The Sun.
London, England, 1870-09-14 00:00:00

INTERVIEWING BISMARCK.

The Standard correspondent at Rheims sends the
following account of an interview with Bismarck, at the
King's head-quarters :—" I have had another and a longer
interview with Count Bismarck ; not quite across the
walnut and the wine, but over, at least, that champagne
in the heart of whose native soil we are, and
which is now flowing so freely down German
throats. He was full of talk, and all of the
liveliest kind. 'We shall stay here to-morrow, I think,
he said, and perhaps the day after. We must give the
Parisians time to cook in their own juice.' He made very
merry over the new French Ministry, of whose composi-
tion I now heard for the first time. But he had also his
jokes against his own countrymen. He had just received
a letter from home. My wife writes,' he said, that
I complain of our German bands and their bad music,
but adds that they are just as badly off in that
respect at Frankfort.' I inquired about his son,
who, I had heard, had lost both legs at Mars-la-
Tour. He answered merrily that he was hit only in one,
and that one he should save, though the ball went in at
the thigh and came out near the knee. He and his horse
and the saddle had five wounds among them, the horse
two, the saddle one, and the rider two. 'lt is well,' he
said, the French fire so hurriedly and at such a dis-
tance, for their weapons are magnificent. But every
sportsman knows what is the effect of aiming at
an entire covey of partridges, instead of covering a single
bird. You hit none. That is their case, luckily for us.'
He went on to describe the fortunes of his other son on
the same day ; how he was seen to fall with his horse,
and was left for dead, but how he met his father, safe
and sound, the same evening. The Minister himself
had a little share in the events of that day's battle.
which he related with much gusto. He was appealed
to by a French priest, who found himself at a critical
moment kept for the nonce a prisoner. There were good
reasons for his detention, into which it is not necessary to
enter; but the priest appealed to his gown, and pro-
tested violently against the detention. 'lt is quite
right,' said the Minister, for all that. If you were
to attempt to go, I would shoot you myself.' At
length the moment arrived when the priest could safely
be released. *By this time his good humour had re-
turned, and he departed with the polite assurance that
the Minister, in his long career of civil duty, had not for-
gotten the trade and functions of a soldier. The com-
pliment was narrated with evident satisfaction, for in this
laud civilians are looked down upon, and I have myself
heard the phrase applied to Count Bismarck, He is only
a civilian.' He is himself not of that opinion, as the
anecdote shews. But in whatever character we regard
him, he is certainly one of the heartiest, frankest, and
most genial of mankind."

THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE
AID OF THE WOUNDED.

The special correspondent of the Telegraph, in a letter
dated Bouillon, September 10, has the following severe
remarks on certain members of this charitable under-
taking :—"I fear greatly—and, mind, I am speaking
in the interests of both sides—that in the application
of the immense subscriptions raised by the Inter-
national Socioty, the European benevolent public
is being somewhat led astray. In every town,
and at every hotel of every town I have visited
during the last two months, there are many of
these ambulance gentlemen taking their ease, and doing
nothing whatever of the work which they volunteered to
do. For instance, here, near Bouillon, there is a village
called Givonne, on the road to Sedan, and about three
miles from the latter place. At Givonne there are per-
haps two hundred and eighty or three hundred wounded.
Of these one /hundred or so are Prussians. They have
their own military ambulances, their own military sur-
geons, and everything admirably arranged. Their army
came into campaign fully prepared to take care of all
their wounded. The French came, as usual, trusting to
chance or to Providence, and having really no
hospital establishments whatever of their own. At
Givonne they blindly trusted, as they seem to have done
in everything during this war, to the good offices of
others. The International Society is expected to take
charge of their wounded, but it does not do
so. If I have seen one member of the International So-
ciety hanging about the hotels at Sedan, Charleville,
Bouillon, Francheville, and other places, during the last
few days, I must have seen a round hundred. Even now,
as I write, some eight or nine are chattering away on the
steps of the hotel. I have only been here-twenty-four
hours, but in that time three ambulance waggons of the
International Society have passed through always
spending a night at the hotel—laden with everything
that can make the lot of the wounded less horrible
than it would otherwise have been. But to the wounded
they do not hasten. At Givonne the wounded are all in
the church. They are lying upon damp straw. They have
nothing to eat, no medicine, no medical comforts, no beds,
nothing that can help in any way to their recovery.
The only medical assistance the French wounded
get is from the already overwwked zealous and anxious
Prussian doctors, and from the two still more over-
worked medical man, civilians, of Bouillon. A more
painful and, considering the immense amount of
money subscribed. for this charity, a more
unnecessary scgte •I never witnessed. I am but
a bird of passage, and twenty-four hours from
this I shall be many miles from Bouillon ;
but I would, and I do, most earnestly recom-
meta the International Society to send out some
persons in whom they have full confidence, to in-
vestigate what their ambulances are really doing.
To me, and to whom I have spoken on the
subject, these gentlemen seem to be loafing'
too much about the land, passing their time as agreeably
as they can, fussing to the hotels, singing their own
praises, but doing very little. Nor is this my own solitary
opinion. To-day, as three special correspondents of
English papers, and one Englishman who represents the
leading New York payer, were breakfasting together,
some French gentlemen approached them, andbegged them
to write and make known to their several employers how
backward the ambulances of the International Society
were in their work—or rather how entirely they seem to
think that the end and aim of their business out here is to
travel from town to .own, and talk about the work before
them. French and Prussian military men agree in this.
In no single military ambulance have any of these amateur
medical assistants "taken off their coat," so to speak,
and gone to work like men at what they engaged to do.
The only exception I can make is in favour of some
of the German volunteers who came to the frontier to
help in the hospitals after the first affair. These were
obliged to weck ; they were under the eye of the
Prussian military authorities, and had they not
done ..iso; they would have simply been turned out
of the camp. The Sisters of Charity, whether French
or German, are, as usual, all that can be desired. What
wonderful women these are ! They indeed do, and talk
not. But I assure you that owing to the number of
flaneurs who wear the red cross on, a white band, and to
the vast number of ambulances that are always to be met
with at the door of every hotel in Alsace, the
Ardennes, and on the Belgian frontier, the International
Society is getting—l infinitely regret to state it—to be a
mere byword, a pleasant joke upon a grim subject, on
the theatre of the war. lam thankful that few of those
mixed up with the management of the concern here are
Englishmen."

The Rappel states that the Provisional Government
Las determined to abolish the punishment of death, and II
t,) that effect will Aliortly be 2~ublisl►ed,