The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-23 00:00:00

THE WAR.

BALLOON NEWS FROM. PARIS

An English letter of the 11th found in the balloon
which fell the other day in Germany, contains some in-
teresting particulars The Government has stopped
the formation of the assemblies of delegates, who had
arrogated to themselves the power of watching the mili-
tary and civil' administration. These committees, which
had taken the name of 'Family Councils of the Companies
of the National Guard,' have been replaced by committees
of ' mutual help.' The Belleville bakers had insisted on
being paid for the bread whioh they supplied to the army,
and on the Government, for want of money, offering them
flour in payment, they refused to make any more bread.
The next day there was none in Belleville, and a tem-
porary panic resulted. I read in another letter that
the commandant of Mont Val4rien, General Noel, has
complained of the pillage and devastation com-
mitted by the Mobiles of Ruel and Nanterre.
The order has just been given to fire on anybody
passing beyond the line of outposts. The General has
been authorized by the Governor to try criminals by a
council of war meeting at Mont Val4rien. The energetic
and heroic attitude of General Trochu has silenced his
most obstinate adversaries among the Paris press. The
restaurants are closing one after another for want of
meat. There are no more potatoes. There is abund-
ance of coffee,' wine, and bread, the price of which has
not risen. The prices of other eatables are enormous,
and thus quoted—a cabbage 5f., a carrot 5f., a fat
rabbit 25f., an ordinary turkey 60f. to 70f., and a
chicken 157 f."

OUTRAGE UPON ENGLISHMEN BY
PRUSSIANS.

A very remarkable story reaches us from Versailles.
Five English gentlemen ha' e, it seems, been imprisoned
in Etampes in the most arbitrary manner, in-
sulted, and treated with indignity. The whole
affair was the more extraordinary As one of
the gentlemen so treated was the Assistant-Military
Commissioner sent out by the British Government,
another was Mr. Landells, the artist, and two of the

others officers in the British army. All of them
were, moreover, furnished with passes duly signed
by the respeetive chiefs of the Royal German staffs.
They were all known to one another, and on the evening
of the arrest had agreed to sup together. Captain Frazer
one of them, is a member of the International Society
and had been engaged for some days in the neighbourhood
of Orleans in attending to the wounded on
both sides. His journey to Versailles

