The Sun.
London, England, 1870-09-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 1, :870.

are none. So on Monday moitniag, when we meb Count
Gortz, he recommended us to join a volunteer party with
him who 'have donned the cross, and so we did. The party
consists of about eight young men of our own age, of very
good families (so Count Gortz, who is not without aristo-
cratic prejudices, informed us), and about 50 young men,
mostly from the Rhine provinces, who are the rank and
file. The latter receive some small pay from some of the
Rhine towns. All are of course volunteers. The stamp
on the badge and the card authorising its use entitle the
bearer to free quarters just ,as if he were in the
army, The whole of the little army is under a
Baron von Witzleben, a fine man, a little over middle
age, cheerful and courteous, a thorough German, not
speaking a word of any other language. Count Gortz,
on the other hand, is a very cultivated man, and speaks
English perfectly. He was one of the Hessian Commis-
sioners to England at Princess Alice's wedding. He has
been very kind. He introduced us to the eight men I have
mentioned, and we are now part of the little band, and
are duly qualified as officers, and in that character re-
ceived our billets on Tuesday at Blamont, and last night
here, at Luneville. I must not neglect to include in our
little army eight nuns and three Protestant deaconesses
(who all seem to some extent to be directed by a priest),
also an English lady, who leads five Sisters of Charity
froth Wurzburg, in Bavaria. We three joined, as I have
said, at Sarrebourg on the Monday. The Prussians pay
fairly for everything, and generally, I must say, behave
very reasonably to the people. Discipline seems perfect,
and the army, you remember, is composed of a very
different class to that which alone makes up our regi-
ments. I walked the other day with two private soldiers,
both of whom had completed their course of phiLlogy at
the University of Breslau. Our caravan having been
brought from Strasburg was here dismissed, and we wait
here to-day till the rail is made good, hoping to go on by
train to-morrow to Nancy, where the Crown Prince now is.
Friday we walked to Woerth, and on to Froschweiler.
The battle-fieldwas deeply interesting. They were burying
the last of the dead bodies. Fourteen thousand were
buried, so we were officially informed. The slaughter must
have been dreadful. We could trace it by the heaps of
knapsacks and helmets. The heavy rains since the preceding
Saturday (the day of the battle) had done much to oblite-
rate the traces of the fight, but there were more than
enough. Great fresh mounds of the slain--the church at
Froschweiler and some houses nothing but charred ruins ;
all the houses riddled with bullets ; every house in Woerth
and Froschweiler and all the villages round, filled with
the wounded, who also constantly passed us on the road
in carts as they were moved on to make room for others.
The field extends for about three miles. There are two
parallel ridges—Woerth is in the valley between; Frosch-
weiler, the French stronghold, on the top of the west
ridge; thick wo As on the north of both ridges. But
you will have read an account of it, and I have
not. I tell you only what I saw. We picked
up letters in French and German which made
one choke to read; scraps of Bible verses scrawled;
family messages for poor fellows who never left that field.
But the French were gone and the Prussians after them,
and the whole field was a silent as death. We stood on
the top of the hill by Froschweller and looked over
the field ; the landscape was lovely in the afternoon
sunshine, and the hills of the Palatinate looked most
glorious in the background. The immense effect of
the victory at Woerth grows upon us as we find so large
and important a part of France left open. Mac-
Mahon made no attempt to defend the Vosges, which
high officers have told us 3,000 men could have rendered
impassable. Possibly the French defeat at Saarbruck the
same day as Woerth necessitated the immediate concen-
tration of the French armies. At any rate, the result is
that the people of Alsace and Lorraine hate the
Emperor and declare they have been destroyed.
Yet they don't like the Germans, whose lan-
guage in Alsace they speak, and they dread
annexation. The result seemed curious enough to us as
we drove into France on the top of a captured omnibus.
Our intention is to await the great battle. If it comes it
must be before you see this. The result could hardly be
doubtful. A revolution may happily prevent the fight
which will be indeed an awful one. In any case we
three expect to be in Paris in a few days if all is well,
and to return thence to England. Our services under the
cross are expressly confined to the field. They will not
be without risk, but will, at any rate, in some degree legi-
timise our presence. Hospital work Ido not think lam
fit for, so when the fight is over I shall come home,
Every one says it is quite impossible the campaign shot
last much longer."

