The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-22 00:00:00

A WAR INTERIOR.

In a letter in the Spectator we read :—Yesterday after-
noon about sixty or eighty of us ladies were busy with the
preparation of things for the hospital, for which purpose
a large Rittersaal (beautifully vaulted) in the Castle has
been assigned to us ; when the doctor came to tell us that
between seven and eight o'clock 200 wounded were to
arrive, and he begged those that felt up to the work
to render him aid. The did not arrive till past
nine ; it was a melancholy procession, and made all the
more so because the first part, about twelve carriages, were
filled with reserve infantry on their way to the army, and
they cheered and waved handkerchiefs ; and then came
about forty carriages more, with the red cross
upon them, over which there hung so deep
a silence that one dreaded the doors being
opened. Wine and water mixed, seltzer-water,
lemonade, little white loaves of bread, cigars, and all was
ready for them, but they took but little. They had all
been wounded at Woerth on the 7th, and were belonging

to the 3rd corps d'armde principally engaged there—
Bavarians—the King's Garde Grenadier (his own beloved
regiment, which has suffered most specially), with the rest
of the sth and 11th corps ; only one man from oui
regiment, but belonging to the Wiesbaden battalion, so
he could tell us nothing. Seven of the officers of our
regiment were wounded at Wissembourg. H. von E.'s
horse was killed under him ; he took two with him, and
this was his favourite. The men all say that
the " Kugelregen " (rain of ball) was something
frightful, but the shooting extremely bad; and
that if the fiftieth part had struck, there would
not be a man of them left. They quite laugh, at
the mitrailleurs, allowing merely that the noise and whirl
they create are perfectly bewildering, and would incapa-
citate less well-organised and intelligent troops. I got hold
of a very pleasant intelligent-looking grenadier, who
jumped nimbly out of the carriage, being shot in the hand,
while it is quite extraordinary that 8 out of 10 are shot in
the legs. There being too many ladies and gentlemen
already to offer refreshments, I thought I might do more
good by cheering up some of the sad countenances. I
found my grenadier remarkably intelligent, and, with the
Diippel and Koniggriitz crosses upon his breast, I felt he
would know something of battle work in general.
He said that Geisberg and Woerth had both been more
bloody for them than Sadowa, but that, on
the whole, the average number of killed were
less. He said the mitrailleur might kill one
man twenty-five times and not injure his neigh-
bour, and added, "Among the officers of my regiment
alone the proportion of killed seems exceedingly high ;
40 of them were wounded and 22 killed." He also
said that they had marched seven hours before they
reached Wissembourg, and then had suddenly to begin
the fight when they were all more or less exhausted ;
and then the battles came so close upon one another. At
Woerth they were under fire for seven hours, and on
account of the many leg wounds they could not half be
removed before the night set in, and they had to lie upon
the field of battle with perfect torrents of rain falling
upon them.

THE EMPEROR.—At no previous period of the war
have the Emperor's fortunes seemed lower. Stories of the
wildest kind are bandied about from mouth to mouth—to
the effect that he is melancholy mad; that he was in-
sulted when he reached the camp at Chalons; that, i
answer to a few feeble cries of " Vive l'Empereur !", the
" Moblots," or Garde Mobile, reproachfully and scornfully
uttered that offensive word which, according to Lamar-
tine and Victor Hugo, was Cambronne's dying
utterance upon the field of Waterloo—a word which, thus
employed, Lamartine pronounces to have indicated a sub-
lime heroism. Pocr fallen Caesar ! Many who still
believe that, whatever his shortcomings as a ruler may
latterly have been, he is plentifully endowed—Mr. King-
lake to the contrary notwithstanding--with personal cou-
rage, are loud in declaring that ere this he would have
headed a cavalry charge and fallen like a soldier, had he
not been hampered by the companionship of his son. The
Empress is represented as entertaining, the gloomiest
views as to the prospects of Imperialism.—Paris Corre-
spondent of the Telegraph.
THE STRENGTH OF THE Two ARMIES.—We
have steadily asserted that France was outnumbered, and
now believe that our statements were under-coloured—
that Napoleon went to war with the old Army of France
alone. He registered, but did not dare to arm, his new
organisation, the Garde Mobile. If that is correct, if he
actually declared war with only his regulars in the field,
all is explained. The regular army of France was 400,000
men, of whom 40,000 were at Cherbourg, getting ready
for the Baltic, 5,000 in Italy, 10,000 in Algeria, 35,000
in Paris and Chalons, 10,000 in Lyons, and at least 30,000
mow in Marseilles, Toulon, Bordeaux, Toulouse, L'Orient,
Rochefort, and the hospitals, leaving him 270,000 efficients
for the front—that is, eight corps d.'armee of 30,000 each,
and the Guard. This we believe tobe exactly the fact ; and on
this army rushed, by German official accounts which are
accepted in Paris, the Crown Prince with 250,000 men,
Prince Frederick Charles with 250,000 more, and the
King with 70,000 or 570,000 in all—more than double the
French.—Spectator.

