New-York tribune., 1870-08-15

-Strasbourg is not likely TO surrender before
serious battle or retreat takes place on the
Moselle or the Meuse. Ii can doubtless hold
out little while against any force which is
likely to invest it, and if Napoleon succeed in
driving back the Prussians to the line of the
Saar it will then be safe. But French defeat
near Metz or Chalons will involve Its surrender
as a matter of course.
Our special dispatches last Saturday fully
confirmed the opinion we had previously ex-
pressed that MacMahOn's reported junction
with Failly only meant that Failly and Mac
MahOn were defeated together.
We don't credit one word of the story,
now triumphantly circulating in the Southern
newspapers, that Mr.. jefferson Davis has been
offered the baton of a Marshal of France by
the Emperor The dignity isn't thrown about
in that prOmiscuOus way; or, at least, u mas
not been since the comp detat. Besides Mr'
Davis is MT a soldier whether he be states'
man or not. Mr. Davis has won all his renowh
as Rebel and a RevolutiOnist; and we DOUBT
if l.. n. b. has any particular penchant lor
birds of that feather Ii Is matter Oh MS
tory that the Emperor rather sympathHed than
otherwise with the Confederate Rebels, but 1t
has never been shown that he would have
relisbed the same kind of thing in Paris.
FINALLY. and to conclude. we don't believe
that Jefferson Davis would take the baton, If
he could get it; while it is by no means GER
tain that Bonaparte will have any batons to
give.
Tile n. Y. Tablet in its last number takes
il for granted that the Roman Catholics all
over the world must give their sympatlles III
the prescnt European war to France. IL wonlu
he strange if this were so, for religion mas
certainly nothing to do with the origin OF the
war. and Louis Napoleon personally mas thuS
far never succeeded in obtaining the confidence
of all the French bishops and OF the leauinS
Catholics The Tablet is, however, greatly
mistaken as to the facts of the case. Inc
ArcbbisbOp of Cologne has issued pastoral
letter to the clergy of his diocese, dwelling
strongly upon the business OF the German
cause and similar letters have been Issued OF
are expected 10 be issued by all the other
bishops of Germany. No German bishop has
in any way indicated sympathy with France.
The leading Catholic paper of Prussia, the
VolESbldtter of Cologne, vies in the energetic
defense of the German cause with the papers
of any other party. All the other Catholic
papers of Prussia, Baden and the minor States
p0litical organ of the Catholics, the POstzeitung
of Augsburg fully supports the war, and only
one Catholic organ of influence, the IokSbote
of Munich, has persisted in the opposition to
the German war. The enthusiasm in the
Catholic districts is in no way inferior to that
of the Protestant districts. The Catholic
Deputies of the North German Parliament are
entirely unanimous in supporting the cause OF
their country.
One is good deal astOnished to find the
Emperor of the French, the very mini0n OF
agitation in his climbing days, still blindly
adhering TO the notion that newspapers in
Paris which speak a mind which is not his
mind must be crushed by the iron hand OF
authority, their publication suppressed, and
their conductors fined, banished, or imprisoned.
Even old Frederick the Great, the child of
traditional despotiSms, knew better. His COM
pact with writers was that they were to say
what they pleased, and he was to do as he
pleased. 1t may be annoying to the Imperial
Government to have a Flourcns or Felix
Pyatt continually sticking pins into it; but
what harm does this puncturing do if Louis
Napoleon holds his throne by the free will of
a devoted and ailectOnate peOples Every
prosecution of the press is confession of dis
trust, and distrust is confession of registered
and legalized lies. What kind of popular love
is that which will not stand storm of squbs,
of vailed satire, of half earnest ironyl An
Emperor really in the position which Louis n.
BOnaparte processes TO occupy would scorn-
fully say: Fire away your squirt-guns, Mes
"sieursl Let the one who wins laugh! His
will certainly be the laugh at lastI' Instead
of which, there is cOnfscation, indictment,
trial, sentence, fine, banishment-and after all,
the assumed mischief is not allayed. One
newspaper can be killed, but ten will come to
the funeral A bitterer persecution-the AK,
the faggOt, the rack-might effect something;
but all Bonaparte's seizures and warnings and
finings and imprisonments may be figured up
at something less than zero.
Germany will never perhaps, Outlive
legend. Even in the rude, hard, and thor
oughly practical vicissitude of to-day it
remembers the baron, the robber-knght, and
what Goethe calls "the ghost TRADITIONAL
The great Emperor Barbarossa supposed to
have been drowned in Palestine river, A. ID.
1900 is not really dead, but only sleeping in
a cavern of the Thuringian mountains, and at
the proper moment he is coming back TO leaN
his nation to victory. Wherefore the German
poets sing: "NOw old Barbarossa, starting
From his slumbers up in haste, Looks
"around; the sun is beaming Brightly on the
"rocky waste We may smile at this antique
heroism; but these enthusiasms, misty as they
are, tell immensely in the battlefield, and the
Emperor L. n. b. could afford to pay rOundly
any poet who could strike such a chord in the
hearts of his ZOuaves.