THE PRINCESS OF HESSE AMONGST THE

WOUNDED.

There are six or eight lazarettes, or hospitals, in Darm-
stadt alone—one or two specially superintended by mem-
bers of the Grand Ducal family, others by private com-
mittees, and one by the Catholic Sisters of Charity.
There are, I believe, only 2,000 Catholics among the
35,000 inhabitants. To-day I had the privilege of visit-
ing the principal one which her Royal Highness the
Princess of Hesse takes under her own especial wing.
Certainly nothing can be more admirably managed ; and
of those I have seen as yet it is the highest, airiest, and
most cheerful. The principal building is a permanent
one of stone and glass—an ex-conservatory. It stands in
charming gardens, with their flower-beds and shrubberies,
and fountains, which, as the Princess says the Frenchmen
gallantly tell her remind them of the waterworks of
Versailles. Through these are scattered a number
of succursales—wooden pavilions where the double rows of
beds stand at ample intervals, with canvas doors at the
ends, to be looped up at will, and with openings in the
roof, protected from the wet, but open to the wind. The
Princess says the French strongly protest against the
fresh. air, while the Germans, on the contrary, very
sensibly welome it as the best of specifics. She ought to
be mistress of the inward sentiments of the patients,
for they all seem to take her into their inmost con-
fidence. It was worth a journey from England alone
to see the faces of the sufferers lighten up as they
reflected the sisterly smiles on her's. As she passed along
and stopped and spoke to each the invalid laid himself
back on his pillow with an expression of absolute bien
Litre, and for the moment seemed to find something more
than an anodyne for his pain. Her passing along the
wards applied the most infallible of tests to the cases. If
her presence did not smooth the pain wrinkles out of a
man's face, or bring something like tranquillity to his
drawn mouth, and cause a flash of light to his eye,
you were quite sure to hear he was in an extremely
bad way. Nor was it with the wounded alone she
seemed the animating spirit of the place. Nurses and
doctors and convalescents walking about all addressed her
with the same cordial familiarity—only tempered by their
evident reverence and love. The truth is, and one sees it
everywhere else as in Darmstadt, this war has not merely
made Germany a nation, but a family, and a thorough
family feeling pervades north and south, high and low
alike. Nothing seems regarded as a sacrifice, and
the humblest work that can serve the great national
cause is regarded as a pleasure and honour. The theatre
at Mayence is given over to preparations for the hospital
service, and the ladies of the place, old and young, go to
work day and night in batches and in gangs in the coarsest
materials and roughest work. Here at Darmstadt
no small portion of the Palace is devoted to the same
purpose, and the workrooms communicate directly with
the Princess's apartments. There are piles of mattresses
in the galleries, hills of blankets and cushions below,
chests of lint, bundles of bandages, mountains of cushions,
sandbags for absorbing blood, wooden receptacles
for shattered limbs. There is a continual influx and a
constant outflow of all that. This afternoon the Prin-
cess's phaeton had the back seat piled high with cushions
wanted for immediate use, decently covered up, it is true,
with a carriage-rug ; but there were so many of them that
the rug was sheer hypocrisy and absurd illusion. A huge
bundle of flannel seriously embarrassed the coachman's
legs and style, while it says much for the paving of the
Darmstadt streets that all of the teapots stowed away in
the sword-case beneath the ladies' seat reached their desti-
nation in safety.—Letter in the Time, from Darmstadt.

DENIAL OF RECENT CANARDS.—The Peeple
Francais has the following :—" The Francaishas affirmed,
and the Siecle repeated, the statement that the Empress
has asked General Trochu for his resignation. We are
in a position to give that assertion amost unqualified denial.
Her Majesty-confines herself strictly to the exercise of
her constitutional powers ; and, besides, Gen. Trochu, in-
vested with the command of Paris by the confidence of
the Emperor and of his Government, necessarily possesses
that of the Empress. No less incorrect is the affirmation
that the General is in disagreement with the Prefect of
Police. The most complete accord exists between the
Governor of Paris and the administrative authorities of
the Seine."

