The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-30 00:00:00

the Marley ridges near us, and were shooting just as if
they were trying to win a match for beauty and pre-
cision of fire. These guns at a long range took the
heads of the right-hand French columns as they deployed,
very much as a farmer mows down his flock of sparrows
as they rise from his field, and it is to me now quite
beyond comprehension how and why the French
did not at any risk send down batteries to engage
these pieces, which must have been enfiladed and
forced to slew' round. But they did not. Val4rien
tried in vain to reach them ; so did the battery below.
The Prussian guns were never moved or touched, and I
hear the whole artillery loss is two men. How miserable
these French muzzleloaders must be ! On our immediate
right front was the Bridge of Le Pecq, and just as I had
made some such remark, a gun was fired from Val4rien,
and as the noise of the action—so clearly visible that I
could make out every man, and even perceived my noble
officer on the white horse, ever and ever in the front—was
not very great, the buzz of the great shell became audible,
rising to a harsh " wheesh" as it flew, and plumped
down in the water by the bridge. At 11.45 the column
in front of La Fouilleuse seemed to be gaining ground—
its tail wagged and its body crept on, and the head went
deeper into the wood. Then, on the flank of it, a battery
of mitrailleuses opened from an epaulement. At 12 the
column on the right of it seemed also to fare better, but
that to the right again and nearer us was horribly tor-
mented by the artillery. From noon till one o'clock the
action raged in the woods so fiercely that the sky was
clouded over, but the French made no great way, though
their reserves got into motion towards the front,
and the artillery fire was increased by that four
batteries, which gallopped up to a ridge of La
Fouilleuse in a very gallant manner, and seemed
to court the cross fire of the Prussians. At two o'clock
the constant pounding of the German guns on the right
hand column began to tell. I could see the men breaking
as the shells burst among them—black specks flying
through the smoke ! Ten minutes after the French
advanced three batteries to sweep the woods in front, and
enable this column to hold its own, but they were evi-
dently shaken. Val4rien opened from its cavaliers, and
hurled large shell far into the wood over Malmaison.
Still, the current flowed the wrong way—not very
fast, but perceptibly. At this moment a " new
object of attraction " presented itself in quite a dif-
ferent part of the field. My companion called out,
" I hear the French trumpets." And, sure enough, on
the flat plain, towards Les Carrieres, at the other side of,
the Seine, there was a great body of horse moving rapidly,
whose trumpets had attracted his attention. But they
were Prussians. They were covering a couple of batteries
which went at a rattling pace over the ground, halted, un-
limbered, and opened fire on a sort of brickfield, with
factory chimneys behind, from which spurted out the
smoke of answering French batteries. The first shots Of
these batteries were so well directed that the cavalry was
a little disconcerted, and loose horses galloping about
told of empty saddles ; but in ten minutes the Prus-
sian guns had given the French artillery enough to
do; and here there was a long artillery duel, at which I
looked from time without finding any change to rivet
attention. At three o'clock there was a lull in the
action on the right and the left, and soon afterwards a
dense fog—smoke, powder, and fog combined --rolled
over Val4rien from Paris and swept down on the battle-
field obscuring it completely for a quarter of
an hour or more. But the flashes of the guns
lighted it up, and the rattle of small arms was
rather the louder. At 3.35 the French seemed -to make
great efforts to pierce the woods, and the musketry Was
most violent till 4 o'clock. Long trains of ambulances
were seen moving towards Paris. The Courbevoie
road was covered with carriages. The top of the Arch of
Triumph was black with people. Who knows how many
of my friends were there? Valerien's arms waved wildly.
At 4.10 the French columns seemed to halt, and in many
places the ground was whitened by patches, which I sup-
pose were made by the talks d'abri. Outside this, for a
front of three and a half to four miles, there was a con-
tinuous blaze of musketry, the mitrailleuses began to
twinkle brightly as it grew dark, and at 4.35 the artillery
of the 4th Corps, on my left, began to retire after a gallant
fight, as it was evident that there the French would not
advance.

