The Sun.
London, England, 1847-04-02 00:00:00

GENERAL COUNT DROUOT.
(From the Times.)
There is something very striking in the intelligence.
which we every now and then receive of the death of
some famous person whose life and deeds have already
assumed a character as purely historical as those of John
Talbot or Ambrose Spinola. It was but the other day
that one of the worst names of the National Convention
was brought again before the public, and ee were in-
formed that one of the chief and most villainous actors
in those bloody days—a man who had seen the butche-
ries of the Abbaye and sat on the revolutionary tribu-
nal, a companion of Robespierre, and a compatriot of
Santerre—had just expired in poverty and obscurity at
Brussels. Occasionally we hear of the recent decease of
a duke or general whose title appears to us as obsolete
as that of the King of Westphalia, but who, after cast-
ing his imperial skin, had been quietly vegetating in
unobtrusive retirement. It is true, as far as chronology
is concerned, there is nothing strange in all this. The
events, in reality, are but those of the other day. But
our long peace, our altered politics, and our improved
civilization, have all tended to throw back the last great
war to an unreal distance, and to disable us from con-
necting its characters with those of the existing genera-
tion. Its tale has been written, too, so often and so well,
and read so eagerly and so thoughtfully, that all its
events seem emphatically the events of history, already
out of the reach of tradition, and to be sought for only in
books and records. When Sir Walter Scott first began
to write, "sixty years since" did not imply so strange
a period as "forty years since" implies now. There are
thousands of men in England, who can recollect when
the French revolution was not yet prophesied. Its
monuments are but monuments of yesterday. The man
who wrote the " Marseillaise"—both words and music—
was alive in a garret a few years ago, and may perhaps
be so still. Yet for all this, the actual result is as we have
said. The younger amongst us can scarcely help fancy-
ing that the generation of the war is clean gone, and
long ago ; for the truth is that many of its mighty men
die a civil death at its conclusion, and retired like doubt-
ful characters of old times to the cloister, into a privacy
which left their former lives to history, and withdrew
their remaining days from all notice of a world, which
was no longer a world for them. On Tuesday last we
recorded the death of one of these singular characters,
whose unequivocal reputation deserves a testimony
which could hardly be accorded to the renown of
many of his contemporaries. Count Drouot has just
expired at Nancy, and it is a carious illustration of
our remarks that this hero of history was only in
his 73d year. In one sense it may be said that he
was the Emperor's right hand, for Napoleon won his
battles by his guard and his artillery, and Drouot was the
general of the artillery of the guard. It is not a little
remarkable that Napoleon, who had such abundant
reason to know the value of a preponderating artillery,
delayed so long to strengthen his favourite corps with
this peculiar arm, but it is a fact that dragoons, chas-
seurs, lancers, gendarmes, fusiliers, and almost every
other denomination of force were naturalised in the
ranks of the Imperial Guard before any guns beyond
a few light pieces were attached to it. The circum-
stances may not be uninteresting to these who read
or remember our own periodical debates on this point.
In the first battles of the revolution the French had no
horse-artillery, but the advantages derived by the Prus-
sians from this peculiar corps were so manifest, that in
1792, the Legislative Assembly decreed the organisa-
lion of a similar body. The corps at once sprang into
that extraordinary favour which in all countries it seems
equally to have maintained, and its popularity was
increased in the present case by its strange achieve-
ment, three years after its establishment, of the capture
of the Dutch fleet, as it lay ice-bound off its own shores.
Accordingly, when Napoleon, in 1806, began to organise
his famous Gard^ Imperiale out of the old Garde Con-
sult-tire, he found already attached to it a company of
this force, though its strength scarcely reached 100 men;
and this he contented himself with raising to three squa-
drons of 200 each. Three years afterwards, however,
he added eight companies of foot artillery under Colonel-
Major Drouot, and so rapidly did his perceptions concerning the importance of this arm of his
force, that the artillery of the guard alone, by successive
augmentations, had actually reached, in 1813, to no
less than 198 guns. This was the terrific weapon so
tremendously wielded by Drouot, of which the flashes
portended the fate of empires and the fall of king-
doms far more truly than ever did the fiery tail of
a comet. It can hardly be said that Drouot
was to Napoleon what Dickson was to Welling-
ton, for the English officer was possessed per-
haps of more original and extended military talents.