FEELING OF THE FRENCH TROOPS TOWARDS THE
EMPEROR.—What are we to think of 6,000 unwounded
Frenchmen being prisoners?—not caught in a grand
cavalry charge, or cut off from a main army and forced
to lay down their arms, but 6,000 men sound in wind
and limb, who have been " captured" in battle !
If the rest of the army be of the same mind as
many prisoners, wounded and unwounded, who
speak in the strongest terms of scorn and dislike
of the Emperor and his Generals, the mystery
may be explained ; but it is a sad and sorry explanation,
for, whatever the army may have deserved of France,
there can be no doubt the Emperor deserved well of the

army, wiiith be sustained with all his power, honoured,
flattered, feasted, feted, fought for and with, and finally
appears to have fallen for. I heard one of the highest
officers and personages express the pain and almost indig-
nation with which he had heard the language of some of
these prisoners, and I am told the tone is only too com-
mon.—Times' Correspondent with Prussian Army.
FRENCH SOLDIERS.—AIgeria has been called the
nursery of the French army, but so far as this campaign
has gone the army that has come from Africa has not
justified the hopes built upon it. I learn from professional
men • back from the front that the want of discipline
was painfully evident in the regiments that arrived
from Algeria. The Zouaves showed all the irregu-
larity, all the bad qualities, in short, whic,,h spoil
them without having the opportunity to redeem them, by
their undoubtedly great good quality of reckless valour.
An apprenticeship to such irregular fighting as hordes of
wild Arabs is not the best preparation to meet disciplined
Prussians. The little infantry soldiers of the line
have gained all the honours so far, and the little
i men n the tidy blue jackets of the foot Chasseurs
—the active, handsome intelligent boys of whom I
have frequently spoken—proved that if there were
any corps d'elite in the army, it was theirs. They were
as lively as you please when required, but they knew how
to be steady and watchful and did not waste their am-
munition. That is the weak point of French troops.
They cannot be kept in hand, cannot be taught to
economise powder. They get excited after firing a few
shots, lose their heads, and blaze away. In two cases out
of three they do not stop to see anything to hit, and in
nine cases out of ten they do not hit anything.—Corres-
pondent's Letter in Standard.
SANGUINE VlEws.—Some people shrug their
shoulders and say, " Paris is too big to be defended." If
it is too big to be defended, it is too big to be invested; its
size is a greater disadvantage to its assailants than to its
defenders ; but let the size be what it may, I can promise
these amateur military engineers, who sneer at the idea
of a defence of Paris, that the capital will be held
gallantly and resolutely, that it can neither be taken by
coup de main nor starved out, and that the only chance
the enemy had of taking it —that is by the coincidences of
disturbances from within—has disappeared. Granting
that the Prussians laid a regular siege to Paris—an even-
tuality most improbable, for the capital and centre of a
great nation cannot be beleaguered like Sebastopol—they
would have to move off as soon as an army from the Loire (sure
to be formed) fell on their flank or rear. And then this
regular siege implies, as you will observe, an utter defeat
of MacMahon beforehand ; for his 'splendid army of one
hundred and fifty thousand men, the most of them fresh,
could never be left free to operate as it pleased, while
the invader marched forward to his tardy bombardment
of Paris. That defeat of MacMahon is still just
possible—but nobody here anticipates it ; still if it

come the capital is prepared for it. At noon on Sun-
day 2,500 cannon were in position round Paris, a girdle of
iron that will not be readily forced. But other occasions
will occur to speak of what is behind those guns ; for the
present it is enough to know that the " Downfall of
Paris" is not likely to be played in the fortified and
beautified city of M. Thiers and Baron Haussmann. It
is true the Prussians picketed their horses once in the
Champ de Mars, and watered them in the Seine : but
they were not alone then, and there were no fortifications.
—Correspondent of the Standard at Park
DETERMINATION OF THE PARISIANS.—As I saw
long lines of carts coming in laden with furniture in all
stages of repair—good furniture, rickety furniture, and
furniture fit only for firewood; as I saw the trains of
people following, some of them mere sightseers, taking a
Sunday view of the world about, others of them poor

