The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-07 00:00:00

RUPTURE OF THE ARIIISTICE NEGOTIATION 3.

The Times says : There is no armistice. The stipula-
tions of the two belligerent Powers have proved absot
lutely irreconcileable, and the negotiations for a trucg
were definitely broken off yesterday afternoon. All
the hopes that have been raised of a suspension of hosti-
lities which might prove the prelude to a lasting

peace are thus dashed to the ground. There can be no
excuse for harbouring any longer delusions as to

the future. There is nothing to relieve its blackness.
No glimmer of light is anywhere apparent. The Pro-.
visional Government has taken a fresh pledgc to abide

by its former declarations. " The Government has
sworn not to yield one inch of territory, and will
remain faithful to this engagement." This was the
speech of M. Fevre in response to the congratula-
tions of the National Guard of Paris on the result of
the vote of confidence; and if anyone thinks M. Favre

spoke for himself alone he will be disabused when he
finds the proclamation of the whole Ministry declaring,
" The Government of the National Defence has absolutely
nothing to change in the policy which it has proclaimed
in the face of the world." This is the resolution
of the Government, and, as far as any evidence
goes, of France. On the other hand, the Germans
do not deceive themselves about the future. They have
been disappointed in finding Paris stubborn, but they now
calculate, with an arithmetical precision which is most
significant, that Paris can hold out for 65 days from the
Ist of November before capitulating through starvation.
If it does not fall before through bombardment, it will fall
on the 3rd of January because it is at the end of its
provisions. Meanwhile. the invaders are ready to
do and suffer all things. They have been fired at
night and day for a month without a chance of re-
turning a shot, and the affair of Le Bourget showed
that while victory may be certain it may be costly.
But they do not hesitate. They do not even shrink
from the anticipation of horrors such as their
countrymen suffered about Met; where huts flooded
with water and rifle pits which had become ponds laid
low 500 a day, many from typhus. They are prepared

for all this. Paris must fall: - Pestilence and slaughter
may strike down besiegers and besieged. Villages may be
burnt in France, and families left fatherless in Germany,
and little children learn by ineffaceable lessons through
the Christmas of 1870 the Gospel of Hatred and
Revenge. It matters not. Two inflexible wills are
in collision, and it is thus, and thus only, that it can be
discovered which has strength enough to grind the other
to powder.
The Daily News thinks that under the circumstances it
need occasion no great surprise that the negotiations for
an armistice have failed, and remarks :—ln all the French
accounts of those negotiations which have been published

it has been assumed as a matter of course that the re-
victualling of Paris would be allowed; and in the state-
ment published in the Journal Officiel this understanding is
stated in the most absolute form as a condition without
which the armistice would not be assented to. In this
official statement it is explicitly declared that the " armis-
tice is subordinate to conditions which the Government of
National Defence had previously demanded on the occa-
sion of the interview at Ferrieres—the re-victualling, and
the vote by the whole of France." This was a very
serious statement, because, in the form in which it was
made, it constituted a pledge given to Paris by the
Government. The date of the declaration is not well
ascertained, but inasmuch as it was telegraphed from
Tours on the sth, it.is not improbable that it was pub.

lished in Paris on the 3rd, and formulated the opinion
upon which the Government gained its very large ma-
jority in the voting on that day. This promise of the
French Government, it may be feared, narrowed its
liberty of negotiation to a serious extent. It will be
remembered that the German journals unanimously
asserted that Count Bismarck would refuse to permit the