But in abilities in his own particular sphere,
in bravery and steadiness, aud, above all,
in single-minded honesty, stanch fidelity, and
unimpeachable virtue, the Count had no superior,
and but very few equals, in all that band of heroes who
raised the Emperor to hXthrtme of glov. In his per
sonal habits he was mo shigular. lie—a Frenchman
and a soldier, in the mi st of the imperial staff, and
under the reign of Napoleon—was actually la religious
character, and did not scruple to avow the fact. Ile
even carried about with I ins a small Bible—the only
one, probably that was ever to be found in the baggage
of the Grand Army, except that placed by Napoleon in
the mythological class of his travelling library, and this
it was one of his chief delights to read. When ordered
to the front, it was usually at the most critical point of
the field, and at the most hazardous moment of the day;
and on these occasions he is said to have always dressed
himself in a certain old coat, dismounted, and advanced
(in foot in the midst of his guns, and it did happen that,
throughout all his perils, he never received a wound.
Few readers will require to be reminded how often he
and his cannoneers decided the fate of a well fought field.
Those 50 or 60 guns, described by eye-witnesses to
seeming to be actually discharged as they galloped along,
swept away the last relics of Russian obstinacy or Aus-
trian chivalry, and terminated the carnage of the day.
In the manipulatian and direction of his pieces Drouot
was unrivalled. Once, at the passage of the Elbe, in
1813, the Emperor, observing the enemy on the opposite
bank, callej out hastily for " a hundred pieces of can-
non !" The General was at his side in a moment with
the guns in position, but so impatient was the Emperor
for success, that on the effect of the fire not being so
immediate as he expected, he jumped off his horse, took
hold of Drouot's ears and shook him soundly. The Ge-
neral bore the operation with great patience, and then
defied the Emperor to place the guns better—a challenge
which Napoleon waived with the laugh of a pacified
child. When reverses at length came, and the crea-
tures of the Emperor's bounty fell off from him on every
side, Drouot still stood by his master and abandoned
him not. Etsi ornnes, ego non. With our Macdonald—
that worthy descendant of the man .-,f Nfrsidt!rt—with
Bertrand and P.;., nioi uambronne and Caulincourt—
he awaited that last levee of Fountainbleau, and followed
his sovereign to Elba with as much devotion as he had
followed him to Dresden. We might long search that
muster-roll of glittering names comprised in the litre d'or
of the Empire before we found any so entirely worthy
the pride of a countryman and the respect of an enemy
as that of General Count DROUOT.

FEVER IN THE WORKHOUSES OF MATO.—In Dal-
linrobe the workhouse is in the most awfully deplorable
state, pestilence having attacked paupers, officers, and
all. In fact, this building is one horrible charnel-house,
the unfortunate paupers being nearly all the victims of a
fearful fever—the dying and the dead, we might say,
huddled together. The master has become the victim
of this dread disease ; the clerk has been added to the
victims ; the matron, too, is dead ; and the respected,
and esteemed physician has fallen before the ravages of
pestilence, in his constant attendance on the diseased
is
inmates ; the Roman Catholic Chaplain also danger-
ously ill of the same epidemic. Wo have heard, also.
of the inmates of the Westport workhouse, and several
of the officers, being attacked by fever, but, fortunately,
without any fatal results. Ballina and Swinford, too,
have not escaped the dreadful contagion.—Mayo Con-
stitution.
The Lord Mayor has appointed Monday, the 12th
instant, for the further discussion of Mr. Bennoch's mo-
tion, respecting national education, in the Court of Corn•
mon Council. The subject, which was partly discussed
at the last Court, and of which, when it shall have been
finally disp',sed of, we shall give a report, uu,b,.ces
lu
effect the Ministerial measure. It is opposed principally
upon the ground of the alleged injury it is calculated to
inflict upon the independent spirit of the people.
