The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-07-03 00:00:00

THE FLOODS IN FRANCE.

TERRIBLE LOSS OF LIFE, AND GREAT
DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY.

The following particulars of the recent floods in France,
under date Paris, June 25, reveal how destructive the
disaster has been both to life and property:—

The details of the disaster caused by the inundations
in the South of France are of a most heartrending
character. The St. Cyprien quarter of Toulouse is a
perfect sepulchre; 215 bodies have already been found.
The waters had exceeded the usual height by nine
metres, and the flooded quarters were for a long time
inaccessible on account of the extreme violence of the
torrent. Several persons who endeavoured to save
life, including the Marquis d'Hautpoul, perished in
the attempt. There are upwards of 20,000 persons in
Toulouse deprived of all means of subsistence. The
railway traffic around the town is interrupted.
The disasters in other parts of the South are
equally great, several towns having been visited
by the floods, viz., Montrejean, Valentine, Mira-
mont, Cazeres Muret, and especially Moissac.
The lower part of the latter town is hidden under
water. Numerous houses have fallen in everywhere.
At Trenouillet only five houses remain standing out of
four hundred. Telegrams from Foix announce that
fearful disasters have occurred in that district. The
villages of Labastide and Beaupeas are engulphed,
and numerous bodies have been found. Similar
ravages are reported from Montauban and its environs.
Throughout the inundated district, which is of vast
extent, the growers being taken by surprise, were
unable to save anything. Almost everywhere the
farms situated on the banks of the Garonne and its
affluents have been devastated, and the crops are entirely
lost. Most praiseworthy devotion is displayed by
the authorities and troops in the task of saving life
and property.

At Toulouse, up to June 25th, one hundred dead
bodies have been found in the houses flooded by the
inundation, but left standing. It is supposed that
many people perished in the houses which were swept
away.

The Paris Correspondent of The Times, writing
under date June 27, also gives the following particu-
lars of this unexpected calamity :
Up to Wednesday nobody had any idea that owing to the
heavy rains of the previous week the Garonne would over-
flow its banks with such rapidity. On Tuesday the river
Indeed was unusally high, and some slight damage was ex-
pected, such as usually happens in winter when the Mow
melts, but had anybody suggested precautions against
disaster they would hare been deemed quite unneccessary.
On Wednesday, however, the prospect changed; the
river became a torrent, and by 10 a.m. it reached the
level of the flood of 1855. It continued to rise, and
measures were taken with desperate ardour to hem in the
waters, but the attempt was too late. They invaded all the
low-lying quarters of the town, and at two p.m. two of the
arches of one of the bridges and twenty houses were swept
away, and the swimming baths and lavatories moored to the
banks were hurried down the stream, dashing against the
houses alongside in their course. At five p.m. the water rose
over the parapets protecting the populous quarter of St.
Cyprien. In an hour later it was 10ft. deep. Boats were hastily
got out to rescue the inmates of the falling houses, but several
of them were carried away by the current and dashed to
pieces or swamped. Two boats, manned by eight
soldiers, were dashed against each other, and sank in a pool
formed by the gardens of the Civil Hospital, Out of thirty
persons on board only one woman was saved. Several per-
sons who tried to escape from the quarter on the left back
on horseback were carried away by the flood and perished.
In the evening the whole quarter of St. Cyprien was cut off
from the rest of the town, the three bridges being carried
away. All Wednesday night was to be heard the crash of
houses and the cries of the victims. On Thursday morn-
ing the whole population was in the streets, all classes
vying with one another in their efforts to rescue the
victims. The town presented a heartrending spectacle;
5,000 to 6,000 poor creatures, half-naked, bruised, and
benumbed, were conducted on foot or carried in
vehicles or on litters to the military hospital; many of
them were women leading their children by the hand. By
the afternoon the waters had fallen 6ft in St. Cyprien, but
both above and below Toulouse they extended like an im-
mense lake dotted with the bodies of human beings and
animals and with:articles of furniture, while roofs of houses
and trees here and there appeared above the flood. At
four p.m. the clergy of St. Nicholas went in procession to
tha Church de la Daurade to supplicate the Virgin for mercy,
and services were going on all day in all the churches.
About 100 corpses were discovered on Thursday and Friday,
and were buried, after being photographed by their
friends. One of the victims was M. Wohlfart, a retired
major, who had entered a house to save two
children, when the walls fell in and bur t him. Bodies
were discovered in many instances in alleys and gardens.
Five victims composing one family were found in a
first-floor room locked in an agonising embrace. Those who
had escaped were to be seen stationed at the entrance of their
ruined tenements, furl giving information as to their fellow
occupiers. In the belfry of St. Nicholas Church sixty per-
sons took refuge. The flood reached the altar table, and not
far off a clerical student was searching all day among this
ruins of a large house for his parents and sister, listening in-
tently for any sound of life. All the granaries on the banks
of the river are destroyed, and the entire quarter may be
said to have disappeared, for all the houses still standing
are damaged or tottering. The new Carmelite Church was
flooded, a lady who was confessing being drowned, while the
confessor effected his escape. The girls at a convent school
were rescued on Thursday. They had passed a dreadful
night, going up from story to story as the good
rose, and passing the time in prayer, expecting every moment
to be their last. The bodies of four women were found,
each with an infant in her arms. Another woman was found
by her dog. In one room ten victims were found, two of
whom were still breathing, and received the last sacraments
before expiring. The older houses, on account of the greater
solidity of their walls, offered the greatest resistance to the
flood, and those supported by the old fortifications were not
carried away. Large number* of persons have applied at the
Maine for food and shelter. The troops rendered great ser-
vice, displaying the greatest courage and daring, and they
have been warmly thanked by the Municipality. The vil-
lages round Toulouse have considerably suffered, and several
persons perished.

