The Times :-
-"'"

It will be very long before those who have a 'Maned It
forget the contrast between tin Paris of yerterday and the
Paris of to-day. The spect.cle of a Large population sud-
denly plunged from rejricing Into the prof ...dein gloom is
sad and arange enough 811)W, ere, all 11.1w.zr.c. perhaps
could the ch-iuge be so strskin to hilll4 tsualy the gayest
ILL.{ most animated of cities. 1 , app. red to drive luto
yesterday from one of the sr “d, about the time hen
the popular enthusiasm at ti .e report of klactiatioir vletery
was at its height, and a more j ,yous scene It would he difficult
to imagine. Every face was radiant with delight; ts streets
were alive with flaps, and all the ordinary Bohr .4 • great
city seemed for one utterly lost in muerte .1 attains of
triumph and pealli, _h..ruses of the MerssoNtr... The J°3,
was naturally all tl.e 1.: re intense in cot...mimic° of the bad
news of tie prir-ous slay; `,, de!eat at Wisseim
home had rathee Irritated I. or alarmed the
Parisian*. If no, treated a st-off against the
success at Se. • 0.4-11 rai affair, perhaps,
but still me .. the same •I to he amply stored
for as moor too formidah, in had time to come
tip to the usette of his trim., is d and overpowered
by tenfr odds. Of vulnie, a r se of any sort had never
formed ••• art if the Parisian programme, and was, without
doubt • just as a e scene 11 annoying lu •
sple :ray, and the sunny . ,ce found vent in Minting
• .lnlocity foreigner. dem:wised to be spies, and
irie bower of w in...tub-changer accused of pub-
-1 , • • ~nt hos delight at reagens.* snores, But lat
no it,. saw 111 y symptoms of grave anxiety or alarm, and by
miclui;ht the reunrur of Maolitahou's great triumph had got
abroad, and the it .0 was rapidly yielding to the delight
which reached to such a pitch of enthusiasm next day. Even
when the rumour proved to be false, the heartless invention
of some stock jobbing scoundrel, who, one rejoices to hear,
lain the hares of the police—Parie kept up its spirits in •
wonderful way. At first the people fell foul of M. 011ivier,
and for • short time his house was in no little danger of
being stortner But long before midnight they had all but
recovered their good humour and good spirit.. and a stranger
entering Parte last night by the principal boulevard. would
hare tin sight that the crowds who thronged them had lust
recelvixi certain intelligence of a glorious victory, instead of
having just found themselves the victims of • cruel false-
hood.

--1;;Iks myself witness of one very singular scene, which I
have no doubt had its counterpart in numerous other quar-
ters of the town. Where the crowd on the boulevards wu
thickest and nohlest, a gentleman appeared at the window
of a restaurant and commenced singing the Masse'liaise. Ile
hod a full, powerful voice, and the instant it made Melt
beard a ioniceu lull came over the cro ad, as if by magi...
What an instant before had been a confused tumult of voices
became a solemn Silence, unbroken by a murmur, until the
moment came for the chorus, and then the general burst
into the "Aux snore, citoyens," followed by loud ebouta
and wavinga of hats and handkerchiefs, came alt), an
effect that made the pulse bound and the blood rush angling
through every vein. Socce of the audience were, witnons
exaggeration, for the moment hall mad from excitement. I
saw one officer standing up in an open carriage waving his
naked sword In a fashion that threatened to hen dangerous
to Waldman to foes. The scene lasted until the singer, after
repeated encores, was too exhausted to make himself heard
any longer, and ise I turned away • dozen rival performera,
with equal enthusiasm hut considerably less vocal powers,
Were striving to succeed him by shouting each other down.
It required but a glance at the fiercely agitated faces and
almo t frenzied gestures of the crowd—• crowd onsisting of
all classes, though chiefly of the well-dressed end respect-
able—to understand how easily in Paris revolulons are
made and what an slaloms task the Government has
whose duty it la In moments of excitement to preserve
order and keep popular manifestations within reason-
able bdunds. I was scarcely surprised as I went down
the boulevards to find the street which leads to SI 011ivier'a
house protected from the public by a strong force of
gendarmes and National Guard Not that the crowd wined
vicious or bent on mischief, but their excitement was such
that there WU no saying what violent vent a sudden rally-
ing cry and a bold leader might not have found for it. As
it was, however, they dispersed quietly enough, and went
their several ways, still, of c, arse, singing and shouting, and
having almost persuaded themselves, by mere dint of singing
and shouting, that a victory had been really won, and that
they would Wake up next morning to Lind it duly announced
In the official bulletins.

