The Sun.
London, England, 1870-07-15 00:00:00

SIGNS OF WAR.

The French papers of Wednesday are full of details re-
specting warlike preparations lately made :—The Salut Pub-
lic of Lyons states that on Saturday morning many young
men ofiGerman nationality, employed in commercial houses
of that city, and enrolled in the cadres of the militia reserve
of North Germany, received orders to repair to Mayence
within five days at the latest. The Memorial de la Loire
remarks the same thing. The Eclaireur of St. Etienne states
that the gunmakers of that town have received orders to sup-
ply a large quantity of interchangeable portions of muskets to
the various arsenals. TheFranche Compte says :—" We are
assured that this morning (Monday) an order was received
by telegraph at the arsenal at Besancon to put eight
batteries of artillery on a war footing. From Brest we
learn that the ironclad squadron of the North, unde
Rear-Admiral Dieudonne, left the roads on Friday night
st eight o'clock. In the Message,. du Midi of
Toulon we read that the large two-decked trans-
port L'Entreprenante has received orders to fit
out instantly to bring over cavalry from Africa.
Fodder is being embarked with all speed for 350
horses. They have not exactly received their final orders,
but this is the first step towards their future execution.
The Journal de Bordeaux says that a Ministerial circular,
dated July 9, addressed by Marshal Le Bceuf to all the
commanders of corps, direct them to send into the War
Department as soon as possible a list of the officers under
their orders who, through age or weakness, would desire
to be admitted into the Garde Mobile, whether with
their own rank or with promotion. A correspondent
of the Gaulois, writing from Emss, states that the fortifi-
cations of Prussian towns have been carefully attended to,
and are now in the same condition as they would be if
they were actually besieged. The troops can be put in
motion within two hours. In a week the reserves, and
the furlough men could be collected under arms, and the
frontiers are already covered with strong bodies of troops.

AGITATION IN PARIS.

The Paris correspondent of the Telegraph, writ

ing on Thursday, gives a lively account of the ex-
citement which reigned in Paris during the worst
time of the war fever. " The morning papers were
full of warlike prophecies and fierce threats, after
the manner of the preliminary compliments that those
bragging and long-winded Greek heroes used to address to
their Trojan antagonists, ere they slew them with spear
and falchion. The bray of trumpets sounded down every
column—the smell of powder was exhaled from every
paragraph. As for the roughs of Paris, who make patriot-
ism an excuse for outbreaks of very irksome blackguardism,
they gave us a taste of their lively dispositions and ver-
satile accomplishments last night on the Boulevards.
Bands thirty and forty strong marched up and down
between the kiosks and cafes, yelling anathemas in
prose and ribald insults in verse, alike addressed to
the obnoxious Prussians. Any respectable-looking
person suspected by these ardent citizens to be
of ultra-Rhenan birth or extraction was inso-
lently asked whether he was an accursed mangeur
de chmtcraute—an epithet of obloquy kindly sup-
plied to the population of Paris by M. Paul de
Cassagnac—and, if he did not instantly reply in the nega-
tive, he was hooted at ferociously. As for the Bourse, it
went mad. Securities were being hawked about passion-
ately, at sheerly ruinous prices, brokers were selling
against time, and the countenances of private speculators
exhibited every conceivable kind of expression, heightened
by excitement to caricature. From four to five, however,
this evening the Petite Bourse was the scene of a reaction
scarcely less remarkable everything went .up with a
jerk, and when I last heard from the `Passages' had been
`left rising.' Indeed, we have had a narrow squeak of it
about the nearest thing to a great catastrophe that has
ever occurred. The Luxembourg imbroglio was nothing
to it. This Government did wonders in the way of pre-
paration, and proved triumphantly that the system of
organisation established within the last four years
will stand any strain, however sudden or severe,
put upon it by the whirligig of politics. One
hundred and forty thousand men were massed
upon the Eastern frontier, ready to attack simul-
taneously at three different points ; a powerful and
splendidly-appointed fleet was gathered together, steam
up, prepared to swoop down upon the long line of
Northern coast with an expeditionary force sufficiently
powerful to hold in check a large Prussian army. France
was resolved to strike the first blow, should fighting be
deemed the order of the day ; and gigantic measures
had been taken to render that blow terrible and para-
lysing for her enemies. Thank Heaven, the danger is
averted !"