The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-16 00:00:00

FIIE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESbAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1870.

winds, the "great nation" not only sorely stricken
but profoundly humiliated.
It is impossible to read the comments made by M.
GUIZOT, in his letter to the Times, without emotions
of the most genuine sympathy. What he especially
refers to at this moment are two of the latest and
most astounding occurrences in the unrolling of the
frightful panorama of the war of Ig7o—the capitula-
tion of Metz and the rejection by Prussia of
the Armistice proposed by the; Neutral Powers
upon the initiation Of England. By the former he is
simply bewildered. By the latter, his heart is at
once filled with grief and indignation. Aghast at
the tidings of the appalling capitulation at Metz, he
acknowledges, "I do not yet understand this deplo-
rable incident. Was it really the result of famine(
in Marshal BAZAINE'S army 2 Was it a Bonapartist
plot of the Marshal's P The conclusion he
arrives at in regard to it is that every indication
seems to point to Bonapartist intrigues." Neverthe-
less, hurried on by the rapid march of events, ho
loaves the inquiry as a small problem for the future
student of history to solve if that should in any way
prove to be possible in the hereafter.
Turning to the question of the Armistice, M.
GUIZOT takes it by preference into consideration
as one very different in its character, and much more
important. Upon the Prussians and not upon the
French, he deliberately fixes the responsibility of its
rejection. The
.onus. of that responsibility rests,
according to his argument, upon M. BISMARCK, and
not upon. M. FAVE.E. With full reason he arrives
at this conclusion, and the' nature of the reason set
forth. by him in . his extremely lucid
and logical argument, is very readily
explained. The Prussians, he insists, by refusing to
allow Paris to be in any way revictualled, have
flagrantly and exceptionally disregarded the right of
nations. "The essential principle of an armistice,"
writes M. GUIZOT, "is the maintenance of the
status quo. That is to say, at the termination of an
Armistice, the belligerents ought to:find themselves
in the same position and with the same resources
that they . had at its commencement. When the
Armistice affects a besieged city, the provisions of
all kinds evidently play a very important part in all
the considerations connected with it. During the
Armistice the city cannot be expected to consume the
provisions which, it possessed when the Armistice began,
for if so, when the Armistice ceases, is will find itself
in a much worse position than it was before. It must,
therefore, be allowed to revictual to such- an extent as
to provide food for the besieged inhabitants while the
Armistice lasts. Thera is in this a principle of
natural justice, and at the same tim
an essential element of the right of nations,
which has been acknowledged in similar
cases." The argument expressed in the two
sentences above italicised must, according to our
thinking, be admitted by every dispassionate observer
to be simply unanswerable in its cogency. Certainly
from it only one conclusion can be deduced, and it
is this—that Prussia, or in other words BISMARCK,
will be held responsible by Europe for whatever
calamity is now reserved for Paris, whether .by
starving it into surrender, or compelling it to yield
by all the horrors of a bombaidmelit.

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