ARREST OF AZAMAT BATUK.—The correspondent
of the Pall Mall Gazette was arrested twice in one day at
Rheims. He says :—" In the morning a couple of amateurs
stopped me in my hotel after having breakfasted with me,
but soon released me when they became convinced that
I was really your correspondent. In the evening, however,
my position assumed a more complicated aspect, Two
police agents came to my room, ransacked my papers, carried
me away to the bureau central, whence the chief commis-
sioner of thepolice brought me before M. le Prefet. My
passport being presented to them, and my connection
with the Pall Mall Gazette proved beyond any
possible doubt, they had no reason for treating me
like a spy : but they shewed me an article
of the Gaulois of to-day, which appears to have
been the chief reason of my arrest, and which caused the
authorities of Rheims to suppose that I could not be al-
lowed freely to circulate in France. The meaning of the
absurd article is wholly embodied in this sentence :—` Aussi
ne suis-je nullement etonnd en lisant adjourd'hui les
lignes suivantes dans la Pall Mall Gazette, ce calom-
niateur aux gages de la Prusse.' The reasoning
of the Rheims authorities was very simple. If
the Pall Mall Gazette is a calumniator paid by Prussia, its
correspondent must be pretty nearly the same thing.
Therefore, I was released only upon the stipulation that
I should not leave Rheims without ,the authorization of
M. le Prdfet, and that if I left it I could do so only in
order to go to England, until I got special permission
from the headquarters to go anywhere else.
AT A FRENCH CHATEAU.—We arrived to-day at
a veritable chateau, such as one would be glad to stay at,
even in England. It is called the Chateau d'Aulnoy-
sur-Seille. Most comfortable, the walls covered with
old pictures. Not a creature in the place, except
an old servant, who had a piece of red riband
in his button-hole, and called himself " the Count."
However, he was quickly found out, as may be sup-
posed. Though the occupiers of this old place are
as kind and careful of it as if it was their own, yet it
brings before one more forcibly than ever the blessing
of having that little bit of sea between England and the
Continent when one sees what a fearful thing troops
marching through a country ar Here, for instance,
in this fine old chateau, capable of holding 40
guests at least, with gardens, fountains, stables,
all in the most complete order, the first thing
that strikes the eye is a Prussian sentry at the door.
Inside the large hall are grouped the orderlies from the
various regiments ; on the right a large room is converted
into a dining-room, the library into a sleeping apartment
for the orderlies; at the top of the fine old stone staircase,
with a gigantic picture of Louis Quatorze half way up, is
formed the bur?au, where the business of the Corps 'dArmde
is carried on; and the billiard room is full of other minutia
connected with the department. Your correspondent is
in a little boudoir on the ground floor, and the park has
a regiment of cavalry picketed in it, with its attendant
bivouac for the men. Now, let any one who possesses a
fine country-house picture to himself for one moment
what his feelings would be should such a curse fall upon
his household ; when, too, he would, perhaps for weeks,
be not only compelled to house, but to feed, some twenty-
five men per day, with the pleasant prospect before him
that, should the tide of war change, he would have a re-
currence of it with ten times more severity. —Times Cor-
respondent with Second Prussian Army.

THE WEEKLY PRESS.
READY, AYE READY !

The lesson of the war to England, says the Saturday
Review, is this—that nobody can tell on what frivolous
pretext, or how suddenly or instantaneously, one power-
ful nation may declare war against another. Of all in-
credible things the victorious advance of the Prussians
into the heart of France in less than a month is the most
incredible. The successful invasion of England by it
matters not who—France, or Prussia, or Russia, Parthian
or Median—is also the most incredible of possible events ;
but not one whit more incredible, more momentous, more
awful, than the successful invasion os France. No doubt
t is not all over ; Chalons may once again be
the scene of a decisive battle of the world.
But this is not the question. The question is,
whether Sussex and Surrey are likely to give a better ac-
count of an invading army than Alsace and Lorraine—
Alsace and Lorraine, too, occupied by an army quite
equal to the invaders, except in the matter of organiza-
tion and leadership, as contrasted with Sussex and Sur-
rey defended by the 200,000 Volunteers, without skilled
officers and without arms, and formidable only on paper,
and the 100,000 Militia, without officers and organization.
For a good many years we have complacently assured
ourselves that if a foreign army were to land in England,
not one of them would leave it ; and we used to be told
that we should rise as one man, the main army of invaders
would be annihilated in the open, and the British pea-
santry might be trusted to " cut off the stragglers." The
answer is, look at Lorraine and Alsace, and the tri-
umphant march of Prussia across the Moselle ; but we
don't or won't look at Alsace and Lorraine, but to the
sport on the grouse moor which is, and the partridge
stubble which is to be.