The Sun.
London, England, 1871-02-01 00:00:00

871.

PRUSSIAN EXECUTIONS AT CHALONS,

The Echo du Nord of January 30 says : " M. Dantre
vile, an engineer, arrived from Chalons, informs us that
on Sunday, January 22, the deputy mayor, the school•
master, and two notables of the commune of Montmirail,

were shot in the Champ de Mars, under take follow
circumstances :

" ' The mayor and deputy,the eure,and the schoolmaster
of that commune, convicted of having aided and harboured
some Franc-tireurs, were arrested by the Prussian autho-
rities. The mayor and the cure having made their escape,
two notables were arrested in their place, and all taken to
Chalons. On Saturday, January 21, the municipality of
Chalons were ordered to prepare four graves in the Champ
de Mars, and furnish four coffins. On Saturday morning
the dep'ity mayor, the schoolmaster, and the two notables
were taken to the place cf execution in a waggon,
and placed in front of their respective graves. The
deputy mayor on account of his age (68 years) was shot
with his eyes bandaged, and the three others shared the
same fate at intervals of four minutes. The municipality
registered an official report of the facts. On the same
day the mayor of Chalons was ordered to pay a requisi-
tion of 200,000 francs for having expelled the Germans
employed in the town.' "

THE OCCUPATION OF ST. DENIS BY THE
GERMANS.

From Margency, January 29, the special correspondent
of the Daily News with the Headquarters of the Crown
Prince of Saxony sends the following by special despatch :
—At three o'clock this morning came Major Kransa, from
Versailles, with the tidings of the capitulation and the
terms. In the early morning Major von Welcke rode
into St. Denis to arrange with the commandant
the surrender of the surrounding forts. At 10 a.m.
the Crown Prince of Saxony and his staff set out for St.
Denis. As we passed the little church in the village the
military garrison was singing. When we got to the outpost
village of La Barre there was a halt. Welcke had
not returned ; the commandant was understood
to be sulky, and the aspect of the French
troops was threatening. While the staff watched,
a rough lunch took place in a ruined house.
The major returned, but not with tidings that all
was settled. He went back, accompanied by Lieutenant
von Tinnuever, to bring back word when all was
settled. Meanwhile the Crown Prince and his

Staff waited. A strong body of troops was
marched forward. The whole of the Kaiser Franz
Regiment of the 26th, and four field batteries of

the 4th Army Corps, pushed and halted at a spot mid-
way beteen St. Denis and Enghien. Before this a staff
of engineer officers had gone to the fort, accompanied by a
detachment, to draw the charges from the mines, and two
companies of siege artillery were sent on to take over the
guns and magazines. Soon after two o'clock, although von
Welcke did not return, the Prince started. Welcke
met him at the half-way house, and reported a
conversation with the representative officer of the
Etat Major, who had explained that the troops had not
all evacuated St. Denis, and that the population, most of
which was armed, looked somewhat threatening. He
therefore counselled a strong body of occupation. Welcke
and Tinnuever had themselves been unmolested ; but
testified to much disorder, which, however, was
gradually dying out, as the inevitable came to be accepted.
We rode on, with La Briche close on the right
wonderfully little damaged. Its stonework is pitted all
over, and the earthwork above is cavernous, but the em-
brasures had been made good. I only saw two guns, but
then we did not enter the fort. Bending to the east we
crossed the railway, and with another bend came to the
northern entrance to Du Nord. This fort has been
served worse than La Briche. Its glacis is one series
of shell pits. That is nothing but evidence that many
shells fell short. But great pieces of the earthwork are
torn away, although the stone shews a good front. Here,
too, the embrasures have been put right, but there is a
paucity of guns. A terrible fire has converged on the
gate ; one drawbridge is demolished, the other could not
be raised. Just inside the works which masked the fort
there was a halt amidst a mass of German officers
and soldiers. This was to permit the delegate
from the Etat Major to make some explanations. He
stated that all the troops had evacuated St. Denis and
gone into Paris; that the National Guards and the
Sedentary Mobiles, who remained, had been dis-
armed ; and that the population had come to its senses.
The infantry being reported close up, the band of the 26th
struckup the " Paris March," and before it the staff, headed
by the Crown Prince, marched up the principal street, which
was much cumbered with barricades, and embarrassed by
undrawn mines, among gravel heaps in the road. The
houses are shattered as far as the Place d'Armes. The
whole town is a ruin. Civilians swarmed on the side
men, women, and children ; none looking very
like starvation. It seemed to me that all the
males over 14 were in such uniform as a pair of red trouser
stripes represent. There was a strange un-French
silence, lowering brows, and many a sacre muttered
between the teeth. About half way up the
street General Scloktheiin ordered to the front
a peleton of the body-guard of the Cuiras-
siers. As these splendid horsemen clattered
forward at a furious gallop, the women and
children ran shrieking into the battered houses, " The
Uhlans !” "The Uhlans !" In the square before th
great barrack the Prince halted, wheeled on one side, and
the 14th Brigade of the 4th Army Corps, the
Brigade that is to garrison St. Denis, marched
past him, their bands playing the " Paris March "
and " Ich bin ein Prusse." Crowds of the
French witnessed the sight, and 1 could hear them gloomily
owning to one another their admiration of the physique
and soldierly bearing of the German troops. The interim
Governor of St. Denis is Brigadier-General Zychlinski.
The provision sellers are already crowding into the place.
The German forepost line is established all round 500
yards nearer Paris than the forts, and nobody
is allowed to pass without a special permission for pro-
visioning purposes. Fort de L'Est is occupied, and its
commandant reports that there fell in it during the bom-
bardment in one day 1,200 shells. Prince George reports
the suetpssful occupation of the eastern forts. Prince
Louis of Hesse telegraphs that he is in Mont Valerien.
Disturbances are apprehended in Paris to-night. S
Denis is wholly anti-Republican.

