The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-12-03
1HE LATE GEN. uRICH.

u,s success Due to His Loudly-Pro-
tossed Admiration for Napoleon III.
Our Paris correspondent telegrapbs:
The announcement of Gen. Urich's
death brings me back TO the exciting
year of 1870, when he vas for a brief
space of time a popular idol and then
counted an old dunderhead, if lot a
traitor. The general had reached his
s5th wear. He was the first captain
nominated by Louis Philippe, and he
was on such good footing at the Elysee
during the second republic that soon
after the coup d'etat he was made a
brigadier- general. He won his grade
of a divisional general in the Crimea,
and was named a grand officer of the
Legion of Honor for his participation
in the campaign of Italy. He was on
the retired list in 1870, when, on war
being declared, he came forward and
in a rather noisy and theatrical manner
offered, as an old Alsatian, his services
TO the emperor to defend Strasburg or
Metz. Officers in active service who
wished for posts of honor were very
angry at the emperor for sending him
to the former place. A man of almost
seperhuman energy vas wanting, and
UTich had chiefly vigor in pushing him
self forward. He had no idea, when
setting out, of the degree to which mill
itary preparations had been neglected
in the frontier stronghold. There were
Onlv three thousand men at S%transburg,
and the defenSes were of the old-fash-
toned type, without detached forts and
outworks. | travelled with Gen. Urich,
when he was liberated on parole, from
LIE Mans to Tours, and witnessed the
ovation which the people of Tours gave
him. He stood on the balcony of the
archiepiScOpal palace between M.
Cremieux, then minister of war,
and Archbishop Guibert. There was
another manifestation of sympa-
thy and admiration when M.
Cremieux gave him the grand cross of
the Legion of Honor. Before many
days a letter from Valentin TO Gam
beta, which was made public, dashed
all the enthusiasm. Valentin had him
named project of the Bias Rhin of Sept.
5, and got into Strasburg after many
hair-breadth escapes. He charged
Urich with having thought more of saw
ing the empire than the fortress, and
having damped rather than excited the
bellicose ardor of the townspeople. A
sword of honor was nevertheless
bought for him, and Paris gave his
name to the Avenue de lImperatrice.
V~alentin's further accounts of the de-
tense of the great Alsatian stronghold
prevented Urich's admirers from going
on with a subscription the object Of
which was to give the general a repro
ductiOn in massive silver of the statue
of Alsace in the Place de la Concorde.
The people of Paris at the general cleo
tons of 1871, when he put himself for
ward as a candidate tor a seat in the
assembly, turned his candidature into
ridicule, and tore down the placards in
which he puts his name forward as in
dissolubly associated with that of Stras-
burg. He was still more harshly treated
by the committee of the assembly APP
pointed to inquire into the campaigns
OF 1870 and 1871. They held that he
showed gross technical ignorance and
i~ncapacity, and depressed the fighting
energy of the civil population and gar
rison. His difficulties were of a crush
ing kind, but had they been much less
do not suppose he would have made
a good resistance, he being an old gen
eral of the fogy type, who owed much
OF his success to his loudly-professed
admiration for the Emperor Napolean
Ill. M. Ponson du Terrell, the sensa-
tional novelist and author of .Rocam-
bole, came from his country house near
Orleans to salute Gen. Urich as a beaten
hero. He said, after he had seen him,
that he would not have chosen him asa
hero for a novel, but that in the face of
the enemy no good Frenchman should
run him down, and accordingly was a
promoter of subscription to buy Urich
asword of honor.-C Cor. London Daily
NevS.