The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-15 00:00:00

Lae cigar of peace whilst they are swiftly ral

off towards home. Better than country waggons
this ; better, ton, than the best of postchaises.
Our own ambulance is busy among the mass of
isufferers on -all sides. One large division is down
at Orleans, doing goixl work, where work is sorely
needed. Another division remains at St. Germain, ready
to help near the French capital, and of this division I met
a waggon yesterday, which had completed half its journey
round Paris, in the opposite direction to that in which I
am riding. There was a pleasant thrill in seeing the old
flag, side by side with the red cross of the society,
pass through this oil-region " depot," and in feeling
that, let Frenchmen and Germans say what they
will about our neutrality, we are doing a good deal more
for foreigners than they would be likely to do for us if
we were having thousands wounded on, our shore of the
Channel. It is no merit to be rich, but it is an approach
to merit to spend some of one's riches properly ; and poor
old Jonn Bull, who is catching many a knock fn foreign
opinion for being so very neutral, may comfort himself
that his heart is better than his head. I glory in our
heavy cumbersome waggons, and strong Woolwich har-
ness. We import anything light or fantastic, anything
new-fangled and American of aspect ? Not we, if we know
if. These waggons of the English amublance are fit to
undertake a three years' campaign.

THE BATTLES OF CHEVILLY, CERCOTTES,
AN 1) ORLEANS.
The special correspondent of the Standard, writing from
the headquarters at Versailles, December 9, gives the
following account of the battles around Orleans :
Captain Hozier has this morning arrived from
Orleans, having been, during the eventful week.
which closed with the capture of that city, at
the headquarters of Prince Frederick Charles. He
has had a fearfully hard time of it, not hav-
ing slept in a bed for nights. He joined the Prince
himself at Pithiviers, and found him just on the point of
riding out to the battle-field; which is already known as
that of Beaune-la-Rolande. With the ebbing
and flowing fortunes of that day you are al-
ready acquainted. The attack of the French
was directed against the 10th Corps, which the
Prussian Prince intended to use as his reserve, and which
the French evidently thought to be isolated,
and peculiarly open to assault. How hot was the fighting
of that day, the densely-arrayed bodies of the slain, and
mainly of the gallant assailants, remained to testify.
But their courage, besides costing them dear, failed to
thwart os alter the German plans. On the 2nd the
Grand Duke, by concentrating his forces, was enabled to
drive the assailants of the previous day back to Batay
and Artenay, the Prince concentrating, with the object
of lending aid, if needed. It was not required.
The Grand Duke commanded on the right ; on the left
the Prince himself. The Bavarians formed the Grand
Duke's right ; the 17th Division (in contact with the
Prince's right), his left ; whilst the 22nd Division consti-
tuted his reserve. The 9th Corps, touching the 17th
Division, was the Prince's extreme right ; the 3d his left ;
the 10th his reserve. The main point of attack was
Chevilly. Once in the day a desperate attempt was made
by the French to turn the Grand Duke's right flank,
and the Bavarians gallantly baffled the attempt, and in
doing so got round south even as far as Giday. But for
the most part the tactics of the French were defensive ;
and, assisted by the heavy battteries of position so well
served by the marines, they made the work of the assail-
ants, if not too great for their resolution, at least arduous
and costly. Night, however, which comes so early at this
season of the year, -and which might well fall upon drawn
battles, saw the first French line abandoned. Five
villages blazing in unison, the fair result of deadly and
mutual fire, shed a lovely, if lurid, light over the •
snowy prospect ; and by their assistant flames the
victors read in deserted entrenchments and surrendered
guns the measures of that day's success. But the morrow
—after a darkness not too long for rest or respite—
brought them face to face with another iron rule. ,
Chevilly had been won ; but behind it stood Cercottes,
and behind Cercottes again were the lunettes and
batteries of Montjoie. If ever a hard day's work was
set an army flushed, yet fatigued, with victory, it was
the work of that unsabbathlike Sabbath. Would
Orleans be reached before the frosty stars once
more glittered upon their weakened ranks ? There
are eighteen marine pieces in position at Cercottes, six to
the right and twelve to the left, and another twelve stood
ready to defend Montjoie ; whilst the intersection of four
railways just north of Orleans itself was known to have
been turned to tremendous purpose. Yet, with all the
excellence of their position and its adjuncts, or,
perhaps, in spite of them, the French, it is
said, fought but ill. Their guns were admirably
served, but there was no heart in the infantry,'
and when an entire battery was carried in splendid
style by a battalion of Jagers at the point of the
bayonet, there were no serried lines ambitious to
retake. Before twelve Cercottes had been carried, and
late in the afterneon Montjoie ceased to resist. But five
o'clock came and•utter blackness descended upon victors
and vanquished, though the latter, as they retreated,
kept up a sullen fire. But the darkness was
not for long. At seven up rose the moon, not
a moon quite at full, but clear, and brightening the
frosty air ; and with it came the cry of " Forward !'
All the world knows the rest. It was one hour
after midnight when the Orleans railway station
was stormed, and then resistance was over. But those
two hours of intervening darkness had served the
fugitives well. There were three if not four bridges by
which the army could cross the river, whose name it
had lately so proudly borne, and from that fatal five to
seven it had felt its way across them. The moon, too,
did not last till morning, and by Monday the feet
of retreating thousands had trodden the ground's
coating of snow into hard, treacherous ice, and
the splendid cavalry gathered to wreak the Prince's;
purpose floundered about when their road should;
have been straight and swift. " Some men have no luck,
the Red Prince must have thought bitterly to himself. ,
He is known to think, and the whole world that knows
likewise thinks it of him, that he would handle cavalry as
it has rarely been handled by man before, had he but the
chance. There was another war and another occasion,
in which an old King's whim or clemency stood be
tween him and the proof of his ability, and now;:
the very Skies intervened and robbed him of the chase.
Most men would count ten thousand prisoners as a hand-
some bag ; but he had made it bigger in his mind, and he
must have cursed that slippery frost. Still the good round
myriad, 77 guns, 40 taken in position, the rest in the open
field, was no mean spolia opima, and would fairly grace a
triumph at our capitol.