supply even of a limited amount of food to Paris during
the armistice. From the French point of view, an
armistice which should leave the Prussians to
apply the pressure of want throughout its dura-
tion might well seem illusory and pernicious ; but
the Germans have something to say on the other side
about the loss of twenty-five days, for which nothing
but the certainty of peace could compensate them. A
concession on this point, however, would not quite have
decided the establishment of an Armistice. The French '
demanded not only liberty to re-victual Paris, but to
introduce fuel into the capital, and to re-victual other
towns against which the Germans were prosecuting war-
like operations. These subjects presented no great
difficulty in themselves, but so far as they went they
showed the tendency of points of difference to multiply.
The Telegraph says : Peace finally refused, and by the
besieged Government at Paris I The intelligence looks
too terrible, too wild to be true ; yet it comes to us with
only too much certainty. And it does but close a wild
story of confusion within the last few days which forms
one of the most startling episodes in that living romance
of history. The feud between the extreme Re-
publicans and the Government, which had gone on
increasing in bitterness ever since the investment of the
capital, had broken out at last into open warfare. It
still is the calamity of France, as it has so often proved
at the most critical periods of her history, that her publics
men, however patriotic, cannot make up their minds to
sacrifice party ascendancy or personal repute to
the, interests of the nation ; and for that reason
they now not only strove to cast the decision
upon the broader shoulders of an Assembly, but in the
meantime they could not abandon the distinction to be
gained by subserving the popular passion of the hour.
Already we know the catastrophe. Even yet, indeed, we
would fain cling to the hope that some
new light may break upon the doomed people;
but we cannot be deaf to the fatal announce-
ment which has actually reached us—that M. Thiers has
received instructions to break off the negotiations for an
armistice, and at once to leave the Prussian head-quarters.
Terrible as the war has been thus far, who dares at such a
moment to look steadily into the inevitable future?
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE NATIONAL DEFENCE.

The Standard says the attempt of the extreme revolu-
tionary party to possess itself of power seems to have con-
firmed and considerably strengthened the authority of the
Government of the National Defence. The suppression,
of an effort so well planned, and in the first in- •
stance attended with such complete success, .in a'
few hours, without bloodshed, and without the
aid of regular or professional soldiers, was in itself
a great triumph for the Government ane for that
cause of order which by a strange irony of fate it repre-
sented. The popular vote upon the question whether
Paris would support the Government is worth even more.
It seems to have been taken freely and fairly enough, for
the numbers of the " Noes" are by no means inconside-
rable ; and assuming it to speak the feeling of the great
city, we must conclude that nine-tenths of the popula-
tion repudiate the " Reds," and desire to see General
Trochu and M. Favre continue the work they have
undertaken of defending Paris as long as defence is possible.
and of resisting the enemy throughout France until resin
tance appears hopeless. The Government of the National
Defence gets by this vote the simulacrum at least of a
legal title. Hitherto it has represented nothing but
some battalions of National Guards—several crowds com-
posed mainly of the men who voted "no confidence"
on Thursday. Its illegal assumption of power had
not been excused by any popular vote. Outside of Paris
General Trochu and his colleagues had not the faintest
right to claim obedience inside Paris ; their best claim
lay in the tacit acceptance of their Government to be
inferred from the absence of any attempt to overthrow
it. But now they may at least pretend that they are
chosen rulers of the capital, and under present circum-
stances Paris has a title she never possessed before to ask
of the provinces the provisional acceptance of a Govern-
ment of her appointment. Count Bismarck's prudery
will be satisfied. The German Minister has hitherto re-
fused to deal with the Government of the National
Defence except in the most distant manner, on the ground
that it had no mandate from the nation—the will of the
people, as expressed in a plebiscite or in the election to a
Constituent Assembly, being for the count, somewhat I°A.:,
in life, the one thing to be regarded.

Finding that the finances of the Middlesex Hospi-
tal are in an unsatisfactory state, Sir Edward R. Jodrell
has sent to the secretary a cheque for £l,OOO, and an inti-
mation that his subscription will be increased from 10 to 20
guineas per annum.
On Friday night Professor Huxley delivered the
first of the second series of " Science Lectures for the
People," at the Huhne Town Hall, on the subject of
"Coral Reefs." The hall was crowded, and many work-
ing men who were anxious to hear the lecture were unable
to find even standing room.
THE LATE MURDER IN IRELAND.--Three men
have been arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the
murder of Murphy, the bailiff. They are sons of a tenant
on Captain Lidswell's estate. They were brought up
before the resident magistrate, and remanded for further
examination. Murphy has left a idow and four children.
It is stated that he was genertilly respected, and his
murder has excited a feeling of horror in the locality.
The barometer has again risen. Pressure is
remarkably uniform. Temperature has fallen somewhat
except in the English Channel, where there is scarcely
any change. Light west breezes prevail in Scotland ;
north-west airs over the North Sea, drawing to north-
east in the Channel and west of France, and very variable
airs in Ireland. The sky is clear in the east of Scotland,
cloudy elsewhere, with fog in many parts of the kingdom.
The sea is calm.