Marshal MacMahon, accompanied by M. Buffet and General
de Cissy, reached Toulouse yesterday afternoon. After visit-
ing the cathedral, where he was received by the clergy, he
proceded to the Prefecture, and afterwards repaired to the
quarters of the town which have suffered most from the in-
undation. He next visited the hospital, the tobacco manu-
factory, and the Capitole or Hotel de Ville, where he thanked
the Municipally for the zeal they had shown in succouring
the sufferers. The Assembly, he remarked, had voted a grant,
the amount of which would be increased as soon as the
extent of the disaster was better known. In spite, he added,
of all the efforts of the Government, it was necessary to make
an urgent appeal to the public generosity, which had just
displayed itself by the formation of a committee charged
with receiving subscriptions. . . .

It is announced this evening that at Toulouse alone 900
persons have perished, and that the outbreak of an epidemic
Is feared. The loss of life will never be precisely known, for
the Garonne has carried away many bodies, and some have
been recovered In the costume of districts 20 leagues distant
from Toulouse. It is believed that 600 houses have been
swept away in the town and 2,000 in the environs. 1,200
soldiers are still engaged in clearing away the ruins, and
only a fifth of the inundated buildings will be saved. Water
for drinking was distributed yesterday in the town,
which had had none since Wednesday. The Depart-
ments adjoining the Haute-Garonne have suffered
considerably. At Verdun, in the Arl6ge, as already
mentioned, fifty houses have been destroyed and eighty lives
lost, besides 500 head of cattle. The villages of La Bastide
and Besplas have been swept away. At Alazeres twelve
houses have disappeared. In Tarn-et-Garonne and the
L pper and Lower Pyrenees much property has been de-
stroyed. At Bordeaux the river has not overflowed, but it
has brought down trees, hay, animals, and several dead
bodies- An infant in a cradle, supposed to have floated
some distance down the river, has been saved. The Valley
of the Gera is inundated, the waters reaching a height un-
paralleled since 1825.

Madame Maalahon, faithful to her rOle of protectress of
works of charity, has opened a subscription and has con-
tributed 5,000 f. for the relief of the distress, which exceeds
all description. Not only is there a material loss of
£12,000,(.00 to £15,000,000, but there is the ruin of thousands
of families suddenly deprived of their livelihood and de-
barred from a hundred resources which the widest charity
cannot replace. The South of France, which was spared
the spectacle of the war with its ha..,•^... wow
in its turn a
....aultby. Every private letter
which ...rives here cescribes a new episode A single
view cannot take in co many horrors at once, and
world•wide charity will have ample scope in relieving so
many misfortunes. I would beg permission to appeal in your
columns to the benevolence of the English public, the effects
of which France experienced during the last war. It is not
long ago that a French deputation laid before lie Majesty a
testimony of gratitude for that sympathy. The present
visitation is a more terrible one than the scourge of war, and
those who are suffering under it did nothing to draw it upon
them. I would impress, therefore, upon your readers
the necessity of assisting in this work of humanity,
designed to replace all that charity can replace, to
rescue so many victims from the sufferings of hunger,
to help to clothe and house them, and to allow them to
mourn those they have lost without being a prey to freih
anguish The first aay's subscriptions received at the Pre-
sidency by the Committee formed under the patronage of
Madame MacMahon amount to 64,000 L The Minister of
Education has addressed a Circular to the Lyceum;
Colleges, &c., urging them to raise a subscription among
their students. The Southern Railway has contributed
50,000 L, and thevOpera and some of the theatres will give a
performance in aid of the sufferers.
It is remarked that inundations at Toulouse seem to be
p4riodicaL They occurred in 1815, 1335, and 1855.

The Special Correspondent of The Times, under date
ToulouNe, June 28, also says :
south sides t.,1 the river at Toulouse—the one with its usual
Nothing can present a greater contrast than the north and
aspect undisti.`rbed, and its inhabitants pursuing their ordi-
nary avocation"; the other, like a place which has
been bombarde.l. The Faubourg St. Cyprien is,
In fact, a town of itself, and is to the upper part
of Toulouse what ete Surrey side of the Thames is to
the 111Iddlesex shores. The quarter is densely peopled, or
rather had 25,000 inhlrbitents, most of them of the working
classes, though outaido the town walls are villas and
cottages belonging to wealthier people. Through the
quarter run avenues of trees, and around it are fields of
corn and market gardens; in short, under ordinary circum-
stances it must be a pleasant enough place to live in.
To describe what St. Cyprien is now is almost impossible.
It is a town of ruins. The Garonne is now running in its
natural bed, but all over the inundated quarter are pools of
water and rank river mud ; trees are uprooted, gardens are
mere swamps, and streets half-dried water-courses, with here
and there great cracks end yawning gaps. In some places the
houses are heaps of rubbish, in others the walla are left stand-
ing, with pictures and articles of attire hanging on them. In
one street through which I passed only three houses were
standing, and this is probably the case in a dozen other
thoroughfares. Everywhere gangs of soldiers were at work
demolishing walls, collecting furniture, and making the roads
passable. while the owners di the ruins were, some helping