News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-09-20
GRAYELOTTE TO-DAY.
The Scene of One of the Decisive Bat
ties ofthe Franco-German War.


after crossing the rich valley OF the
Moselle, writes a correspondent of the
st. James's Gazette from Metz, rises
amid yine-covered hills to an undulat-
ing plateau with wooden hollows and
many miles of cortland. On the lower
slopes the landscape is gay and pic
turesoue. The vineyards CLEAN in the
warm sunshine, the red tiles of cottage
roofs contrast harmoniously with the
green of empowering fruit trees, and
the roadsides are brilliantly colored
with flowers. When the vines have dis
appeared these hills become stern and
rocky. Soon after the tableland has
been reached, the travellers eye is sure
to rest upon a high mound, some
twenty feet long and twelve broad. 1t
! is overgrown with yarrow, now in full
| flower, and IN the centre stands an iron
cross, painted white, with the words,
"Aug. Is, 1870" upon it. 1t is the
first of many such which now dot the
country as far as the eye can reach.
This is the field Of Gravelotte. A we'll
defined ridge runs In northeasterly di-
rection. Upon this ridge Bazaine
posted his army along line of about
eight miles, when his march on Verdun
was stopped by the fanking movement
of the second German army, which by q
rapid advance from the Moselle was
able to bring the French commander to
a standstill within q days march of the
fortress where he had remained too long.
It is only on the field that one realizes
how greatly the French we're favored by
the nature of the ground they occupied.
| 1t explains the terrible loss which the
Germans suffered from the French az
tillery and Chassepots on the 18th OF
August, before the army of the Rhine
was driven back upon Metz. About
10000 of them fell on that day, and the
picked regiments, such as Queen Au-
gusta's grenadier guards, were the
most sorely tried.
GraveIotte, upon which the left wing
of the French army rested, is a dreary
looking wind blown village in the open
plain. At the entrance is a piece of
field that has been walled around and
planted with trees. 1t is filled with
mounds, each covering a wide trench,
where the bodies of the soldiers who fell
in the village were laid. French and
| Germans lie there together. One en-
blem-the cross painted white-serves
for all. In the long bleak street formed
by the highway is house slightly better
in appearance than its neighbors. 1t
was here that the Emperor Napoleon
| III. and the prince imperial slept on the
night of the 18th, in the gronnd-foor
room, the windows of which looked out
upon the road. Almost opposite
| is the principal inn--a wayside auberge
of the better olass-where the Emperor
and the prince on the same night sat
down to dinner that must have been
in strong contrast to dinners at the
Tuileries. The house has not changed
hands since the battle; and the hostess,
now an old woman, needs little encour-
agement from the visitor to recall her
recollection of 1870. She described how
bent and broken the parcre pere looked
with his eyes fixed upon the ground,
whereas the gdnein noticed everything
and seemed to take q keen interest in
tho I-Ao~oa44e e4Ats OF the soldiers. The
emperor scarcely touched his dinner,
but the boys appetite was good. Dur
ing the fight on the eighteenth the smoke
and dust were so dense in the village
that she could not see across the road.
Three hundred wounded were afterward
lodged in her house. When the French
army had retreated Prince Bismarck
came to the inn, drank glass of wine,
and put questions to our hostess which
she could not answer. He seemed much
puzzled by Bazaine's temporary success
on the evening of the eighteenth, when
the German right wing was forced back
some distance. and whole regiments
were hurled into the old qunrries near
Gravelotte. These quarries are still
overgrown by the trees which concealed
the nature of ground from the Germans,
and occasioned one of the frightful Incl
dents of the war. As men and horses
went down the precipice the screams
were horrible. 1t is said that many of
the French, unable to check themselves
in time, went over with the enemy. The |
heaped-up skeletons of men and horses
lie under the sand that was thrown over
them, and the vegetation that has since
grown upon the sand. The deep shade |
of the trees, t. e utter silence, and the |
tragic associations of the place make it
one of the most mOurnful that can be |
imagined.
The French positions between Grave
lotte and st. Privat can easily be traced |
by the lines of grassy mounds and the
little white crosses. Here and there |
stands monument in the centre of q
piece of ground surrounded by railing. |
Mountain ashes that have become con-
siderable trees are to be seen in most |
of these Enclosures, and the ground is
matted with periwinkle. A few of these
monuments are French; but by far the |
greater number have been raised by the |
Germans, on sites where the battle prov
ed more deadly to them, or where Of
ficers of distinction were slain. The in
scriptions usually commence with the
words, ''Hier ruben in Gott, and then
follows long list of names. In a corn
field near st. Privat is large and hand
some monument, surrounded by young
pines. The inscription slows that it
was raised by the Empress Augustus
grenadier guards in memory of their
comrades who perished here. It was at
st. Privat that the right wing of
the French army, under Marshal Can
robert, was turned, after desperate and
sanguinary struggle, i'll which the loss of
the German troops, who had to advance
in the open and up an incline, was en-
ormous. The village was set on fire by
the shells; but the French continued to
hold it and to pour a murderous hail of
bullets upon the Prussian guards and
Saxons from amidst the burning houses.
But the flanking fire of the German ar
tillery turned the scale against the
French, and the retreat of the right wing
began a little before sunset. A new
church has been built at st. Privat, on
the site of the old one, which after the
battle was a heap of ruins; and other
houses have appeared in the place of
those which were burned OF knocked to
pieces by shells.
Those who have formed impressions of
this now historical village from pictures
by De Neuville and other artists would
be quite at loss to connect their ideas
with the place as it appears to- day.
There are no traces of the furious fight
that was waged here except the graves
in the surrounding fields. The plateau
is vast cemetery. The peasant guides
his plough unconcernedly to the bord-
ers of the mounds that are given up to
grass and wild flowers; but the strang-
or who walks over the great battlefield
is made to realize SO wildly the sad
ness of the scene that he turns away
from it with relief.
The Sense of Smell OF a Horse.
Tho borca will 1aoy,o ,,o,,c+1. l,o.- -,