The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-01 00:00:00

THE BURNING OF BAZEILLES.

A letter from Mr. Cosbey in the Manchester Examiner
corroborates the worst accounts that have been given of
the fate of the unfortunate village near Sedan :—" Those
of the villagers who belonged to the Mobile Guard, the
Francs-tireurs, and some of the Marine Guard, remained
and occupied the houses in the main street which leads
direct on to Balan and Sedan, determining to do all they
could to stay the enemy's march through the village,
although they must have well known what little chance
they had against such superior numbers, and in the end
their lives must be sacrificed for so doing : but, as brave
and true patriots, they only thought of their duty to their
country. Immediately the advanced guard of the Prus-
sian army (which consisted mostly of Bavarian troops)
entered the village, fire was opened on them from the
houses, doing great execution, but with their enormous
and quickly increasing numbers they were very soon able to
force the doors and windows of the houses, and then com-
menced a terrible hand-to-hand struggle, which could not,
however, last long, as the Bavarians, with their over-
whelming numbers, soon overpowed the small body of
defenders, but not till they had suffered severe losses—
the French, expecting no quarter, fighting bravely and
valiantly to the last. Up to this time, it was fair
warfare, as is accepted by nations, but the mere
shooting and disabling of their assailants would not
satisfy the Bavarian troops, who were burning with
demoniac vengeance at the loss of so many of the com-
rades, and fearing any, even the wounded, might escape,
determined on firing the houses, which they deliberately
did in blocks, one after the other, and thus the wounded
and dying Frenchmen perished in the flames. Even now
they were not satisfied till they had almost demolished
the houses by shelling them when in flames, and thus
cutting off all chance of escape for these who were hid in
the cellars beneath."

The prisoners who were captured at Toul declared to a
correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette that Metz had pro-
visions for an army for two years. It was the granary
of the surrounding fortresses.
The Emperor is said to feel the wind at Wilhelmsholie,
owing to its elevated situation- He wishes to exchange it
for another residence.
M. Esquiros has written to the Mayor of Marseilles
announcing that the French Government has accepted
the services of the Garibaldian Legion of Volunteers, and
that they will accordingly leave Marseilles to place them-
selves under the military authority at Tours.
The siege of Bitche is not progressing very fast. The
town is a heap of ruins, but the fortress remains without
much damage. Most of the guns and mortars destined
for the siege have proved unserviceable. The fortress is
still uninvested, and as it is impossible to storm it, there
is nothing to do but to wait.
The ex-Emperor communicates with the Empress and
the ImperiAl Prince in England by the German post,
which offers him every facility for so doing. The Emperor
is said to be suffering once more from his old complaint,
but no serious consequences are expected to arise from the
return of the malady.
The Ostsee Zeitung says:—" The rapidity with which
the equipment of the Russian army with breechloaders
is proceeding may be imagined from the fact that in one
of the arsenals—that at Kiew, which is by no means one
of the largest in Russia, 500 percussion guns are daily
converted into breechloaders according to Krupp's plan.
When ready they are immediately distributed among the
troops."

The Defence Committee of Toul has decided that the
night service of that town shall be carried on as in time
of war, and that between the firing of cannon morning
and evening no embarcation will be permitted without a
pass-word. The gates of the town will be closed at 10
p.m. The defence works are progressing vigorously,
especially with regard to the armament of the forts and
the ramparts. The manufacture of torpedoes goes on
with great activity.
The Etoile Beige publishes a letter which it has received
from a Zouave at the camp of Beverloo :—" Sir,- I have
read your article of the 27th, which states, on the autho-
rity of a person coming from Paris, that the Ist Regiment
of Zounves bad retreated in disorder, and that it had been
stopped by the crowd, insulted, and treated as cowards.
I have been in the regiment for fourteen years, and I con-
sider the person who brought this news to be a coward,
and I beg him to come and seek me in the camp at
Beverloo." The Etoile Beige adds a line to say that the
news was brought by a carrier pigeon.

