The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-03 00:00:00

1111, SUN, LONDON, MONDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1870.

mutiny having occurred under the correspondent's
own immediate observation. The facts certainly
speak for themselves :

Comfortably housed in one of the hotels at Tours,
a cluster of officers of the Francs-Tireurs, deter-
mined, like FALSTAFF, to enjoy their ease at their
inn, seat themselves at table, and begin dining, on
Monday evening. They had brought a large body
of their men into the city during the course
of that afternoon, hungry, thirsty, jaded,
smothered in dust and foot-sore. For weeks these
Francs-tireurs, the Free Lances of France, called to
her aid in her hour of extremity had been without
pay. For days they had scarcely had any food at
all. For the last twenty-four hours, though march-
ing a good part of that time, they had been without
bite or sup. Arrived at Tours they were left to shift
for themselves. They were instructed to billet
themselves as they best could upon the inhabitants.
Other troops, hussars, Garde Mobile, and the rest
had come glittering and fluttering with their colours
into Tours during the course of the afternoon.
Nobody paid the least heed to the poor worn-out
Franc-Tireurs. Doors were closed against them. They
could find nowhere a roof to shelter them, or a bed,
or even a litter of straw, on which to rest their
wearied limbs. A crust or a drink they could nowhere
discover. Night closing in upon them, thus, in the
streets of the city, they become aware that meanwhile
their officers are dining together comfortably, if not
luxuriously, in their hotel. Away to the hotel, of
course, they go ; and into the hotel, into the dining-
room, up to the table, they send a deputation in
remonstrance. Angry words arise ; the men are
infuriated; the officers are haughty and domineering ;
the deputation is driven forth, each member of it
with a flea in his ear. The news maddens their
comrades who are waiting outside. Two offi-
cers alone come out from the mess-table to
the mutineers ; the rest of the officers remain
disdainfully at table carousing. There is a tumul-
tuous scene at the gateway of the hotel, resulting at
last in all but a massacre. One of the two officers,
after raving at the leaders of the mutiny, presents
revolver at the Franc-Tireurs, and actually fires one
of the barrels right into the surging mob of the
soldiery, wounding one of the men, it is said, in the
shoulder. Thereupon an impetuous private raises
hislChassepot to retaliate„ but the other officer,
by rushing on him, and forcing dOwn the barrel
of the weapon, prevents his firing a shot which must
otherwise, in all human probability, have ended, as
we have said, in a complete massacre. Only by a
hair's breadth, it appeared, was that imminent peril
escaped. The gates of the hotel, after a fierce
struggle, are with difficulty closed, and the maddened
men and the domineering officers kept apart. It is a
type of the whole. It is indicative of the antagonism
between the two classes. This is the secret of
what we have so often read of late, as this
mysterious " demoralization." The selfishness of the
officers, their neglect of their men, and all the
estrangement consequently engendered between the
privates and those nominally in command. Where
the French army has failed is in its being committed to
the care of mere drawing-room soldiers, men accus-
tomed to live during years of peace as Sybarites, and
who never dreamt of roughing it with their fellow-
soldiers in the ranks during a campaign that meant the
deadliest fighting, but that they all thought of it as a
mere military promenade. So France has been ruined.
Thus the Grand Army has collapsed. Thus the Great
Nation has been prostrated in the dust, her fairest
provinces overrun and ravaged by the invader, her
beautiful and magnificent capital ringed round
by a victorious host of German warriors, and
threatened, unless it yields, with all the horrors of
bombardment.

IT is impossible not to sympathise with the spirit
which animates Sir HENRY BULWER'S long letter in
the Times of Saturday. There are few Englishmen
who do not earnestly wish that the Germans could
be magnanimous enough to forego some of the fruits

of their great victory. There are many Englishmen
who believe that it would not only be generous, but
prudent, to abandon all claim to a cession of territory.
Nevertheless, it is impossible not to admit that the
Germans are the best judges of their own affairs, and
if they think that in order to protect themselves
from future attack they ought to acquire Alsace and
Lorraine, it is not for us to say nay. Advice, indeed,
we may give them, and though it is scarcely likely
that the advice will be greatly heeded, no
tear of what is called a humiliating rebuff
should make us refrain from offering it.
As Sir HENRY BULWER well says, it is not humi-
liating to speak what you think, it may be humiliat-

ig not to do so. Even if to speak be humiliatin,

Englishmen will bear the humiliation, because they
will feel their conscience satisfied that their Govern-