DETECTION OF FEIGNED DISEASES BY ETHER
VAPOUR.—M. Baudens has employed ether vapour in
two cases in which the individuals were suspected of
feigning disease for the purpose of avoiding the con-
scription. In the first there was apparent deformity of
the spine and projection of the back. The young re-
cruit, who was suspected to be an impostor, had been
subjected to various experiments, but without success.
lie was finally made to inhale ether vapour ; in a few
minutes there was complete relaxation of the limbs, and
the supposed deformity entirely disappeared. Thus con-
victed, the man no longer denied that he had feigned the
deformity for the purpose of avoiding service. In the
second case the person was believed to feign anchylosis
of the hip joint. When the ether had been inhaled,the
same relaxation of the muscular system was produced ;
but, on examination, the anchylosis remained as strongly
marked as before the experiment ; thus proving that the
disease was real.

SALMON FISIIINGS.—The salmon fishings on the
Conon may, of late, be considered the most productive
in the north. Since the commencement of the season,
te average number taken is from ten to fourteen per
Y• On Saturday last as many as twenty-one beauti-
ful fish were caught at the cruives, and on Tuesday the
number was thirty-six. Ten were taken a few days ago
at the Newhall stake-net. We learn that the Ness
Beauty, and Chanonry Point fishings are far behind.—
Ross-shire Advertiser.
PALM° UTII :HARBoun.—The Trinity Board has
Just laid in Falmouth harbour a buoy on a flat rock,
under water, called the Miss Lugos, about thirty-five
yards from St. Mawes Castle Point, and in a line with
the westermost part of St. Mawes town from the Black
Rock Beacon. The spot buoyed has been attended
with greater danger to boats than to vessels of any larger
size, although, in the charts, two fathoms are given as
the quantity of water thereon.— West Briton.
ll.EuaiNGs.--A number of herrings of a very
superior quality, were taken at Shieldaig last week,
and appearances indicate that there arc more on the
coast.

ON THE MEANS OF ESCAPING
THE RAVAGES OF THE POTATO DISEASE.
(Translated from the German.)
(From the Worcestershire Chronicle.)
This method was discovered by M. Zander, of Boit-
zenberg, and he has tried it for six years with the
greatest success. The following extracts are made from
his published letter:—
" For many years a kind of dry rot and pock-mark
has been observed amongst potatoes, in consequence of
which many of them were quite unfit for food; this sug-
gested to me the idea of obtaining them from seed, and
Pletaditreeeesteida
ono
eyffeoarr,tsiatowhthieeh plrohacuvreinsgueoefeefded. Theully-groam
raising of potatoes from seed is nothing new—the
attempt has often been made, but it required three, four,
Or five years before they came to perfection.
" I first raised potatoes from seed six years ago. I
sowed,au eighth of an ounce, and obtained nearly seven
sacks of fully grown perfectly sound potatoes, although
in the same year almost all the potatoes in my neigh-
bourhood were affected by pock-mark and dry-rot.
" I have regularly raised potatoes from seed ever
since, and they have remained soiled during the whole
time, and last year (1845), when the disease had spread
over all Europe, and attained the greatest virulence in
this neighbourhood, those potatoes which I had previ-
ously raised from seed, as well as those of the preced-
ing year, continued perfectly exempt from disease. I
have also given potatoes raised from seed to my friends
and acquaintances, and these have also remained per-
and sent two officers to investigate on the spot the facts
I had communicated to the Government respecting my
per-
fectly re
ef fromthe the
Interior
ofm disease, i s
proceedings
The
Ministerly
fe
potatoes. These officers were present when I eaused
some potatoes to be dug out, which I had raised from
seed the year before, and amongst them was a plant
which produced 280 potatoes ; many stems produced
from 100 to 130 ; the smallest produce from one plant
was half a metze,* and the majority of the plants pro-
duced from one to one and a half metze. Potatoes
raised from seed ore very mealy, and hare a peculiarly
pleasant and fine flavour ; they produce a richer crop
in the second year, and it increases in the third ; there
is then no further increase, and they have attained their
greatest perfection.
" From an ounce of seed you may raise upwards of
fifty sacks of potatoes; the smallest crop I ever had
from half an ounce was twenty-four sacks. You will
find the following description of the manner of raising
potatoes from seed more complete than that which the
Government has published, for in that everything is
given too superficially.