The Rev Canon Melvill is suffering from ill-
health, and will not, therefore, be able to take the duties
of canon in residence at St. Paul's for the month of
February.

From Madrid it is announced that no change will
be made at present in the Spanish Ambassadors. They
will receive fresh credentials. Marshal Prim's widow is
dangerously ill.
The arrival, in the Channel, of her Majesty's ship
Reindeer, 7, 200-horse power, Commander E. Nares, from
the Pacific, after an absence from England of upwards of
four years, is announced.

CURIOUS INTELLECTUAL PIIENOMENA.---It was
said of Beau Nash that, if you stripped has naked and
tossed him over London Bridge, you would meet him
next day in the Mall in full-blown glory, with his laced
waistcoat and his illustrious wig. So there are in the
mental world some things more brilliant than substantial
that yet are irrepressible, and revive after they have
appeared to be long dead and buried. Such are Celtic
Druids, Welsh Bards, the Ogham Alphabet, the Great
Pyramid, the innocence of Mary Queen of Scots, and
the authenticity of Ossian's poems. Had the late Mr.
Buckle lived, it must have come within the sphere of his
inquiries to find the cycles at which such phenomena
may be expected to recur, and, by his death ere he
had reached this point, a chapter is lost out of the
psychological region of Positivism.—Saturday Review.

THE RUSSIAN ARMY.—The Russian invalid pub-
lishes an article on the progress made by the Russian army
in the year 1870. The effective force was, it says, increased
in that year from 726,000 to 744,000, and special attention
was paid to the military education of the troops. The
whole of the peace establishment of the army is now armed
with breechloaders, of which a sufficient number are being
got ready for the additional troops which would be required
in time of war. The artillery now possesses a complete
stock of breechloading 9-pounders, besides a number
of batteries of mitrailleurs. The latter have also been
furnished to the Guards corps and to the troops in the
frontier districts; the troops in the other districts will be
provided with mitrailleurs in the course of the present
year. Some of these are being made hi England. Captain
Ordinetz, of the Artillery, has been sent to America to
bring over 20,000 revolvers, which had been ordered there
for the Russian army. By the lICW military organisation,
which has been approved by the Emperor, a yearly levy
of 25 per cent., taken from men 21 years of age, is to be
made by lot for the army and navy. The period
of service is fixed at seven years, but in time of peace the
recruits are only to serve so long as may be required to
keep up the prescribed peace establishment. Volunteers
are permitted to enter the army at 17. The period of com-
pulsory service is not so long as that of the recruits, and '
they may, after passing an examination, obtain commis-
sions in the army of the reserve. Substitutes and money
exemptions are abolished. The "local " troops, which
have hitherto been employed on service at home only, are
to be reorganized and to serve as corps of instruction for
the recruits, who are to form the reserves of the infantry
and artillery.