lent, whether successfully or unsuccessfully, has

done its duty at this crisis —"a duty
which requires England to speak honestly and
independently, though it does not require her to act
in the present position of affairs." There is un-
doubtedly with many persons an excessive sensitive-
ness. Too many Englishmen will not incur the risk
of a small evil to themselves for the chance of
preventing a great evil to another nation. The
diplomacy of Lord RUSSELL has sickened
many of us against diplomacy altogether.
But there is a wide distinction between
his acrid despatches and undisguised threats on the
one hand, and the courteous advice which appeals
solely to the moral qualities of those to whom we
offer it on the other. it was the extremity of national
humiliation when our Ministers, having threatened
to send the Channel Fleet into the North Sea if Ger-
many did not desist from her attack upon Denmark,
ate their own words when it was found that they
produced no effect. But there is no need of repeat-
ing such a miserable blunder as that. Wholly
friendly counsel should be offered, in. proper time
and place, even though it should be not only rejected,
which is likely enough, but rejected with insult,
which is exceedingly unlikely.
Neither English, nor any other statesmen,
are in the habit of announcing at public meetings,
or confiding to the editors of newspapers, the dis-
patches which they have written, or the negotiations
which they are still conducting. Perhaps it is un-
fortunate that Parliament is not sitting now, and
that for this reason we are shut off from the usual
legitimate source of information. Nevertheless, we
think it likely enough that nothing like de-
finite mediation has been offered. When
the Empire was still in existence, and before the war
actually broke out, Lord GRANVILLE distinctly warned
the Duke of GRAMONT that if he persisted in the
war, after Prince LEOPOLD of HOIIENZOLLERN had
been withdrawn, France would have the opinion of
Europe against her. No attention was paid to that
warning ; in fact, the Duke distinctly declared that
he had England on his side. Then the difficulty
of our diplomatists was to get the French Govern-
ment to listen to us. Now the difficulty is to find a
Government which we can address. M. JULES
FANTRE is merely acting Foreign Secretary, . and
neither he nor any of his colleagues can say—to use

tui .A.uglo-Indoism—that their appointments are
pucka. They may be swept away by a new
revolution as rapidly as they themselves swept
away the Empire. There is not the smallest guaran-
tee of stability, not the slightest certainty that the
Government, in whose name we, undertake to plead,
will not have ceased to exist before the con-
ditions which we suggest can be carried

into effect. M. FAVRE would not, or could
not, consent to make the sacrifices de-
manded in order to obtain the necessary ratification
And. consolidation of his Government, though he
must have known that the condition of two of the
fortresses demanded by Prussia was desperate.
While such is the obstinacy of the French on the one
hand, while such is the overwhelming strength of
the Prussians on the other, we are not surprised if
the English Government, in common, apparently,
with the Governments -of all the other neutral
Powers, deem it hopeless to offer advice.
Not the less may we have clear views of what we
believe would be the best solution of the present
painful problem. There are some who think that
the only chance, or, at all events, the best chance of
peace in the future, is the separation of the two com-
batants, rather than their closer contiguity, which
is what Count BISMARCK proposes. Instead
of shifting the German frontier up to the 'Vosges
nountains, let there, it is said, be a thick partition
wall built between France and Germany; in the
shape of one or more neutral states. Let Nice and
Savoy be annexed to Switzerland, thus gratifying inci-
dentally the Republican tendencies of the district which
gave birth to GARIBALDI. To the same republic add
the Vosges Mountains, and either let Luxemburg join
this extended Switzerland, or let it be annexed to Bel-
gium. There would thus be a continuous wall
shutting out France from Prussian invasion, and
Prussia from French attack, and extending from the
Mediterranean to the North Sea, from Italian Nice to
Dutch Groningen. This is the proposal of a well
known man of letters, who, under the signature of
"S.D." wrote in the Pall Mall Gazette
a few days ago. It is a proposition
which has much to recommend it. No
doubt small States lying in the path of two
great States impose a certain, amount of obligation
and anxiety upon the other Powers. On the other
hand, they have proved signally successful on many
an occasion, and never more so than during the pre-
sent war. It is due entirely to the creation of the
little Kingdom of Belgium in 1830 that the war of
1870 has not extended over a still wider area, and
caused still greater misery than has resulted.

A. MOST extraordinary statement is made in one of
our London contemporaries. It will be remembered
that a few weeks ago Sir
.JOHN THWAITES, chair-
man of the Metropolitan Board of Works died,
and that when the choice of a successor first
became discussed, Mr. BRUCE informed the Board
chat in all probability their functions would cease
under the Act for the local government of the
metropolis, which the HOME SECRETARY has pro-
mised to introduce next session. Subsequently there
was a rumour that Mr. AYRTON was to be elected,
but the rumour died away, and we believe that this
most popular of ministers is not even a
candidate. It is now stated that Mr.
BRUCE some time ago wrote a private letter to
the Board informing the members that if Mr.
AYRTON were elected the proposal to abolish the
Board would be allowed to drop. This statement
seems to us well nigh incredible. We can readily
understand that the Government would go
very far in order to be relieved of such a
colleague as Mr. AYRTON; but independently of the
fact that it is by no means certain if Mr. AYRTON'S
election to the Board of Works would be inconsistent
with his retaining office as a Minister, we
cannot bring ourselves to believe that Mr.
BRUCE, or any other Minister, would impose
a permanent burden upon the metropolis, and
obstruct the great work of municipal reform which
be is pledged to carry out, in order to be relieved
from a troublesome member of the Government. If
Mr. GLADSTONE thought that on the whole it was
better to have Mr. AYRTON'S assumption in the
Ministry than his threatened loquacity outside, that
is Mr. GLADSTONE'S afthir. But to maintain a use-
less
office, and to place in it a wholly unsuitable
nian, would be too flagitious a proceeding. If we
were inclined to doubt the statement at all
our doubt would be confirmed by the fact that Mr.
AYRTON is still busy at his post of First Commis-
sioner of Works, and is destroying that portion of
Kensington Gardens which a large majority of the
House of Commons last Session forbade him to de-
stroy. Even Mr. AYRTON would scarcely venture to
do this at the time when he is a candidate for
another office. Anyhow, it may be taken as certain
that Mr.. AYRTON is not to be the new chairman,
and that he is now venting his disappointment
and wrath on the unfortunate railings of the Gardens.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.