The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-29 00:00:00

DUCROT'S ACCOUNT OF HIS ESCAPE.

General Ducrot has written an account of his escape
from the Prussians after the disaster at Sedan. He
lays stress upon his refusal to sign the capitulation
and says that, being a prisoner, it was suggested by his
captors that he should proceed in his own carriage on
parole with his two aides-de-camp to the railway station
at Pont-d-Mousson, and there deliver himself up. He
duly arrived there, found the station in the hands of the
Prussians, reported himself to the officer in charge, and
thereby, as he contends, redeemed his word. He was
ordered to enter a train about to proceed to Germany,
but could not find a vacant seat. He called attention to
this, and asked for an additional carriage. The reply was
that the train was already too long, and he must proceed by
the next, which would start in two hours. He then asked
if he might visit a friend in the town, and received permis-
sion, no pledge being either asked or given as to his return.
At his friend's house he and his aides obtained peasants' dress
and a country cart with a load of potatoes. The swords
and uniforms were buried under the potatoes. In a blue
blouse and trousers, with a pipe in his mouth, a peasant's
hat on his head, and with bare feet thrust into sabots
padded with a bit of straw, General Ducrot rode on the
side of the cart with his legs dangling. An aide-de-camp,
similarly attired, led the horse, and another sat on the
potatoes. In this way the party passed safely through
the Prussian lines, and reached a place in which they could
reappear in their natural characters.

The French provincial papers speak of Garibaldi's re-
signation or dismissal as imminent.
A few days ago a lady at Strasburg gratified her neigh-
bours by singing the " Marseillaise " for some hours at a
stretch, but she was arrested for her pains.
A single shell on Saturday killed and wounded four-
teen men of the Ist Regiment of the Guards at Pont
Iblon.

At a meeting at Nantes, attended by some 3,000
persons, M. de Kdratry was asked to lay down a political
programme which should not be extremely Republican,
and on failing to do, so was hissed, and hooted at.

A letter horn Strasburg in the All genzeine Zeitung states
that the library is daily receiving handsome presents of
books, and that a Coblentz savant, whose only son fell be-
fore Met; has bequeathed to it a large and valuable col-
lection.

The Patrie says that at the close of the sad year 1870,
the French have the misfortune of finding thirty of their
departmehts, whose population amounts to more than 11
millions, occupied by the German armies.
An order has just been issued subjecting all male in-
habitants of Alsace between 17 and 40 years of age to
supervision, .on account of so many having left to join
the French army. Whoever secretly leaves his home
without permission will be subject to a fine, and if neces-
sary, to arrest, together with his relatives.
General Manteuffel is staying at the Hotel de France at
Rouen, and the other day, says a French paper, he
received a dispatch which excited him so much that he
broke china to the value of three hundred and twenty
francs, and afterwards countermanded a grand dinner
that he was to have given the next day.

A letter from an English printer employed at one of
the Paris newspaper offices, addressed to his wife in
England, states that he has during twenty days only re-
ceived four ounces of meat, and that he has been oblige 1
to support himself by the use of some olive oil which he
had by him.
'.Cue Prussians evacuated Beauvis in such haste that
they left at the station 250,000 francs worth of requisi-
tions, contained in one hundred bags of flour, and 300
bags of oats. They took the precaution, however, of 'for-
bidding the townspeople to touch them for fear of being
subjected to heavy penalty.
Experiments have recently been made at Paris with a
new navigable balloon. The steering apparatus, which is
of a complicated character and is attached to an ordinary
balloon, consists of two sets of small wings, which the
aeronaut puts in motion. The trials were made with a
small balloon, and appeared satisfactory. They will
shortly be repeated on a larger scale.

The Berlin papers give an official list kof 52 French
officers who have violated their word of honour by making
their escape. Two of them, however, as already an-
nounced, have been recaptured. They consist of one
chief of battalion (a member of Marshal Bazaine's Staff),
one colonel, 16captains, 17 lieutenants, 15 sub-lieutenants,
a commissariat adjutant, and a veterinary surgeon.
The North German Correspondent says :—"The French
war steamer D6saix has been guilty of a new breach of
international law. It is now certain that on the 21st
October she took the German merchant vessel Vorwarts
on the east coast of Scotland, and burnt her, without
bringing her before a prize court. Our readers will re-
member that the same vessel has been guilty of similar
actions on several other occasions."

The North, German Gazette says that upon a French
pri: over of war, at Landshut, Bavaria, letters have been
found which refer to the Traupmann murder, which made
such a sensation about a year ago. The letters divulge
the names of two accomplices of Trauppmaun. A legal
investigation has been made, and the soldier, whose name
is Berlau, will be kept in prison until he can be handed
over to a French court of Justice.

On the 21st. inst. sixty men of the Queen Elizabeth
Regiment were taken prisoners outside Le Bourget. The
French have sent back a captured ambulance. One of
the medical men reports that the German prisoners were
well tr.,ated, and supplied plentifully with coffee, cognac,

sugar, and wine. The meat served out to them was horse-
flesh. The men are at St. Denis. The French officers
are without cigars. •
The Standard is informed that Colonel Reilly, the late
British military commissioner with the Army of the
Loire, was treated with the utmost rudeness by the
Germans, with the honourable exception of the
Bavarian General, Von der Tann. Prince Frederick
Charles refused even to see Colonel Reilly, and endea-
voured to make him promise that he would not return to
France during the war. Colonel Reilly refused to give
the required pledge, but our Government have decided,
ender the circumstances,' that he should not return to
France.

A new German paper, called the Volkstaat, has ap-
peared, which instead of writing against France after the
fashion of its contemporaries, is in favour of an honour-
able peace with the New Republic. It is opposed to any
annexation of territory, and wishes to be rid of Bonaparte
and his accomplices. It asks if Germany, who might
conclude a brilliant peace, but who prefers to sacrifice
one or two hundred thousand of her children for the sake
of conquering two provinces, is not responsible for the
blood that is now being shed.
A Paris letter of the 15th, published in a Geneva
paper, says :—" Since the third we have had only a
pound of horseflesh for five persons for three days, mak-
ing 30 grammes per head daily. Formerly we could
supplement our rations by purchase, but. nothing is now
to be. got at any price. For variety, salted codfish is
served out for three days, and salt herrings for three
days. The butchers' shops are only opened every third
day. Fresh vegetables are at an enormous price, and a.
fine cabbage costs sf. Milk is only to be had for
children. Our usual fare consists of beans, rice, and a
few potatoes."
The Bordeaux correspondent of the Vienna Presse says :
" I saw yesterday a ktriking illustration of the state of
things existing under the present Government—a com-
pany of the highest state officials and distinguished per-
sonages rushed with the greatest eagerness upon a new
arrival of foreign papers (the Cologne Gazette, the Presse,
and the Times), not in order to learn how the enemy
described their own position, but to ascertain what had
really happened to the Army of the Loire during the.
previous week. Nobody now knows this except Gambetta
since he has been travelling Minister, and only allows
the transmission of what he thinks proper. Cremieux,
,Chandorcly, and Fourichon are treated to an equally
spare diet, Gambetta having become an uncontrolled
despot."