THE REVERSE OF THE MEDAL.
(By Etilnond About.)
FunßACii, Aug 4.
I have kept hack my letter as long as lean. Until the last
moment I have been expecting some news of importance.
Everybody is waiting for the seizure of Muth:tick, but Saar.
brik Is not yet seized. The town is really oars, b,couso we
have only to fire • few cannon-shots to raze it to the at ound
—a thing we shall certainly not do, being not a bit like the
Prussian., but we hesitate a very long tine before entering it.
Neither simple civilians like mpielf, nor even the main body
of the army, know the secret of this delay. alarshsi MI miff
is certainly a man of genius, they say—if genius is proved by
patience. Perhs.s we have the best reasons lathe world for
looking at the town and not taking it : the bridges are
mined, they say ; the neighbouring woode have not been
MC111118(1, and nothing proves that they are not full of
enemies some houses of naarbrUck conceal, It is said,
sharpshooters armed with carbine.; our Generals don't care
to save one or two days of time at the price of five or six
hundred human lives. The reasoning Is very humane.
Whilst we deliberate, the town is hko a city of the dead.
I have never seen anything more sinister than thus, large
buildings, handsome enough, of which all the windows are
closed these bridges over which no one crosses ; the streets,
wide and cl an, through which, once fie a quarter of AO hour,
passes an Inhabitant furtively and in trembdug Our cannon
are p Anted, our mitrailleuses in battery, our advanced posts
under arms, and all our camps are reedy to march at the first
signal Nothing stirs. We are waiting for orders from the
great chiefs.

I wished to return, at any cost, to that little fell of bottle,
which commands Saari), li,k, but I fund tile road closed by
an Imperative order. The rgeur of the Major General has re-
doubled, it appears, within these twenty-four hours, since
what was permitted yesterday la forbidden to day. Yester-
day, without any safe•condurt, I niai'e my way as far as
the outposts this morning, though provided with to pan', I
have been obliged to turn back.

The road is ;till animated, rnt to sty encumbered. Pone
men and military waggons constantly cross each other-
there are two very active currents in motion between For-
bach and Umbra k, but the meaning of these contrary and
precipitate movements is a secret for the profane. Therein
no lack of conjectures; but, since any one of the hypotheses
that circulate may be the truth I do not publish any of
them.

1 esterdsy I visited twenty Prue.lan prisoners, all belong-
ing to the 40th Regiment of Infantry. They too very young
tome of them, Indeed, would teem more in place upon the
school bench than in the ranks of an army. Tiler uniform
Is of dull colour and inelegant shape, but ample and easy all
the same. Their head-rear is • round cap, rather taller in
form than the cap of our boatmen. Only taro bear the spiked
helmet, and of these one has had the point mown off by •
ball. I surprised them in the midst of a rather poor repast.
The si9ters of the hospital had just brought to each
of them a little basin of soup, for want of some-
thitnr better. They have a r ght to the same ration. as the
soldiers of our army. 1 talked with a few of them They
are cold and dignified. Twenty Frenchmen of their age,
taken at the outset of a campaign, would make a thousand
times as much noise. Not one of then, belongs to the Land.
wehr. Indy one speaks a few words of French with difficulty;
bets a heap tal attendant, and still wears the badge of the
International Ambulance Society. They are pnivusionally
installed upon • bed of fresh straw in an old church open to
all tne winds of heaven. Torre they are neither better nor
worse off than a soldier under his tent.

coming from them, I met a convoy of wounded going
towards the station ; they were sending them to the hospital
at Meta Those least injured were collected by so and seven
upon carts pressed into the service ; those more seriously
wounded lay two by two In the little ambulance carriages,
which are clean and light and soft, and well hung, leaving
nothing to desire in their arrangement. 1 lollowed tne sad
procession, and saw the men carried one by one into the
waggons strewn with hay that were waiting for them.
• •

---
Here one begins to lee the reverse (1 the medal, and the
features of the war are not so smiling as last weAt As the
carte file past, a young officer seated before the Cale Franc sis
recognises the face of one amongst the wounded. tie rises,
draws near, and cries, "You? ls it you, here?" Ihe
other, mho carries his arm In a sling, and in erns to suffer
cruelly, scarcely appears to notice this warm sympathy; he
murmurs a few words confusedly, and lets Ms head fall
forward.. The cart goes on.