" My views of the potato disease, which has spread
so universally. for some years, are as follow:—With all
plants, propagation by seed is most in accordance with
nature. We have propagated the potato for a century
in a mode that is unnatural, and in a climate which is
cold and foreign to it. This has now caused a complete
degeneracy—in one word, our potatoes have become
weakened and degenerated by a long-continued and un-
natural mode of propagation, and they cannot, during
their growth, bear any sudden change of temperature,
drought, or moisture, and I have the firm conviction
that the potato diseases which have now prevailed for
whichpo pock-marks 1 - m
wasa r ks
formerlyand dryrot ,
unknown,a w
n the a s
caused amongst our weak and degenerate potatoes by
sudden changes of temperature. A weak and nervous
individual is very sensible of every change of weather
or temperature, and so it has been for some years with
yoeafr lastss u
3 such
ear,as
potatoes, which have been weakened by an unnatural
mode of propagation. I am in possession of the strongest
diseases m e
proofs that vie can only again raise healthy and strong
potatoes from seed. The potatoes which I have raised
from seed the last six years have been free from the
prevailing diseases, and surpass in quality all the old sorts.
" The potato seed is saved in the following manner :
The berries should be gathered in autumn before the
frost sets in, and be preserved in a dry place, where frost
cannot reach them, until the end of January or the be-
ginning of February. They are then to be broken by
the hand, and placed in a tub or other vessel, where they
must remain six or eight days to ferment a little ; then
water is to be thrown on them, and well stirred, in order
to separate the pulp and husks from the seed, which
should then be cleansed and dried, and kept in a warm
room until sown.
" As the potato is a native of a tropical climate, it is
impossible that it can form and produce perfect seed in
the open air in our cold climate. It is therefore of the
greatest importance that the berries should be perfectly
healthy ; be gathered before the frost sets in, and be
kept in a dry place where frost cannot approach them,
in order that they may ripen and
perfect the seeds. If the berries are collected and preserved as I have directed
they will be as fair and fresh at the end of January or
beginning of February as they were when gathered from
the plant, and the seed as large again as that which was
taken at once from the berries at autumn ; the latter is
very light and imperfect, and only a very small portion
of it is capable of growing ; imperfect seed only pro-
duces weak plants, and a weak plant bears but little
fruit, and that is imperfect.
"Formerly the great mistake was made of sowing un-
ripe and imperfect potato seed ; as a consequence it
required three or four years before a tolerably large po-
tato was obtained. This was the cause which deterred
many persons from cultivating potatoes from seed, but
this difficulty I have now, thank God, overcome.
"At the end of March or beginning of April the po-
tato seed should he sown in a hot-bed, the grains being
sown a quarter of an inch asunder. If there are no
sashes to put over tle. bed, it should be covered at night
and in cold weather by mats or boards, as the young
plants are very sensitive to fros`. It is very important
that the seed should be sown on a hot bed made of horse
dung, as it sprouts with difficulty, and requires artificial
heat to make it early productive in our climate. If the
seed is sown in a cold bed it remains until the middle of
May before it comes up, and the crop will be retarded and
diminished ; but if it is sown as I have pointed out,
there all be fine large plants by the middle of May,
which may be planted out in the field. Until the plants
are put out, the soil in which they were sown must bo
kept moderately moist, and when they are put out they
must be freely watered if the weather be dry.
"If the potato plants have advanced so far by the
middle or end of May as to have attained the height of
four inches, they may be planted out in a loose rich soil
at about the same distance from one another as potatoes
are usually planted, and this is best done on a cloudy
day, or immediately after rain. It is of importance that
they should be put down into the earth two inches
lower than they stood in the seed bed; this will cause
them to form fresh roots which produce the most nume-
rous and best tubers.
"If the plants have not produced tubers, they may be
left until they have attained a height of five or six inches,
and may be planted three inches deeper in the ground
than they stood in the seed bed; they will thus produce
more roots; but care must be taken that the young
plants do not produce tubers w hile they remain in the
seed bed, and they should be often examined lest they
shield do so, as they will be very much weakened if al-
lowed to fo-m tubers before they are put out.
