The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-02 00:00:00

PANIC IN THE DISTRICT.

A member of the corps of Freeshooters writes :
"In the villages the inhabitants are flying in terror,
bearing with them in their carts their most valuable
moveables. At Dury, where the Prussians were reported
as coming in the night, I saw women and young girls
flying half naked, without knowing where they were
going to. I stopped more than one of them in this pur-
poseless wild race. The cries of these unfortunate people,
thus startled, bursting on the silence of the night ; then,
in the short intervals of silence, a vague sound of clanking
iron in the distance; and far off, at the termination of a
long valley, the lurid light of burning dwellings ; while
close by were crowds of men and women passing rapidly
by, uttering deep sobs—all this may be imagined, but
cannot be described ; and these were the people who
five days ago would not believe in the approach
of the enemy, refused us sustenance, and treated us
almost like bandits. On Sunday, while they were fighting
along the whole line firma Dury to Villers ; while the
cannon were thundering on a line four leagues in extent ;
while the villages were burning like funeral pyres, great
herds of cattle and flocks of goats and sheep might be
seen flying across the country in a style reminding one of
the descriptions of the buffalo herds on the American
prairies before a fire l"

THE CAMPAIGN AROUND THE CAPITAL.

DE PALADINE'S EAST CHANCE.

The Telegraph thus refers to the position of the armies
around Paris ;—On Monday, the 28th, General Aurelles
de Paladine tried his push from Orleans and ChAteauneuf
to the right of his own centre by Bellegarde and Beaune-
la-Rolande ; and on the same day General Trochu tried
his, on the south of Paris, near the position of the Sixth
Corps, which has bad from the first but little fighting,
was no doubt greedy for a wrestle with the
enemy. The 6th Corps held the ground around Paris
from the Seine westwards to Palaiseau. In the direction
the French had thrown forward a force of artificers, who
had constructed on the heights of Villejuif a strong
redoubt, thrusting itself into the German system of
" defensive offence " in that quarter. We are told that
on Sunday and Monday General Trochu made energetic
pointcs in the direction of Longjumeau and Corbeil ;
and the significance of this sortie is clear, when we
consider that on the same date the French Army of the
Loire made its pointes by Beaune-la-Rolande straight
towards Fontainebleau. In one word, the French around,
within, and about Paris have played their trump card—
and have lost the trick. On Monday they tried from
both sides to pierce the cordon which had been
for nearly three months formed around Paris.
On both sides they failed. At Beaune they were
repulsed. The 6th German Corps threw back without
any costly effort the attempt of Trochu to force its posi-
tions. Facing both ways, the Germans have repelled the
attack which the French have been preparing for many
weeks; and their defeat of the French Army of the Loire
is but another testimony to what can and must be done by
troops of tried valour and hardening experience against
new levies—raw to begin with, 'Faye to the very back-
hone, bnt unskilled in the arts that make a man
into a soldier. De Paladin° has one more chance—
and only one. If, having sacrificed his left, he
can—and the numbers which we publish else-
where encourage us to believe that he is still
able to do it—swing his army fearlessly round by
the left upon Etampes, he'may yet redeem the fortunes
of the campaign. It is evident that the Germans have
too much weakened themselves in the centre. On both
wings—that of Mecklenburg on the right, and the Red
Prince on the left—they are, strategically, too strong
for the French. But they have over-weakened their
centre ; and for De Paladine the salvation of
France lies in hie chance of scattering the German
armies now converging upon Tours—fighting first the
weaker force under the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg,
then fighting the larger force under Prince Frederick
Charles—and then standing with 200,000 victorious men
between the shattered fragments of the enemy's hosts,
and the groat city which, by every voice and every chance
of uttering its wishes, prays for relief.