The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-01-03 00:00:00

MARSHAL BAZAINE'S DEPARTURE
FRr,M PARIS.

The following detells of the dep‘rture of Marstud Bazaine
frnm Paris to undergo his w.nienee appear', In the Paris
Figaro:—
- - - - -

-
On Thum(lay evening Marshal Eszstne omitted
Tiianon. Tee following day he arrived a ms desti-
nation, after a journey extending over fortr.amytwenty
hours. The most minute precautions had been taken
to keep secret his departure. Early in the
morning the prisoner, who had previ insly been
warned of his approaching removal, was allowed
the privilege of an interview with Madame Bar line
and with his children, which lasted upwards of two
hours and a half. After the departure of his wife,
the Marshal busied himself in the preparations for his
long journey. He refused from that time to receive
any other visits, and passed the remaining portion of
the time left open to him in arranging various papers,
which he committed to the care of his friends. At clnak
a close carriage, surrounded by a detachment of gend.
armee, arrived to take charge of the prisoner. The
escort was commanded by a colonel of the gendarmes,
who, bowel, r, did not appear in uniform. The
inspector of the prisons of Seine-et-Oise was pre-
sent at the departure of the prisoner, whose guard was
then placed under the charge of a director of the peni-
tentiai y !service, to whom was committed the duty
of seeing him duly consigned to the fort on the Isle
' of St. Marguerite. The arrangements for the depar.
ture were so well mansghl that the people of Versailles
I did not know of it till the day after. At the station
of Villeneuve.Saint,Georges, where the express train at
ordinary times never stops, there were none but roil.
way servants on the platform. Here the Marshal
hail but a few moments to wait before the train
came up, and he went with his guard into a carriage
attached expreolly for them. The passengers tut
out their heads as if surprised at this unueual
I halt, but the secret was kept during a great
ipart of the journey. At Lyons the train made a
halt of twenty•five minutes a which the Marshal

availed himself by taking a cop of coffee. At the
Presidency news was received in the aft ernooll of his
arrival at Marseilles. No incident of any interest was
reported, the Marshal having dined at that city with-
out awaking attintion. In the carne manner was the
•oyage continued, and at nine o'clock M the evening
toe Minister of the Interior received a despatch an-
nouncing thy arrival of the Marvhal at the fort on the
bile of Ste. Marguerite. The embarkation having
taken place at night, no disorder had occurred.

The Tittles in a leader commenting upon the fate of
Marshal herein% remarks
- - -

Henceforward for twei.ty years, if his life lasts so
long, he is doomed to a life of seclusion within the fort
of St. Marguerite. It is said, indeed, that his wife
and children will take up their residence on the island.
and that, although they will not live with him, he will
Le permitted to see thetp. His confinement, therefore,
will not be di manta of solace, and • prisoner could
hardly be relegated to a more lovely climate The
French Government have spared him all pain of body
and mind which it was possible consistently with his
sentence to remit, even his removal to St. Marguerite
bting so quietly managed that he will bate
art iced almost before his departure from Versailles
was generally known. But Cm: doom on which he has
now entered is none the less a terrible one, and tome
feelings of melancholy cannot be repressed as we hear
of the gates of a fortiess closing round a same once so
distinguished. Though Basalt:le never accomplished any
feat to give him a high rank among commanders, his
Judges accorded him the honour of having been a brave
soldier, and of having rendered gallant services to his
country. But, nintli as he fell short of his op-
portunities, few men in Frauch have held a
more responsible position. It will be well re-
membered how, after the first disaster of the French
arms, in 1870, the almost unanimous cry was that
the chief command should be without reserve trans-
ferred to Bazaine, and from that moment, scarcely ex-
cluding even the brief excitement of the march on
Sedan, he was for two months the prominent figure in
the eyes of his countrymen. He had before him at
least the alternative of an honourable failure or •
splendid success. Had be been aule to escape from
Metz and place but the skeleton of an army at the ser-
vice of his country, he would have won an imperishable
claim to its gratitude; had he been overpowered in a
desperate struggle by superior force, his renown would
still have shone brightly in itsvannals of glory. He did
neither; and he passes into seclusion a degraded man.
Nu charms of nature and nei domestic diversions will
be able to silence in his mind the perpetual contrast
between what he is and what he might have been.
All the toesibilities of those three mouths at Metz, all
the occasions for a great resolve, all the respect he
might have won, and all the disgrace he has incurred,
cannot but be a perpetual torment to him amid 4 the
monotony of .an existence without public duties or In.
teresta. Even if in the excitement of his trial he has
persuaded himself, as he says, that his conscience is
clear, the verdict of the Court Martial will none the
lees have inflicted its sting, and in long hours of solitary
reflection he will be unable to silence its recorded re-
proach. If tne President, as some think, has been
merciful, he has none the lees been compelled to inflict
on his former comrade a puniehment which in some re-
spects must be worse than death.

The correspondent of the Szetss Times, at Cannes,
writes under date of December 27 :—.` Banal'e passed
our station, Cannes, about eleven o'clock last night in
a special train, which stopped • few minu• ezi, and he
could be perceived in a votture salon with his wife and
eons. In another carriage an otEce of gendarmerie
with some gendarmes were seated. No one else could
be perceived. The train went on to Antibes, where
the news had spread, and a crowd of 500 or 600 persons
awaited the .x-Marshal's arrival, and greeted him with
hisses and shouts. There was great excitement, and he
was protected by his escort to a carriage, and thence
to the Daine, sloop of war, and to the Island of St.
Alareurrite, where be now is."