HOW NAPOLEON WENT TO WAR.
Azamut Batuk, in the Pall Mall Gazette, gives a new
version of the opening of the great Franco-Prussian war
from that generally received. The Emperor Napoleon,
he says, was one of the worst rulers that ever existed ;
but as regards the war, he is much more innocent of it
than the Imperial courtiers and the population of Paris.
He entered the war with the most gloomy prognostica-
tions. He was confident he would never see Paris again,
and was quite prepared for disaster. This is evident from
the arrangements he made. He was urged into the
war by the Court, who frightened him with the
bugbear of the Republicans who had proved such
dangerous opponents at the time of the Plebiscite, and by
the people of Paris who could only be pacified by the cry
of "a Berlin 1" Those who saw Napoleon every day say
that in the month of July he caressed his son more than
he had done in the child's whole life before, and it is be-
lieved he took him with him to the array of the Rhine
from the dread of being separated from him in any great
disaster. When the Tuileries was invaded after the pro-
clamation of the Republic, the jewellery belonging to the
Empress, the gold and silver plate presented by the
Sultan, the Czar, and the Viceroy of Egypt were all
gone—gone, too, were the splendid cradle of the Prince
Imperial, presented by the town of Lyons, and the
artistic treasures accumulated by Napoleon at St. Cloud
and Compiegne. From the day when war was declared,
gigantic boxes, bearing the personal property of the
Imperial family, crowded the various railway stations,
and Azamut Batuk only wonders hcw none of this has
been noticed. The Emperor and Empress had been en-
lightened as to the true state of the case by two ladies, if
by no one else. The Countess de Pourtales, a French
lady by birth, but connected with Germany by
marriage, spoke strongly at the Tuileries. The
Countess de la Pogerie, on the contrary, is a German
by birth, and in constant communication with Germany,
and she told the Emperor and the Empress plainly that in
the event of a war with Prussia France must not reckon
on fighting that Power alone, for there would not be any
German State that was not ready to march with her. The
Empress, however, was not impressed by this, but the
Emperor was not alone in his anticipations of evil.
When Marshal MacMahon arrived at Marseilles from
Africa he told his wife that France was lost and his
future ruined. When he reached Paris he told
the Emperor the same, and the result of the
conversation was that Napoleon's departure was
postponed for twelve days, it was given out through ill-
ness. At the farewell family dinner at St. Cloud the
Empress arranged that the " Marseillaise" should be
played as an agreeable surprise for the Emperor, but
seeing him turn pale she stopped the music and burst into
tears, for the first time seeming to share his forebodings.
She no longer insisted on his starting in parade through
Paris, and drove with him quietly to the railway station
at St. Cloud. Nothing of this attracted attention at the
time, nor wasit suspected when the Emperor made his bril-
liant entry into Metz.ln France,however,if anyone attempts
to say the truth in such matters he is certain to get the
worst of it. All the time, says Azamat Batuk, that he
was at the seat of war as correspcindent of the Pall Mall
Gazette, he found it difficult to tell the truth. In the
middle of October, when in the North, he could see the
whole population were unwilling to fight, and that all the
wealthy men were either Imperialists or Orleanists ; also,
that some of the Franc-tireur leaders were subsidized by
Imperialists at Brussels, and prepared to act on the first
notice. The affair came to nothing, but to mention it at
`,he proper time would have caused great unpleasantness.

The bread in Paris had latterly become almost uneat-
able. If you put it in water straw and bits of hay floated
about.
During the cannonade of the 21st a French shell blew
up the Prussian powder magazine at Moulin-de-Pierre.
The explosion was very violent, and appeared, say letters
from Paris, to create a panic in the enemy's camp.
Both Vinoy and Ducrot declined to attend the Council
of 'War which sat before the late sortie. They were
generals of divisions, they said, and they would obey
orders, bnt they would accept no further responsibilities.
Ducrot, who was the fidus Achates of Tror;hu, is no longer
in his good graces.
A letter from Darmstadt, of the 22nd inst., says that
an officer of the Garde Mobile jumped from one of the
waggons on the Darmstadt and Aschaffenburg Railway,
and was running away when he was shot dead by the
escort of the convoy of prisoners.
The Echo du Nord states that several specimens of the
shoes which had been issued to the soldiers have been
brought to the • office of that journal. The soles are of
paper. This, it is said, explains how it happened that
the greater part of the men were barefooted after a march
of twenty-four hours through mud and snow.
In his recent interview with the civil and military
authorities at Lille, M. Gambetta has shewn himself most
anxious that the war should continue, and expressed great
confidence in its ultimate success. " I only ask one thing
from you," he added ; " hold out a month longer, and I
promise to secure you an honourable peace." These were
the exact words of the Minister,
A dispatch from Berne, of the 24th instant, says that
the French sentinels near the frontier do not permit any