"The earthing up of the potatoes raised from seed
should be done early, and not too much; for if the plants
are put out in weather which is not very unfavourable,
they soon begin to shoot up, and the entire soil is pene-
trated by very small fine fibres. iehlee would be injured
isy a nigh or late earthing up, the production of tubers
be delayed for a fortnight or three weeks, and the pro-
duce diminished. I must remark that the potato plants
thrive best in a rich sandy soil which has been deeply
eug."

The foregoing extracts contain two most important
statements, and, if they should be confirmed by general
experience, there is no estimating their importance. One
is, that it is possible to raise an abundance of fully-grown
potatoes from seed in one season ; and the °dip., that
such potatoes will resist the generally prevailing disease
for six years at least. I had an opportunity of testing
the first proposition last summer, and can testify to its
literal accuracy. I am promised a detailed account of
the result of the experiment, the institution of which I
witnessed, but it will require many and varied trials be-
fore the second proposition can be considered as esta-
blished ; in the meantime it seems highly probable that
M. Zander's statement is correct, and one would natu-
rally expect that potatoes raised from seed, as he directs,
would be more hardy and healthy than those raised in
any other way.
1 had the pleasure of spending last June at the baths
of Rippoldzau, in the Black Forest, and my first informa-
tion was derived from M. Goringer, the owner of the
baths, and of much surrounding property. He heard of
the plan only on the preceding month, and lust no time
in procuring and sowing some seed in a hot-bed ;it was
sown on the 9th of May ; on the 9th of June the frame
was removed in order to harden the plants, and on the
19th of June some fifty or sixty, of about four inches
high, were planted out in my presence. I left on the
4th of July, and the plants were growing vigorously and
promising wpll th© single leaves of many were then
larger than the plants themselves were fourteen days
before, when they were planted out. M. Goringer has
promised to send me a detailed and accurate report of
the result, and also some other interesting experiments
on the cultivation of potatoes, which he has instituted.
On the 12th of August I was at Brukenau, in Bavaria,
h ut
os e
a p
letter p
e showed o
hew ed
had
me
in
n v
a soil
in a and having heard that the gardener of Baron von
seen
ese
ho
was
pointedtl. abv rowseedr and
dryo of fi
newspaper.
then t
out;
by
nde
Thungen (who resided at Zeitlofs, about five miles off)
had raised potatoes from seed this year, I went to see
them. The gardener
promising potatoes, which he informed me he had raised
t
pTl‘from
Zt
ssafenowedudeer rr potato
a put sown
o tin May;
in s
in
March,be
the manner
e
hard, as the season had been very hot and very little
bry a.uaitnt
elrhenaded;
nef arol
rls eahnwa
dffioanr
pooaorktnaii
enougnl
at
tlrioscpa; s theycare
theyb ee hadnwt
ea
rkene
taken
freshvoe
fr
them,bae
ne n
d
nerytwl
full of sap,:while many in the neighbourhood were droop-
ing and withering.
The potato clop was late in that part of the country,
and it was only within the last preceding three weeks
that we had now potatoes at the table d'hOte at Kis-
sengen.
At my request the gardener examined one or two
stools, and broke off a few of the potatoes under them,
which he gave me. The ground was full of small tubers,
which a few days' rain would swell into an extraordi-
nary crop; each plant seemed to rest on a little heap of
potatoes. The specimens he gave MO were larger and
finer than any we had hitherto had at the table
d'h&te; they were clean-skinned and hard, though of
course not fully grown or ripe. I was quite convinced
that M. Zander's statement as to the crop was correct.
I measured a few of the specimens ; one was 54 in. and
5i- in. in circumference; three others measured 5 in. by
4:7 in. It is to be recollected that this was on the 12th
of August, and that these were by no means specimens
of what the crop would be when come to maturity.
I should mention that M. Giiringer published the fore-
going letter as a pamphlet for distribution at his own ex-
pense and that I hare omitted some passages which(
did not think would be of importance in this country
WILLIAM HOGAN.
* The metze LQlcis 3ilbs. of potatoes.