The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-26 00:00:00

THE SITUATION IN FRANCE.

From Bordeaux the special correspondent of the
Standard writes :—The situation becomes daily worse.
Chanzy, pursued and beaten by Prince Frederick Charles,
Jails back from position to position. Bourbaki, after
three days' desperate fighting, has failed to carry the
Prussian positions before Belfort, and has fallen back.
Reinforcements from all sides flow in to Man-
teuffel, and it is probable that our next dis-
patch will tell of the Prussians having taken the
offensive, and of Bourbaki being obliged to retreat
towards Besancon. Bourbaki's only hope of success lay
in complete and rapid victory at the commencement of his
campaign. That victory he has failed to acquire, and his
failure to drive back the Germans and to raise the siege of
Belfort is equivalent to a decisive defeat. The only thing
to hope for now, with reference to his army, is that it
may disengage itself from the meshes of the net
into which it has fallen. All communication with the
North has ceased ; I am, therefore, unable to give you
any information whatever concerning the movements of
the troops at Cherbourg, which I sincerely hope' are by
this time on their way towards Laval, the town from
which Chanzy's last despatch was dated. My
hopes, however, are not high, for I hear of no movements
of troops from here, none from the camp of St. Medard,
none from Nancy. Gambetta is, however, now really
with Chanzy, the general having telegraphed to beg him
to join him at once, and I do trust that Chanzy will suc-
ceed in impressing upon him that, if the campaign is to
be saved at all, it must be done by what has been so long
vainly urged—namely, by an instant concentra-
tion of all the available troops of France.
The Liberte this morning strikes the right key
when it insists that at least 150,000 men should
be instantly forwarded to Chanzy, and a like number tc
Bourbaki. Here at Bordeaux one or two of the papers
begin dimly to see that the military situation is not
perfectly satisfactory, but to read the vast majority of
articles any one would suppose that nothing could
be better than the general state of affairs, and I
altogether lose patience at the impudent assertion
and the absurd misstatemonts which comprise the bulk of
the leaders. Nothing short of the capitulation at once of
Paris, of Chanzy, and of Bourbaki would suffice to waken
these people from their pleasant dream. As for the jour-
nalists, the supporters of the Government, of course,
have it in their interest to make things as pleasant as
possible, while the Opposition papers are afraid to
speak out, for if they were to write anything like the
truth upon the subject they would expose themselves
to the accusation of endeavouring to clamp the spirits
of the defence by false and injurious appreciation
of the situation. When the scales really fall from
the eyes of the French people there will be a terrible
awakening.

A. short time ago Lord Derby gave 8,000 yards of
laud on which to erect the new Stanley Hospital. He
has now given an additional 1,200 yards for a recreation
ground for convalescent patients. It is stated that the
total value of the land thus given is something over
£20,000.

The Church herald states that two noblemen,
one of the highest rank, the other well known in political
society, but neither holding official positions, having had
it intimated to them that they would receive the Queen's
commands to be present at the Lenten marriage of the
Princess Louise, have asked her Majesty's gracious per-
mission to be excused for attending the same, now that it
is likely to be celebrated in Lent.

At the Clerkenwell Police-court, Mr. William
Sterling, a gas-fitter, pleaded guilty to a charge of discon-
necting a gas-meter without giving twenty-four hours'
notice in writing to the company of his intention to do so.

His defence was that his customer's works were stopped,
owing to a wet meter having been frozen, and he discon-
nected the meter in order to substitute a dry one for it.
Mr. Cooke inflicted a mitigated penalty of £4 and costs.
Writing on the 19th, the American correspondent
of the Times says that General Schenck, to whom the
publication of the Motley and Fish correspondence gives
a warning, finds much difficulty in avoiding dinner invita-

tions, and when he cannot well avoid them he has equal
trouble in stilling speech-making. That he shall make no
after-dinner speeches in England seems to be President
Grant's ultimatum, and consequently England's gastro-
nomic plan of disarming American Ministers is to fail.
TRAPEZE ACCIDENT.—An alarming accident took
place at the Raglan Music Hall, London, the other night.
Two young men were going through their evolutions on
the high trapeze, when one of them lost his hold and fell
from a height of thirty feet into the orchestra. The
utmost consternation prevailed in the . hall, it being
generally supposed that the unfortunate acrobat must
have been killed by the fall. He was for a time quite
insensible, but by the use of stimulants he was at length
sufficiently recovered to reappear for a moment on the
stage.