Amongst the number was • boy, at most eighteen years
old, with a bright and quick expression of fat.; and what
fire there was In his large black eyes! One of the town..
people approach.. him and says, "You enlisted aa a
volunteer ?" " Yes," he replies, and lets himself fall
upon the hay of the waggon. Another, not yet twenty
3ears old, Is carried on • trunk ; he is hit in bath
leg., and seriously. Tide one makes jokes, but only he; all
the others are already in • 'state of stupor. sometimee a
man strurglee against his into ; witness, for instance, that
little foot-sddier whose right arm is broken, and who cries,
"Give m. my rifle ! I can kill them very well with the left
hand." But after twenty-four hours of the hospital, pain
overcomes the most heroic natures. Remember the cries
and tears of Lamle', who had been brave enough all the
lame.

Three Prussians are in th• convoy. The face of one is livid
and swollen, like that of a man who has been fifteen days in
the water • a Chivsepat bullet has gone through his mouth;
drink is given him through a straw; he doe.n't complain.
This poor creature, who has no longer any feature of the
human face, seemed inthiferent to his Int. One of his com-
rades, the day hcfore yesterday, came to brunch on the same
hand.truck with the lieutenant of frolic tiretfr4, who was
killed under flre. The living mon, leaning on his elbow
',elide the dead, looked alternately at the corpse and at the
inquisitive crowd without groaning—without moving a
muscle.

Nothing la more touching than the care of the French
moldier for the wounded, whether friends or enemies Those
who can walk, they help ; the others they carry with the
gentleness of a mother. The men of the railway, humid.
soldiers who also risk their lives without any hope of glory,
are equally attentive. they break the window, of the car-
riages lest the wounded ahould want air; they provide them
with Iresh water : they ask permission to remain with the
to relieve thel.: wants on the joutney. The Company, in
concert with the hospital train, is going soon to establish
vehicles more comfortable than waggons lined with hay.
Government has ordered • thousand hammocks, on an ex-
cellent plan, Invented by M. Diets, enginiter of the Eastern
Hallway.

It is still difficult to ascertain exactly the climber of nor
lases and of the enerny'e. I have not been able to visit the
two ambulances estabPshed at the gate of Saarle 021 t. The
hovital of Forbach, when nothing is wanting, hat received
last night 74 woucideo„ of whom seven were Prussians Three
men had died jo transport, two at the hospital, Ntihig
things at the wont—that is to ray, supposing that the taking
of Sarin lick had cost us fift,en or twenty men—we should
have obtained on the whole a tine success at a cheap rate.
It only remains for us to ronfit by the victory.

•
The honour of the day, it Is only right to declare, belongs
to the Prince Impart el. Ihe soldier is no courtier ; oil will
know how to appreciate at its Just value this little dialogue
which I caught In paining:

o •
" I soy, the Emperor was jolly plucky."
" Par bleu! Ita his business."
" But the young one—l saw him ; he was in the hatted of
It, and didn't duct to the bullets !"
"that, now—that's gold!'
Another story, of charming simplicity. It is of the Prince :
" But, General," he said, "they're tiring at us !"
"Yes, your Highness," replied General Frossard.
Think of the manner in which princes are brought up, the
horn, ge with which they are wearied, the Hltrakani ilecutfa
which estaNlsh In their eye, the do ably.stor.td tlnielulilley
of their little persons : ratountra the profound utcntahment
which m'lst Gee to a princely breast at sight of
thosa pet jectiles, ef which the very least, in fall.
ing so near, commits the crime of high treason,
and then say If war is not as admirable school,
and If emperors tve wrong to offer their sons to the I [nutty.
A good le•son of etjuality, followed by an example of oturare• .
Thlli, then, there are mon so dint; as to fire upon the
Prince intperlal ?" " Quite PO ycur Burliness." " Very
well; let us see." And the boy stands still in the midst of
the bullettq When I nay the boy.: Ultitake ; he was • Man
when he returned from the held.
" SaltitiertSMlNES, Saturday.
0f feel my heart swelling and my head weighed down as
though I bed g alms upon my oomiateme, mid yet Lt Le not

