The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-19 00:00:00

THE REPORTED FRENCH SUCCESSES AT PARIS.

Although, remarks the Standard. the stories arriving
via balloon and telegraph of French successes before Pails
on the 13th and 14th bear an a,spe,ct of truthfulness,
which has usually been wanting to the bulletins
of the Republic as much as to those of the Empire,
it would be unwise to assume any considerable
French gains, and absurd to attempt to appreciate
at all closely their influence upon the course of
the siege, until we learn some further details, and hear
what version the Prussians have to give of the conflicts
of the two days. But, profoundly distrustful as we ne-
cessarily are of French reports of victories, there certainly
seems good reason to believe that the garrison of
Paris has engaged in a sortie or two, in which,
whatever the cause—greater numbers or the cover
of the forts—the advantage has clearly been on its side.
Assuming this, and we can hardly assume less, there is a
real and large gain to be besieged. The great body of the

troops engaged on the French side in these affairs
were, as we are informed, comparatively raw soldiers—
National and Mobile Guards, that is to say just the class
upon whom successes of the kind would have the
most inspiriting and beneficial effect. It must not be for-
gotten that the chief of General Trochu's tasks is to make
an army out of the heterogeneous mass of soldiers whom
he commands, and that if he could succeed in accom-
plishing that task, he might confidently undertake
to drive the Prussians from Paris. He has men
enough, nobody doubts, if they were only soldiers, and
the question—the forlorn hope, to all appearance, of
France—is, " can he, if the siege only lasts
some weeks longer, turn these citizens and
naturally insubordinate soldiers into a well-dis-
ciplined and well-equipped army?" We offer no
opinion here upon that point ; but certainly the
exercise of the Nationals and the Mobiles in a few success-
ful sorties will greatly aid him to achieve that result,
will restore confidence to the inhabitants of the
capital, and strengthen the authority of the general
himself. Taking the successes of the two days to
be but small affairs in an immediately military point
of view, they promise to have a great political effect.
The Daily News asks, can no method be devised to
bring to bear both on Germany and France the public
apinion of the world ? Humanity is getting tired of a
struggle which seems to continue in mere needless
autrage of its claims and its rights. As hopes of

peace rise for a moment on the horizon and then set in
the gloom of some fresh conflict, there is gradually
rising from the whole heart of Europe a cry of
—Hold. The war has changed its character. The well-
earned victory of Germany and the well-deserved defeat
A France have gone to their extremes, and there is a
wide and growing impression that France has suffered
to the full ; that the calamities of the nation
have been almost in excess of its sins, and

hat Germany has done . enough for honour, for

safety—even for vengeance. But Europe has no officia
3rgan for the expression of this collective opinion, though
:hat it is the collective opinion is becoming more and
more evident every day. A rather curious sign of the
irift of English opinion and sympathy has just been

riven in the tone of two articles on the war

in the two quarterly organs which have a kind
3f antiquarian representative character as belonging
the two great parties in the State. Count Bismarck
nay probably estimate the importance of the Edin-
burgh and Quarterly Reviews more highly than it
is estimated in England, but •as the steady-
g•oiug, deliberate exponents of matured convictions, they
nay at least be allowed to possess a - little, even now,
3f their ancient value in indicating the course opinion
ia.s taken. The articles approach the subject from dif-
ferent points of view. The Quarterly exhibits that strange
phenomenon which the Tory press has exhibited all
through the war, of sympathy with Revolutionary France,
Lad intense dislike of the most truly Tory Sovereign
tad the most thoroughly Tory statesman now existing in
Europe. The Edinburgh, on the contrary, is almost as
much in sympathy with Prussia as the Quarterly is
Lgainst her; and while the Tory organ charges all the
fault of the war on the violence, the aggressiveness, and

the anul,ition of Prussian statesmen and the Prussian
Crown, the Liberal organ lays the sin of the original
aggression at the door of the real aggressor.

THE FATE OF PARIS,

The Telegraph, in discus Sing the reported failure of the
peace negociations, says:— so long :is Metz and Paris hold
out against the German armies, France will not believe
herself to be utterly crushed ; and, until she is utterly
crushed, she will =ever consent to surrender her' Rhenish
Provinces. Not one of her political parties, whether
Legitimist, Orleanist, Bonapartist, or Republican, would
venture to whisper such humiliating counsel. If, to
use an expressive English word, -she has " pluck "
enough to face defeat after defeat, in the hope that the
tide will turn when her troops are organised, it is possi-
ble, although terribly improbable, that she may still gain
a success ; and such a result might so change the political
position as to prevent Count' Bismarck from
exacting the full measure of. his stern conditions.
Again, peace is loudly demanded by a small but
thong party in the Fatherland, constituting, in
elevation of moral tone, the flower of the German people.
That party protests against the forcible annexation of
Alsace and Lorraine, and is hostile to the prolongation
Df the war, when Germany could any day obtain peace
upon such terms as, at the beginning of the
struggle, did not enter into the wildest dreams of her
statesmen. As the contest is prolonged and the weight of
the struggle presses harder on Germany, the Peace party
may gather new power, and become indirectly an ally of
France. Thus resistance is not altogether hopeless,
although misfortunes are accumulating more thickly than
France has much to gain from delay, and her
enemy has everything to lose. The best friends of the
gallant nation will, however, deSire that she may have the
wisdom to recognise the limits beyond which resistance is
hopeless, and further unavailing gallantry will only em-
bitter her fate.

ever.

DROLL BALLOON ACCIDENT.—Apropos Of bal-
loons, I must not forget a droll accident that happened to
one of them some days ago. A balloon, taking Govern-
men despatches, and three passengers, started
from the Orleans railway station towards midday.
The aeronaut expressed his doubts as to the ad-
visability of starting, the weather not being favourable;
but his objections were overruled by the voyagers
—two Americans, I believe. Up they went, in high
spirits at the prospect of the airy little trip before
them. But alas for the fallibility of human hopes ! the
little trip ended ignominiously by a sudden descend
into a pond just outside Paris, and uncomfortably
near the Prussian camp. How the accident hap.
pened has not been clearly shown. Fortunately
the despatches were uninjured, and our travellers,
after remaining three mortal hours up to their necks in
water, swam ashore under cover of the night, and so es-
caped being taken by the Prussians. They reappeared in
Paris some hours later, escorted by two Franc-
tireurs, and, after satisfactorily identifying themselves,
were allowed to depart in peace ; inwardly regretting,
I have no doubt, that they had not been a little less
headstrong. The balloon-makers must wish the siege to
be perpetual, I should think ; for they are doing a roaring
trade—each balloon that starts brings them 5,000 francs,
out of which they have to pay the aeronaut—TVegrqrhe