taken with the object of procuring medical stores
from the British agency for the sufferers, both German
and French, in the recent actions near Blois. Mr. Lan-
dells, the well-known painter, is actually attached to the
Crown Prince's staff, and had special permits for visiting
the outposts. All these advantages, however, proved
fruitless. The beginning of the difficulty was that while
the Englishmen were seated at supper in the Hotel at
Etampes, an armed dragoon took up his place near them,
but though surprised at this they did not take any notice.
Some Prussian officers were seated in the same room.
Mr. Landells' servant presently told him that
the soldiers would not allow his coachmen to get
fodder for his horses. Mr. Landells went to inquire into
the matter, but the Bavarian soldiers who thronged the
staircase would not let him pass, nor would they release
the coachmen. Much perplexed, he went back to the
room to tell his friends the occurrence, when the Etappen
Commandant walked in, and, tapping Capt. Frazer roughly
on the shoulder, cried, " Produce your papers." Captain
Frazer, not a little surprised, gave them, asking why they
were wanted. In answer he was told that he had been
seen escaping from Toury with two white horses, and was
suspected of being a spy. The white horses belonged
to Mr. Landells, who came forward and claimed them,
producing his own papers. Captain Hozier, who was in
full uniform, and had his official papers with him, as
assistant Military Commissioner, here interposed, and
offered to give his word of honour as a British officer for
the other gentlemen who were all personally known to
him. . He received the flattering answer that his
uniform was just the one to be worn by a
French spy, and as for papers, he might have picked them
up ; it was easy to pick up such passes about the country.
As for his offer to be guarantee for the identity of his
friends, it did not meet with much more favour than
his personal claims to respect, for Captain Hozier
himself and Captain Brackenbury, his travelling com-
panion, were placed under close arrest, and the other
three gentlemen, Captain Frazer, Mr. Landells, and Mr.
White, were marched off to separate rooms guarded by
soldiers with fixed bayonets. All remonstrance was
Ifseless, and to increase the discomfort of the
prisoners, every successive change of guard went through
the process of verification of their identity. In the
morning Mr. Landells went down to the dining room to
get some coffee, and found Captains Hozier and Bracken-
bury under strict guard. Mr. Landells was at
once ordered off by a soldier who had followed
him and told him he must not leave his room again.
Captain Frazer and Mr. White did not get even so far as
Mr. Landells, but were kept closely confined in their
rooms the whole day. They could not meet, and there-
fore had to confer by the windows. They had beenarrested
on Wednesday evening, Captains Hozier and Bracken bury
being then en route from Versailles to Prince Frederick
Charles's headquarters, Captain Frazer and the two
civilians being on their way to Versailles. On Friday
morning the three last were sent in a guarded carriage
to Versailles, Mr. White's horse being tied behind
the carriage. They had neither food nor rest during
the tedious journey whose end was not reached till Satur-
day afternoon. After waiting some time at Versailles in
the courtyard of the Commandant, General Voight-
Rhetz, listening to the insults of the German by-
standers, they hailed the arrival of an English
officer of rank, Major-General Beauchamp, Walker, C.B.
After a considerable amount of persuasion, he induced
General Voight Rhetz to release his countrymen on his
security that they should be produced if necessary. They
were compelled, however, to give their parole that they
would not leave the place until the affair was investi-
gated. The only excuse that could be given for their
arbitrary imprisonment was that Major Hollweger, the
boorish Prussian officer at Etampes did not believe that
they were the same persons as their passes and
papers described them to be. Yet the papers
in question were signed by Prussian staff offi
cers of the highest rank, and as General Walker,
the British Military Commissioner, officially undertook
to be responsible for them, it was not a little singular that
they remained the objects of manifest suspicion. Captains
Hozier and Brackenbury were allowed to leave for Prince
Frederick Charles's headquarters the same morning
as their less fortunate companions started for Versailles•
No apology was made to them for the outrage inflicted
upon them by the imprisonment and delay they had
suffered. But the other three, when they
left Etampes, were driven off in the midst
of

a shouting crowd, while a similar group
assembled at the gates of Versailles to greet the arrival
of the English prisoners into the city. Great indignation
is expressed by Englishmen in both Versailles and Etainpes,
and the matter is not improved by the fact that all Cap-
tain Hozier's telegrams addressed to the Crown Prince,
Prince Frederick Charles, General Blumenthal and other
distinguished persons, were kept back, although • he was
solemnly promised that they should be forwarded as soon
as written.

THE PROJECTED BONAPARTIST
RESTORATION.

The statements that intrigues for a restoration by force
of the Emperor Napoleon are on foot have often been discre-
dited : but, perhaps, no further doubt will remain when the
following- letter is read. It is addressed by Captain De
Haut, of the French staff, a prisoner in Germany to the
Independance Beige, and appears amongst the protests by
captive French officers against Imperialist designs, of
which so many have been published in that journal :
" MONSIEUR. LE REDACTEUR,—Here is a fact which I
bring under the notice of all my comrades, prisoners in
Germany. I have seen a stranger here at Mayence,
for three days past, who had come from London, Cologne,
Coblentz, having passed by Wilhelmshohe. He was
going to Wiesbaden, Stuttgart, Munich, Ulm, Dresden,
and Leipsic ; recommending himself by an auto-
graph letter of the Emperor which I have read.
This person put forward schemes of a restoration, and was
surprised to find so little personal attachment for
Napoleon 111. in the army. He extolled the courage
of the Emperor at Sedan, and gave small praise
to the members of the Government of National
Defence. We have long known that our deposed
sovereign had a genius for intrigue, but we hoped that
he was not now seeking to prepare a restoration which
would infallibly lead to civil war. But sooner or later
the mask falls, the hero vanishes, the adventurer remains,
—Accept, monsieur, &c.,

A. DE HAUT, Staff Captain.

The Times' Tours correspondent places the whole losses
of the French during the first ten days of December at
150,000 men.

There is some danger of Faidherbe, with the Army
of the North, being surrounded by the Germans.
Manteuffei has certainly not less than 70,000 men in the