I who cound the disaster at Wassentoourg. But the men of
whom a nation is composed are all intimately comic:Led,
like the members of a single b3cl7. They tote credit for a
victory for which they have not personally fought, and they
innocently take to themselves the errors or the weaknesies
of others. Never have I seen more clearly this side of
honour snits, never have I realised until to-day that real
and living abstraction which Is called the country.
How proud we were four days since when we leerot the
capture of Smarbruck ! Each of us felt a perainal triumph
hi at brill!. sit advantage, which the neat day eiwiodjad
to but very little. To-dcy there is not a .Fieuchulan who
does net feel that he was bestwn at Wisoembourg, and who
does not bleed Inwardly at the thought of • Prussian
victory celebrated in Berlin arid trumpeted forth ti the
ends of the world. I was not present a: the affair; Idol
not Imar the cannon that mowed down our Turcos and our
Zmaves, I have not seen the corpses lying on the plain, and
yet it seems as if I were one of thou, who have escaped, so
common to us all Is the misfortune. So true felt that 39
millions of men iii the presence of an enemy become but one
single person. There is no lack of details respecting that
di plorable event, hut I leave to others the task of conmonnl-
cattsg them to you. I had a slight knowledge of General
Abel Dousy ; 1 passed a day or two with him at the Convent
of Sainte Odlle in the autunin of 1885. He was a wo,thy
soldier, very firm and very gentle, devoted to France, caring
more for his duty kian for his life. It is believed here that
he purposely sought death In the midst of the e.nemy rather
than carry with him to the tomb the shame of a defeat.
But lotus !peak of something else. Shall see? Ii will be,
perhaps, better to search for the dunes of this Montebello
in an inverse acute, and seek the means of avoiding a recur-
rence of it. Although lam terribly Lew to war, and I have
to study our army under a thousand difficullies, I have al-
ready been able to collect many details, and to form some
ideas. Take them for what they are worth, and excuse im-
perfections of style. All my phrases are tuned to the can.
none sound. Fighthog is going coat a few leagues distance,
awl General Fronard has J ,stl.ummoned to his aid the forces
which are encamped around Sarreguilmines. Tnen we have
committed a first fault in awaiting Menton. It was we
who declared war, and we remain at home for others to
make war upon us. Here base we titan dillydallying about
our side of the frontier instead of rushing across it up ru the
suerny. We were Hot ready f will allow, bat were the
Prussian.; better prepared? I have seen how these last 20
days have been speut in useless notching and c dinter.march-
Inv. which have wearied our soldiers. Many nice have been
marched beyond all reason, have been too Indifferently pro-
vided, and have insufficiently recruited their strength. The
order for the distribution of csmpaigu rations only arrived
to.dsy. Was there any object in view to justify these
fatigues and these privaione ? Must a soldier mortify his
flesh before he can be led to assured victory? Is there
any plan 41 campaign ? It is permissible to doubt it. The
corps which ednos and go apparently at haphazard upon
the frontier du not seem to be held in a firm grasp Possi-
bly the unity of oirection is wantit g. Are all the Generals
young men? We are told that tuey are not. As to the
soldiers, many if them are too ycung and too raw. Many
men in the reserve have yet to horn how to handle a Chasse-
pot ; they are only aNuainted with the old-fashioned
ioludtet. They are draughted foto companies, witch they
weaktu Matead. of streineheniug. These conscripts fire
at random, they are liable to panic, and they diaconcert
the old troopers.
"There are • hundred other things to say, and if I
were to polish all I hear, even from general- officers,
I should heifer came to au ehd. But certain criticisms
must be postponed until the conclusion of the cam-
paign. But what it is necessary to eirf Tye upon the puolic
mind, and that vigorously, is that of all European armies
ours protects itself the Mast. With few or no vedettes,
there is a lamentable deficiency of skirmiehers. The Prue.
stuns replam, the diva, in which they are wanting by an ex.
Gel of prudence and cunning. Astor no, we encamp trusting
to the watchfulness of God, and we allow ottrseltes to be
aurprisetl—wittissa the affair at Wissenabourg. When we are
riot surprised we are incessantly harassed by threatching
movements, which recur day and night. If Mashal Leb‘euf
would only employ &oldest the Frontons the Staff which he
has sot in action against the journalists, shah% would per-
haps go on better. The troops are now defiling beneath my
window, and actively. Will they reach the battle-field before
night 1 I hope s. We have not heard the cannon furs tele
momente."—Ls