BREAKFAST.— EPPS'S COCOA.—GRATEFUL AND COM-
PORTING.—The very agreeable character of this preparation has
rendered it a general favourite. The Civil Service Gazette re-
marks :—" By a thorough knowledge of the natural laws which
govern the operations of digestion and nutrition, and by a
careful application of the fine properties of well-selected cocoa,
Mr. Epps has provided our breakfast tables with a delicately
flavoured beverage which may save us many heavy doctors'
bills." Each packet is labelled—JAMES EPPS & Co., liomceo-
pathic Chemists, London. Also, makers of Epps's Cacaoine, a
very thin evening beverage.—Ativt. -

M. GAMBETTA'S RECEPTION AT LILLE.
In a communication from Lille,the special correspondent
of the Daily News thus writes on January 24 :—lt would
be idle to suppose that M. Gambetta has met with any
reception in the North deserving the title of " enthusias-
tic." Beyond the first excitement in the streets on his
unexpected arrival at the statiou, some indispensable
calls from leading men in the town, and the
Democratic Assembly at, the Prefecture on Sun-
day morning, there has been literally nothing to
mark the event from that of the visit of any ordinary offi-
cial. The failure of the arrival of Mr. Jules Favre
doubtle,,•3y has somewhat damped the prestige of the
visit ; but there are other reasons why the. mass
of the town have shewn themselves so unsym-
pathetic. The Conservative party is strong
among the rich oil refiners and seed crushers ;
the prospect of the near approach of war is distasteful
to the owners of large commercial properties out-
side the walls arid, more than all, M. Gambetta,
as the representative of Republicanism, has for some
time been unpopular. Nothing like an ovation has been
attempted. Even the front of the gates of the Prefec-
ture, to which building M. Gambetta, has confined him-
self, has been absolttely void of public gazers. And
lastly, he has vanished from the town at an hour unknown
to the public, and only escorted to the station by his old
Paris friend, the new Prefect, and two or three more of
the indispensable officials. The townspeople have
seemed to me curiously apathetic to his presence, and
when I have spoken of his movements to any of them
the reply has almost invariably been "J e na sais pas,"
with a slight shrug of the shoulders. The truth is he has
overshot the mark in his addresses ; and it has been too
strong a dose for the Lillois, who see their soldiers routed
by an enemy carrying all before them, to be told
that the said enemy is on the point of exhaustion.
Local affairs have had something to do with it also.
The new Prefect, a stranger to the town, arrived early
yesterday, and a certain jealousy exists at his being placed
where a local celebrity should be. Then there is a very sore
feeling as to the abolition of the Conseils Gtin4raux, and
added to these political motives, the domestic feelings
prevail also, and people cannot see why their sons and
brothers should be led out to be slau.fhtered almost
with certainty and for no good. The only attempt at
communication between the townspeople and the Minister
beyond the assembly on Sunday, has been a deputation
from the Chamber of Commerce to advocate a revision, if

not an abrogation entirely, of the Commercial Treaties of
the Empire. This little straw skews the atnount of force
that exists in to-day's martial spirit here. That such a
question should be thought of at such a moment
is curious, and M. Gambetta almost told them as much.
Taking all in all, I have good reason for saying M. Gam-
betta has left Lille a sadder if not a wiser man, and has
not even left behind him a valedictory address. I see in
him a wonderful change. The young and energetic man
seems bowed past middle age. There is a want of atten-
tion to his appearance, and though the eye is as vivacious
as before, the face looks graver and the features are leas
mobile.