Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1870-08-21
The Hero of BIiss.

Edmond About writes from "the
frontier" July 18th, as follows: ~
went yesterday to visit a certain
bridge across the Blies which sepa-
rates France from Rhenish Bavaria.
a post striped blue and white, on
which L gave myself the pleasure of
inscrlbIng my name, marks the bound
OF our enemy'S country. If did not
break through, it was not because the
innocent sentinel of Bavaria threat
ened me with his fst-the only arm
he boosted. The French custOm-hOuse
officers are very much more fOrmida-
bic. They said TO me, with the ut
most ~politeness, You are free to
leave our territory, but il is expressly
forbidden US to let any living soul en-
ter Z Nevertheless, they gave read
mittance to an uFchin who went across
to get US some drink. The noble
liquor of Gambrinus is not elassed
among the articles c~Ontraband of war,
although it does serve to heat German
patriotism.
"On the bridge of the Blies l was
told an anecdote which, whether true
or false, will certainly go the round of
all France. l hope to give you the
first of it.
SIT is said that an infantry soldier,
posted as sentinel before the farthest
houses Of the French village of Styr-
ing, was warned by a woman that the
enemy's cavalry approached. The
Uhlans9 she cried. run awayi They
were about two hundred yards away,
and had not crossed the purelyeOn-
venti0nal.barrier which divides Styr-
ing from Rhenish Prussia. The sol
der does not run away he lies
dOwn, covers One among the twenty
five UhlanS who are approaching, and
kills him. a second, and a third, and
a fourth he brings down, without hin
ORANGE. A y0lley from the enemy
wounds him in the right hand. Twice
more he tires with the left, drops a
fifth man, and puts the others to Hight.
The legend adds that the hero OF this
little feat was decorated on the field
by his eaptain-here the probabilities
begin to fail-and was taken to the
hospital at FOrbaeh.
10 investigate the truth Of the
story went this morning to the vii
lage of GroSS-BliedersdOrf where an
eyewitness was to be found. The
woman who called out to the senti-
nell Run away!' is a neighbor of
the Mayor of GrOsS-BIedersOrf. AS
it happened, my kind host, the doe
tor OF Langeahagan, had a patient to
visit not far from there-a weaver at
tackled with sporadic cholera. 1 ac-
cOmpanied him, and took advantage
of the opportunity to study one of
those household interiors of German
Lorraine in which the best part of the
day is spent in religious exercises, and
the best part Ofthe earnings in heather
tetisheS-in which a curate, leaden-
headed and despOtic, Expresses a'pOpu-
lation sheepish, blind, shut out alike
from French ideas and from German
ideas, because they can read neither
the 0ne language nor the other. Then
we returned TO the village and pulled
upat the house of the Mayor. We
found him hOspitable, intelligent. and
well read, and he told US the story as
he had heard it from his neighbOr,
without any other guarantee of its
truth.
TO make anything of it, an inter-
rOgatiOn of the woman seems to be
necessary. She is absent. Her brother
is brought to US, a young man about
eighteen years old. This good fellow
~ AOt oCC IuC andAA AloCIy Du1s ~
cOrding TO his story, he saw the
wounded soldier with his arm in a
sling. He even saw him again after
ward at Forbaeh, on his way to the
hospital, and heard him say, aloud
and intelligibly: "There's no need
for me to go to the hospital. 1 can
ure my hand very well myself!'
Our young depOnent does not look as
if he We're making fun OF us; he is GER
tainly not out of his senses; but per-
haps he believes the tale from having
heard and repeated it several times. 1
ask him where are the bodies of the
Uhlans? He answers that they were
left on the ground like the others-for
there have been a few others-and
that it is not allowed to 90 and see
them, because they are in the enemy's
territory. In the end I 90 away, only
slightly convinced; and, although a
man from FOrbach assures me that IN
infantry soldier has died there in the
hospital, of a wound in the forearm, 1
begin to understand the eternal diff
Guilty of gathering the real truth about
a contemporary event.