General Cluseret has taken possession of authority at
Lyons in the name of the Red and Socialist Republic.
He is, or was a few days ago, aided by kindred and cha-
racteristic spirits. His body guard consists of sixty
ruffians who have lately been liberated from the travaltx
forces, or galleys, and these, with a few kindred spirits,
form what is called the Comit4 de Saint Public. The
police of the Reign of Terror which governs Lyons is
composed of some 6,000 men who have been liberated
from the criminal gaols. The General's " secretary "is
a gentleman who for many years wore the yellow dress
and the chain on the leg:
Several deplorable fatalities happened at Strasbourg
through the practice of the people taking refuge in their
cellars. Sometimes the houses above them were set on
fire by bombs and burnt down over their heads, burying
them in their ruins. In one cellar a wealthy gentleman,
highly respected,.a patron of art and student of science,
was, with his young wife, two children, and two servants,
miserably crushed and suffocated to death. In another,
two young ladies, teachers in a collegiate institution of
this province, who had gone home to their father's house
at Strasbourg for their vacation, perished under the
debris of that house, together with their father and young
brother ; their mother, fortunately for her, was away on a
visit in the country.
COURAGEOUS RAILWAY INSPECTORS.—III the midst
of the excitement which prevailed while the Prussians
wereiiring on the railway station of Juvisy, M. Fayolle,
one of, the inspectors of the Orleans Railway, saw that a
long train of provisions was stationary on the line, and,
undeterred by the projectiles which •fell around him,
leaped on it, and conducted it safely to Paris. M. de la
Taille, principal inspector of the Orleans Railway, also
displayed great courage. The Prussians fired on the train
in which he was travelling, and he' ordered the engine-
driver to proceed with greater rapidity. The later,
trembling with fright, refused to remain where he was.
" Very well," said M. Taille, " get down ;" and getting
into his place, he guided the engine himself.
THE SURRENDER OF,tTOUL.—A. letter from Arlon
on the 27th gives some details of the surrender of Tole.
The town was first invested on the 14th, and on the even-
ing of the 27th it was burning in twenty-three different
places. The pressure of the inhabitants forced the com-
mandant to hoist the white flag, and the conquerors
entered the town on the same night. The conditions
were the same as at Sedan. The garrison was very weak,
comprising only 60 cuirassiers, 100 men of the line, 40
gendarmes, and 2,000 Mobiles. There was not a single
regular artilleryman. The commandant, Major Huck, is
an old soldier. The German officers were petrified to find how
small a force had blocked the road to Paris during six weeks.
The state of the town is said to be worse than that of
Sedan, though better than Bazeilles. The Gothic Chapel
of St. Gengoulph, which dates from 814, is little more
than a mass of ruins, but the stately Byzantine Cat hedral,
built in 292, is uninjured, except for the demolition of a
window, and the marks of the projectiles. There were
few sick or wounded in Toul. Five hundred Mobiles
served the guns during the siege, but all the male inhabi-
tants who could obtain arms helped to repulse the attack
made on the 16th.

THE GARDE MOBILE.—The Garde Mobile has
all the best qualities of our English Militia, without its
many defects—that is, on paper, but not de facto. The
men of each company are from the same town, the com-
panies of each battalion from the same department.
Therefore, not only is a local esprit de corps-kept up, but
the men have a pride in the good conduct of their res-
pective regiments. But how has the raising of these corps
been carried out? Simply in such a manner as to utterly
disgust the men. The force was never called out
except at Sttasburg, where it has made a name in history
for itself, until long after MacMahon's defeat at Woerth.
When called out it was officered by as useless a set of
creatures as could be discovered in the land. Anyone who
fancied he would look well in the uniform of the corps,
and had a little local interest with the Prefect or Sub-
Prefect, had merely to ask in order to obtain the rank
he wanted. So much so was this the case, and so utterly
inefficient were the officers found to be, that the men who
ought to have held rank in the corps—and this was the
case throughout France—the officers who had retired
from the regular army, were disgusted, and would
have nothing to say to the Garde Mobile. A blight
seems to have rested on the corps, as on everything else in
France during the last few months, and what might have
saved the land from the in.-yader has become little better
than a byword for inefficiency'. After the enemy was well
into France, the Garde Mobile was called out ; and when
the German army had reached the gates of Paris the
french authorities begtai to think it might be as well to
teach their men to handle their muskets and to burn
powder. You would hardly believe—and yet what may
one not believe of France in these days?—that a battalon
of the Garde Mobile was sent from the neighbourhood of
this place the other day to meet the enemy at Clermont,
and that none of the men had ever been taught how to
fire, or even how to load, their rifles.—Correspondent o
Telegraph at Lille.