people of the country districts, calm of feature, but
terror-stricken in their hearts, and anxious for the
protection of the walls of Paris; and as I saw the vast
herds of sheep and oxen which at the same time streamed
through the woods, all making for Paris, I could not help
thinking of the pictures I used to admire in my child-
kood of the Israelites going forth out of Egypt, an im-
mense multitude, with innumerable flocks and with
wealth of goods untold. You will say this is an ex-
aggeration, and so it is. But it is an exaggeration
which conveys a better idea of the truth than aught

else which I could say. You cannot see this tremendous
movement going on without feeling certain that Paris
is in earnest, and does not mean to capitulate with-

out a good fight. There are two opinions cur-
rent, one here, the other in England, which I
believe to be quite unfounded. Here people say, " The
Prussians will never dare to come to Paris ;it is
a farce, it is their despair, it is mere bravado." How
far it is bravado events will shew, and at any rate the
Government here, who are making all these preparations
for the defence of Paris, do not seem inclined to treat the
advance of the Prussians upon their capital as a feint or a
farce. On the other side, it is said in England that the
Government cannot seriously undertake the defence of
Paris, and that, if the Prussians approach, the best thing
Parisians can do is to make peace. How long Paris can
hold ou I do not know, but there are facts enough to
prove that the Government will not give up Paris for
nothing, and that, in all seriousness, they mean to stand
a siege.—Times Paris. Correspondent.
THE PARIS BOURGEOISIE.—The fighting men
are to be found among the working classes, who are kept
without arms ; the bourgeoisie of Paris is probably the
most self-interested, unpatriotic body of men to be found
in the whole of France. They are still made of the same ,
stuff as their fathers, who in 1814 cried, " Vive nos
alli4s," when the allies marched into Paris, and who made
a very good thing out of the strangers. The newspapers
may.call upon every Frenchman to die rather than suc-
cumb, they may declare that any one who talks of peace
whilst a Prussian is on the sacred soil of France ought
to be shot. All this " tall talk " means nothing.
Twenty years of abject subserviency to one man have had
their effect. The army has fought well—probably each
individual Frenchman would fight well on the field of
battle—but there is no moral courage, no backbone in the
nation. Government undertook to govern them, Govern-
ment undertook to fight for them. The intelligence of the
country hated Napoleon as much as it hates the Prus-
sians; it will not sacrifice life and treasure for the
sake of retaining its master. Paris of late
years has become a cosmopolitan city ; it has
traded upon the vices and extravagance of wealtlity
fools from all parts of Europe and America. There
is no place in the world where so many people
live from year's end to year's end on their wits, and there
is no place where so great a percentage of income is spent
in luxury. The enormous fortunes that have been made
by privileged speculators of the Court, and the effrontery
with which they have paraded them, have caused all
classes to despise the slow and solid returns of commerce,
and the Parisian bourgeois must have his little
speculation to pay for the toilettes of Madame.
The Parisian gentleman must win or lose his
thousand or two thousand francs every night at
a club. The Parisian fils de famille must be
known as the proprietor of Adele or Fanny. How is it to
be supposed that such a population can in a moment
throw off all its vicious habits, and meet an enemy at its
gates with the stern resolve to conquer or die like Spar-

tans? "Nine-tenths of these fellows," said an. Americai
who had commanded an army of the Confederate States;

pointing to a crowd on the Boulevards, " have not got a
kick left in them." The Roman philosopher was right

when he said that the man who loses his liberty loses the
half of his manhood.—Daily News Paris Correspondent.

