The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-02 00:00:00

THE STATE OF FEELING IN TOURS.

I hear sensible Frenchmen regret M. Gambetta's hasty
charge of treason against Marshal Bazaine, who, there is
accumulated evidence to shew, did not surrender till his
garrison was threatened with immediate starvation. Whe-
ther such a fine army ought not at some previous time
to have cut its way through the besieging force may be
a military question to be examined. But the French
nation seems to have lost its fighting qualities. A func-
tionary who was present at the capitulation of Soissons
tells me that when the balls began to whistle about their
heads he saw the regular troops by hundreds throw down
their arms, unbuckle their knapsacks, and run away
as hard as they could. The same thing occurred
at Orleans and in many other places. It is not
to the superiority of German artillery, nor even to the
superiority of German generalship, but to German
bravery pitted against French cowardice, that the' as-
tounding fact of upwards of a quarter of a million of fight-
ing Frenchmen being at this moment prisoners of war is
to be attributed. There is much individual gallantry,
heroism, and patriotism, but the fact seem 3 to be conclu-
sively proved by the absence of a single grand success
of any importance since the beginning of the war
that the masses of Frenchmen of this generation cannot
be got to risk their lives for their country as their fathers
did, and as the Germans of the present day do. A great
many people do not hesitate to say publicly this morning
that the capitulation of Metz must be the end of the war.
It is an event which must greatly strengthen M. Thiers'
hands when he endeavours to second the attempt of
the Neutral Powers to stay the further effusion of blood.
It is telegraphed from London that one favourite scheme
of diplomacy is to induce Prussia to take Luxemburg
instead of Alsace, France paying the purchase money to
the King of Holland. But a considerable objection
to this combination is that the Luxemburgeois
do not at all want to be sold. M.
Thiers must, I think, have known of the capi-
tulation of Metz when he left Tours, and to that
knowledge must probably be attributed the reported fact
that he shed tears when getting into the railway carriage.
This much I know for certain, that at the last moment
Madame Bazaine communicated to him a dispatch from
her husband, announcing that the could not hold out any

Longer.

M. GAMBETTA. AND THE WAR NEWS.
The special correspondent of the Telegraph, writing
from Amiens, Oct. 30, says :—lt will be difficult to make
people in England holier° that, up to the time at which I
write—Sunday, 9 p.m.—the Government of France has
not yet published officially the news of the fall of
Metz, which was known in London at 3 p.m.
on Thursday last, and in Amiens on Friday afternoon.
What can the rest of Europe think of Ministers
who, at one moment eager to make known, even without
waiting for confirmation, that a party of thirty Uhlans
have been repulsed by a company of Francs-tireurs, the
next have not the moral courage to announce to people
over whom they rule a misfortune so great as to alter
entirely the position of the war? Do you believe -I con-
fess I do not—that the Government at Tours has not
known, for at least sixty hours, that on the 27th
instant three French marshals, six thousand other
officers, and a hundred and seventy-three thousand men
were obliged to lay down their arms? What can be said
of a Government that so governs? what of a people that
thus, like children, allow themselves to be governed ?
M. Gambetta has not yet fulfilled his promise of keeping
the people of France au courant of what is going
on. We certainly see strange things, and wonderful
events have happened in this war of giants which
is taking—or rather which has taken—place in the year
of grace 1870 ; but never, I imagine, since civilised
governments were known in the world has a Minister de-
nounced as traitors and outlaws (mis hors la loi) gallant
soldiers who had defended a fortress for more than two
months, and who had at last been obliged to capitulate
from want of food without even the pretence of a trial or
inquiry upon the conduct of those who are thus de-
nounced. It almost makes one shudder for the future of
France to read such a document emanating from one of
its leading rulers. It contains an amount of childish
anger, and yet of old-womanish rage, that has never been
yet seen in any proclamation ever set forth by a public
man. And, to a certain extent at least, the trick has
succeeded. Amongst the working men of Amiens, and
even amongst the petty shopkeepers, there are hundreds
who believe that the news of the fall of Metz is an
invention of les journalistes anglais.