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ENTRY OF THE ITALIAN TROOPS INTO

ROME.

A correspondeht of the Tablet, writing from Rome
immediately after the entrance of Victor Emmanuel's
troops into Rome, says : " The losses as yet I cannot tell
you. Upon our side they are light. I think as far as
killed go I have only heard of three. Of wounded we
have a good many, though of course our troops were very
much protected by the walls ; but the losses of the enemy
I think must be very great. Early in the engagement
the Italians attempted to take the Porta Pia with a charge.
The Piedmontese cavalry came dashing along the road
towards the gate as thick as bees. One cannon at the gate
opened fire upon them, and ploughed up their ranks so
that they had to retire, leaving heaps of wounded and
dying along the road. Finding that would not do they
put cannon against it, and after some hours, made
breach, they say—l do not know if it is true. The reason
of our having to capitulate was, as one thought pre-
viously, because of the weakness of the fortifications in
certain points. The fire of our artillery, was wonder-
fully accurate; although they were firing at a very
long range they dismounted all the guns of several
batteries. Still as the Piedmontese number, it
is said, was some 80,000, of course, the end musthave
been a capitulation. Certainly all our troops, whether
Italians or not, fought well, and did their duty magnifi-
cently. I do not think a complaint can be brought against
them ; but the civilians have behaved with ,true Italian
meanness and cowardice. No sooner had' the Italians
marched in than the place was hung with Italian banners
and colours, and everyone ready to shout ' Viva;
l'ltalia !' The ambulance service where we were was
anything but good, for we had not a single
ambulance waggon the whole • time, and we had to
carry all the wounded men on our backs to
the hospital." Referring to Sergeant Shea, an Irish
Zouave, who was seriously wounded, this correspondent
says :—"We have got all the facts about Shea from an
English corporal who was with Shea at the moment of
their being attacked. Apparently, the whole company
went out to reconnoitre, and the captain, as Shea himself
remarked, and as all the men seem to agree, got them into
a very dangerous position at the end of a thickly
wooded valley, along which anything could approach
them unseen. When there, it was a question
of sending forward an advance guard to see what was to
be seen, and Shea, as the oldest sergeant of the company,
claimed the right to lead the guard. Accordingly he was
sent with eight others, and soon after, when advanced
some distance, three hundred lancers came tearing down
upon them, unseen, of course, until quite upon them
because of the wood. The Zouaves, with Shea, killed
some, wounded others, and also brought down the captain.
Shea received a lance wound in his side, and was
afterwards seen by a countryman who came to Rome,
being taken to the rear. He is prisoner with five others.
He will be sadly disappointed at such an early capture,
for he wished for nothing more than to be in the thickest
of the fight. Even the colonel of the regiment is grieved
at his loss, since he was so well known for his courage, and
was a universal favourite of both officers and men.
Vavasour, Woodward, and Wilfrid are in Rome ; Max-
well apparently is not in yet, but expected howdy.

Another correspondent of the Tablet says :—Can I ask
the sympathies ofryour readers for Sergeant Shea of the
Papal Zouaves, who lies in hospital at Terni in Umbria,
with nine sabre wounds received in the late defence of
Rome. This heroic fellow also did most heroically during
the invasion of 1867. He begs now for the prayers of
Catholics. It is the least we can do for him.