A CHOICE OF CLIMATES.—United States weather
reports of the 10th August :—Owing to the illness of
letter-carriers from the extreme heat the 11 o'clock
delivery has had to be temporarily discontinued. Helena,
Montana.—The thermometer at noon was down to freez-
ing point this day, and it snowed a little.
THE VOLUNTEERS.—The authorities appear at last

to have become somewhat alive to the possibility of
volunteer officers being improved by a closer intimacy
with the regular service, and have issued a circular to
officers commanding regiments and detachments of the
latter, desiring. that they shall take every means of be-
coming acquainted with officers commanding volunteer
corps in their vicinity, and affording them every facility
for drilling with the regular troops, and induce them to
take advantage of the instruction to be derived by their
corps from commanding officers and adjutants of the line
on every convenient opportunity of course, without expense
to the public.—Livelpool Albion.
THE TEMPERANCE FETE AT THE C::'..:"rAL
PALACE.—To judge from Bab oo Sen's language at the
Crystal Palace on Tuesday he must have been pleased
at the number of men and women devoted to the cause of
temperance before him. The architectural grandeur of
the building was, he said, heightened a thousand fold by
the moral grandeur of the scene he was witnessing. The
speaker contended that christianity was mockery and
civilization a solemn sham, unless, by personal example
and by legislative enactment, we did all in our power, both
in England and in India, to check the demoralization
and ruin wrought by intoxicating liquors.
The Baboo's remarks were listened to by a
large audience, but scarcely as much interest was shewn
at his appearance as at that of the veteran teetotaller,
George Cruickshank. In a modest speech the eminent
artist challenged any one to produce a single case in which
a murder had been committed by a total abstainer in
England. He added that the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals was an admirable institution ; but
the Temperance League was still more admirable, for it
might justly be called a society for the prevention of
cruelty to men, women, and children. It was remarked
that the concourse of people left the Palace and its
grounds at night in a manner which shewed but too
plainly the good effects of a day spent in social amuse-
ments, and undertaken without the excitement of intem-
perance.

EXPULSION OF GERMANS FROM .FRANCB.
A London telegram of yesterday says that the collec-
tive note of Austria and England dissuading France from
expelling German residents has been ineffectual. N°W
the right of a Government in time of war to expel from
its territory the subjects of a foreign and hostile
Government is unqueStionable. When those sub'
jects are so numerous and so influential as to be
dangerous to the Government the hospitality of which
they have enjoyed, their expulsion may be a necessity.
The protection of the German residents in France devolvEs
during the war upon the diplomatic agents of the United
States. But these agents cannot now interfere more
authoritatively to prevent the expulsion of the Germans
than could the Prussian diplomatic agents in time of peace.
When, however, it is remembered that the number of
German subjects in France is estimated at two millions,
of whom two hundred thousand reside in Paris alone,
and, moreover, that the majority of this large Gemini'
colony consists of skilled workmen and active merchants,
who have added incalculably to the wealth of their
adopted country, our diplomatic agents in France might.
well represent to the Imperial Government that their
expulsion may prove not only a hardship to its
victims, but also almost as serious an evil to
France as the expulsion of the Huguenots by
the edict of Nantes. The right of the French
government to expel the Germans cannot be contested.
Their expulsion may,even seem to be a painful necessity'.
But it nevertheless does not look like good policy. We
are, therefore, glad to learn that official assurances have
been received at Washington contradicting the rumour of
an imperial order indiscriminately expelling the German'
domiciled at Paris. • The angry demand of Paid
de Cassagnac that so cruel a measure should be
adopted found no echo. It is true, however, that about
one hundred and fifty Prussians have been invited to leave
Paris on account of having
,made hostile demonstrations
against France. The strict orders of the Landwehr
had already recalled fifteen hundred of the eight thousand
Prussians residing in Paris. Two thousand of these are said
to have applied at once for naturalisation papers, as well
as for the (permis de sejour) permits to remain, which 311
order of the Prefect of Police, dated August 4, had
required the natives of Prussia, of the countries of the
Confederation of the North, of Bavaria, of Wurtemburg,
of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, and of the Grand Duchy
of Baden, to obtain within three days. After that delay
they were to be liable to arrest and expulsion.—New YOl
Herald, August 20.