The Sun.
London, England, 1871-02-06 00:00:00

~rIJE WAR.

THE FALL OF PARIS.

THE FIRST ENGLISHMAN TO ENTER PARIS.
The correspondent of the Daily News with the army of
;he Saxon Crown Prince, was the first outsider who pene-
;rated the double cordon of French and German posts.

He got in-- - with a good deal of difficulty, and
rode through the city ; and thus describes his
experience :—" Paris is utterly cowed ; fairly beaten"
—so said the first Englishman I met; and his
opinion is mine. Yet Paris is orderly and decent, and
with a certain solemn-morose self-restraint mastering
the tendency to demonstrate. The streets were crowded,
almost wholly with men in uniform. Civilians were few
and far between. Many shops were open, but many also
were closed. There is no want of hardware in Paris.

You may buy enough and to spare of anything except
edibles. Drink is plentiful enough, but except
near the gate I saw not a soul drunk. The food
shops had nothing to shew. There were confitures and
preserves, jellies, &c. ; but solid comestibles were con-
spicuous by their absence. In one shop I saw several
large shapes of stuff that looked like lard. When I asked
what it was, I found it was horse fat. The bakers' shops
were closed ; the grating down before the butchers'. And
oh, the number of funerals ! One, two, three ; I
met six altogether in the course of my ride.
Sad with an exceeding great sadness ; such was what
I found as regards Paris long before I reached the Ameri-
can Legation ; self-respecting, too, in her misery ; not
blatant ; not disposed to collect in jabbering crowds.
Each man went his way with chastened face and
listless gait. I spoke with a soldier of the Line.
Yes, he had had enough of it. Satre. They
had nearly killed him, these terrible Prussians, and he
was very hungry. When would the gates open for
food? Food began to be with me a personal question. I
had nearly filled my wallet with newspapers, and only
stowed away for an exigency, a few slices of ham. Did
ever the rarest geological or mineralogical specimen make
such a sensation as these slices of ham? When I
at length reached my quarters the servant women
asked permission to take the meagre plateful out,
and shew it as a curiosity to their companions ; and
after the ham was eaten, stray visitors came in,
attracted by the tidings, and begged for a look at the
unwonted viands. The whole city is haunted with the
chaste odours which horseflesh gives out in cooking ;
odours which I learned to appreciate at Metz. They
permeate the deserted British Embassy, where, as-
serting my privileges as a Briton, I stabled my
horse ; they linger in the corridors of the Grand
Hotel, and fight with the taint from wounds in
evil case. The Grand Hotel is one huge hospital. Half
Paris seems converted into hospitals if one may judge by
the flags. They were more than were needed until the
Southern bombardment began ; and then when the hospi-
tals, ambulances, orphanages, and madhouses on the South
side had to be evacuated, there was a squeeze on this
side of the water. Very touching is the ignorance as to
the outside world. "I have seen three English papers
since September," said Dr. Gordon, our Medical Commis-
sioner. "Is Ireland quiet? Is Mr. Gladstone still Prime
Minister? Is the Princess Louise married?" Such are
samples of the questions I have had to answer. The igno-
rance as to the condition of the Prussians outside is equally
dense. The sins for which Paris used to be famous, all
belong to the past. She has been half-starved, half-
beaten into morality, or it may be that other than phy-
sical influences have led htr to wash and be clean.
You see some drunkenness, but far less than I had
looked for, among men whose clock, so to speak, has
run down. A decent gloom is everywhere apparent.
Some assert that the gloom is as much theatrical
and assumed as had been the previous valorous seeming.
I don't think so—l think you can see the iron eating and
burning into the hearts of these men—silent with
unwonted silence ; moody as they never knew
how to be before ; and as the downcast faces
pass I draw a good augury from them for
France and Paris. The great and beautiful feature
of the siege has been the absence of crime. No murders
no robberies, but a virtue in which, to me there is some-
thing pathetic. The half-lit streets are empty by half-
past nine. The midnight air is not tortured by the sound
of revellers, although there are no police to keel) order. I
woke up between twelve and one in the night, and the
silence made me for the moment think myself back at
Margency.