The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-10 00:00:00

PREPARATIONS AT DUNKERQUE.

A letter from Dunkerque says the town has during the
last few days displayed unwonted animation. The Gardes
Mobiles make military promenades morning and evening,

besides exercises and znanceuvres. They number more
than -two thousand men, and have a good soldierly
appearance. Since they have been in bar-
racks they have improved greatly, and their
instruction has proceeded rapidly. Orders have been
given for their- immediate transmission to St. Omer, and
they will form a vigorous reserve of fresh and well ordered
troops. All through the department the same energy i 5
perceptible, thanks in a great measure to the exertions of 31-
Testelin, the indefatigable commissary general. On thequaY9
and in the harbour, as in the railway stations nothing is to
be seen but vessels and waggons laden with war material
for various destinations. The military engineers arc
mercilessly destroying the splendid trees in the neigh-
bourhood. The inhabitants at last interfered and saved
from destruction a few of the fine trees at Rosendael. At
thlittle village of St. Pol, near Dunkerque, the same,
des royers were at work, but the residents interposed
sooner, and saved nearly all the fine avenue planted by
Louis XIV.

Communications
.between Havre and Lille have been
re-established.

The Mobiles in the Orleans district are mostly well
armed, but they want clothing. They are imperfectly
covered for winter campaigning.
ie sanitary condition of the German, armies in the
field is stated to have much improved, sickness baying
genbrally decreased. The lazarettoes contain, in fact
10,000 men less than at the end of October.

Pr. Russell says that orders have been given to Prince
Frederick Charles to urge the pursuit to the uttermost—
to destroy, if possible, any nucleus, any rallying power
in the great hope of France, and the great apprehension
of the German leaders—the Army of the Loire.
The:Berlin correspondent of the Daily News says that •
from the statements of prisoners captured in the recent
engagements before Paris, it is once more doubted
whether the voluntary surrender of the city is as near as •
was calculated. The destruction of some of the forts by
heavy artillery is again contemplated.
At Strasburg the restoration of the houses injured or
demolished during the siege has been,f or the present for-
bidden, as the streets are to be laid' out on a different plan.
The savings bank has been opened, and was thronged' on
the first day by 1,800 persons.

There appears to be a good deal of squabbling going on
among the generals of the armies of Paris, and Generals
Ducrot and Blanchard were oil the point of drawing their
swords .on each other in presence of the enemy. The
latter blamed the resolution of repassing the Marne.
The weather before Paris during the last few days hag
been atrocious indeed to be wounded in. Snow, a thaw,
and a heavy rain have succeeded each other. To lie
out in the open air for hours, with a bad, perhaps a.
mortal wound, under these pitilessly inclement skies, is to
have another horror added to the devilish pains and penal-
ties of war.

There will be great difficulty in sendltig any reinforce-
ments to the Army of the Loire. Besancon and Lyons
may spare a portion of their garrisons, and it is possible
that a few thousands of Mobiles may be sent up' from the
South; but already France bas been swept of troops to
strengthen the Army.of the. Loire. The Army of the
North, which is not at present menaced, could perhaps
spare another 10,000 men, but the distance is a long one.
The Due de Luynes, who fell on Friday last at Orleans
was captain in a battalion of Mobiles. He he was heading
his company in 'a charge when a shell carried away half
his breast, killing him on the spot. He was only 30 years
of age. He served formerly in the PonAcal Zouaves,
returned to France, and married the daughter of the Duke
of Bisaccia. He was killed on the third anniversary of
his wedding day. His youngest child is only six weeks old.
The Helicon, 2, paddle-wheel dispatch vessel, Com-
mander Henry P. Crozier, stationed at Portland, received
orders on Thursday afternoon to proceed to Havre for the
protection' of British interests ; the Dasher, 2, paddle-
wheel vessel, Commander William P. Johnson, stationed
off the Channel Islands, was on Thursday ordered to
Dieppe fora similar purpose ; and the Buzzard, 2, paddle-
wheel sloop, at Portsmouth, has been ordered to be kept
in readiness to start at a moment's notice.

On the morning after the great sortie from Paris, about
eight o'clock, rumours of success began to be circulate d
in the streets, and many of the Provision.dealers brought
out stores of butter, sardines, and other comestibles of
which they had previously "no more' in stock." Hams
were offered in the Rue Neuve des Capucines. At about
one in the afternoon the supplies fell off, and by four
o'clock the dealers were again asserting that .they
" had none of these things, and had had none since the
in vestment. "

The Prussians have a peculiar manner of dealing
with Luxemburg railway plant, which shareholders
in the Luxemburg company may be glad to hear
of. All French railway waggons.that arrive on territory
occupied by the Prussians, even with neutral goods, are
immediafely confiscated, and the Luxemburg Railway
being a branch of the Eastern Railway of France, its
waggons are subjected to the same regulation as the
others. Directly a train comes in, a man with a paint
brush coolly paints out the company's distinguishing
marks, and puts a Prussian one in its place, and the wag-
gons are then usually sent on towards Metz.
The 'North German Gazette states that the prisoners taken
in the sortie of the 29th included many soldiers above 401
years of age, who had gone through the Crimean, Italian,
and Mexican campaigns. They described the service in
the trenches, of which some of them had nearly three
months' experience, as extremely fatiguing, and com-
plained of the unequal distribution of military duties, as
the Mobiles, mostly cantoned between the forts and the
walls, can go into Paris without any difficulty, while the
troops of the active army have been consigned to the forts
for nearly two months, with scarcely any interruption..
They made no complaint as to food.
FRENCH AND GERMANS IN BELGIUM.—An expla-
nation has been forwarded to the Belgian Moniteur with
respect to the different positions in which the German and
French wounded in Belgium are placed. "The French,"
it is said, " before entering Belgium were the prisoners of
Germany, who might have retained possession of them, and
were only entrusted to the Belgians on condition that they
should be kept as prisoners after they were cured of their
wounds... The German wounded, on the contrary, were
free ; they came to' Belgium. free, and without arms, on
the demand of Belgium, who desired to prove her neutra-
lity by taking equal care of both belligerents, and they
would not have been sent there could they not have left
after their restoration to health. Besides these, there are
Some Germans in Belgium who. entered the territory
armed, and were' arrested and rightly regarded as pri-
soners, which is a very different affair."
EX-FRENCH MINISTERS ON THEM DEFENCE.—A.
long andelal,vrate letter from M. Benedetti to a personal
friend has been published, in which the late French Am-
bassaclpr at the Court of Berlin seeks to exculpate himself
from blame with regard to the declaration of war and the
subsequent disasters that have accrued to France. He
declares that when he was sent to Ems he was engaged
for four days in negotiating and in soothing the suscepti-
bilities of the King of Prussia, while endeavouring to
obtain the renunciation of the Prince of Hohenzollern of
the Crown of Spain. The design to unite Belgium to
France is entirely a Prussian conception. The Duc de
Gramont has also published explanations, in which he
says :—" Neither France nor its government had any
thought of attacking Prussia. Only legitimate guarantees
were claimed, and the: King refused all these, with the
preconcerted design of making war. The unjust aggres-
sion came from Prussia. France was driven into war
against its will."

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