THE FRENCH AND GERMAN LOSSES.
Writing from the Royal Headquarters, Versailles, on
the 10th, the special correspondent of the Telegraph says :—.
Since the morning of the 4th, which witnessed the inex-
plicable retreat of a semi-victorious army under the com-
mand of a leader who had sworn "to the nation" to re-
turn to the capital only in the old Spartan manner, no,
offensive operations have been undertaken by the garrison.
of Paris ; except the occasional grunting of " cannon shot
off " against the field works that rise magically from day
to day along the Prussian lines, and gradually hem in the,
doomed city within a rind of heavily armed .batteries,,
According to a letter fro in Paris, of the 7th, which fell'
into the hands of the General Staff yesterday, neither
Trochu nor Ducrot has entered Paris since the 30th of
November, but both have stuck to the troops established'
in the outer rayone of defences. This looks as if they
still entertained the project of attempting to break
through the German positions. God help them if they
repeat their experiment, either in the direction of the
Marne Peninsula or in that of Versailles ! I firmly believe
that the section of the investing circle held by the sth
Corps and the Guard Landwehr is absolutely impreg-
nable; nay, I will go so far as to say that, could
besiegers and besieged change sides, and the gallant but
imperfectly trained Moblots take the place of the har-
dened Prussian legions entrenched between St. Germain
and Meudon, nothing short of a miracle would enable the
assailants to drive their enemies from the line in question,
To our right, again, the weak places have been made
strong. The unlucky Wurtembergers have now been.
materially reinforced by their brothers in arms
of other German lands ; and large drafts are on
their way from the Fatherland to fill up the ghastly gaps
that four days' bitter fighting has made in the. ranks.,
The losses on both sides have at length been estimated;
and the King has received official returns respecting the
German killed, wounded, and missing. The total, I re-
' gret to say, is about five thousand men—whilst the French
casualties amount to . more than thirteen thousand.
Among the officers killed on our side are a number
of gentlemen belonging .to the chief noble families
of Prussian Saxony and Silesia. To give your readers a
notion of the appalling tribute paid by the Prussian aris-
tocracy to the cause of Germany during the present war,
I may mention that a friend of mine, belonging to a
house as well known in Northern Germany a,s
that of Leigh is in Devonshire, or Percy in North: m-
berland, has already to lament ten near relatives bear:ng
his own title and surname—four killed outright, :,nd
six dangerously wounded. Of the nine colonels ccu-
manding regiments of the Guard (foot), who left Berth, in
July, not one has escaped the dread penalties of glory.
Several regiments d'e/ite—which always get P into the
hottest places—like our Household Brigade and High-
landers—have lost two-thirds, some even three-fourths, of
their officers. It is rumoured still that a plebiscite is going
on in Paris—Peace or War ?—but I am in posses4on of nQ
trustworthy. information on the eubielct‘4,,,