SKETCHES AT VERSAILLES.

Grey River Argus, Volume X, Issue 777, 10 January 1871, Page 4

SKETCHES AT VERSAILLES.

[TIMES SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,] : Headquarters, Versxixi.es, Oct. 19. If the Prussians were .believers in the Virtues and efficacy of Volunteer warfare and Guerilla operations they might take alarm at the news which comes from many parts of France. But they do not allow their nerves, to be ruffled in the least decree, and adhere very steadily to their main objects. Should Metz snrreiv der, a3 people believe it must in four weeks from this time, an immense army will be liberated to march on Lyons, Bordeaux, and Marse lies. And cm it be possible that the French imagine, Toulon, Brest, and Cherbourg are escaping observation ? The question they have to decide is very simple. If by goiugou with the war they think they can either drive the German armies out of France j or obtain better terms than are now i offered, they are most fully 'just fied in what they do. If, on the oti.er hand, they despair of snch results, and c ntinue to tight in order to indulge their hate to j the foreigner and to gratify their national i pride, they are sacrificing their country's interests to passion, and are invoking widespread ruin on districts which the war has spared, and on national establishments which might otherwise have escaped" It is a hard saying, and very bitter in the month. " While there is life there ii hope," .the sick man said. Manner lias as much to do with the estimation and opinion of the world as qualities of great depth and substance. Why should some 4 Prussians show themselves to be very jealous, unreasonable, ungracious, because Colonel Lindsay went into Paris to give L 20,000 for charitable purposes, after he had given the same amount to the Germans in Versailles 1 One gentleman wanted tile whole 140,000, to be handed over to him and his, to be laid out as they pleased, and seemed not to understand the force of . the objection that the fund was raised for the benefit of the sick and wounded of the French and German armies equally. A young English surgeon who has been working away outside Metz at the hospitals, and who was recommended by Prince Pless to Dr Chalons, chief of the hospital at the - Palace here, was treated to an angry invective by. that eminent surgeon agaiust England for giving aid to the French hospitals, and was forced to give up his benevolent intentions Now, Dr Chalons is a very able man, I hear, and I do not see why an able doctor should not be a - just and sensible man ; but it would be pitiable if the Germans generally shared these sentiments. On the'whole^ I have arrived at the conclusion— l express it with regret— that the idea of a national subscription for aid to sick and wounded on both sides is not politic, and may be mischievous. It tends to make war less onerous on those who* cany it on. If there be any gratitude excited, it is among the vanquished. • The offer of money is regarded as if it were England's panacea for all shortcomings, and as a v«rypoorplea in mitigation of punishment for her neutrality. It is very sad that it should be, but the fact to my mind is patent that the dangers of a misunderstanding caused by the mode of applying such a fund are far greater than the benefits conferred by the application. The agents of such a fund cannot please both sides, and they would not be human beings if they did not look with some favor on those who receive them most graciously and who have the be3t manners. I could give many illustrations of mv meaning The fact is all the more to be deplored in that the distribution of such large sums has been attended with immense benefit to thousands. But there is a deep-rooted dislike to amateurs, and the odium which certain lawless proceedings of soi-disant Bed Cross Knights and the abuses of the badge have excited is visited on the excellent men who have worked s;> hard and done snch good service to humanity. There must be thousands of living Englishman who have strolled along the terrace of St. Germain and gazed on the placid beauty of the va^y— the plain I should say — of the Seine, bounded on 'the right by the wooded and almost cliff like hills over Rneil, with Valerien in the front, and the Arc de Triomphe on th^ left, just above the belt of trees, the river twining in and^ont of fat meadows and cultivated plains, frutn which spring crops of villas, villages, meadows, and gardens, whence steeples arise from nests of white houses and cottages, where factory chimneys indicate the site of indutries exiled from the fastidious city — the manystoried ridge of Montmartro — the distant front of St. Denis ; but none except those few who are here have looked out and down upon the scene when the moon is dying out, and is spending its last silvery rays oh the sil mt river. There are the glare of watch, fires in the plain' and the lights in many villages. There are undulating ridges, above which Jhe stars now shine with . a frosty radiance. There, right in front, in the^curving dip between St. Denis and Valerien, is a nebulous glow such as that which is seen over great cities, through which burst out at intervals flashes as if of summer lightning. But the heavy boo;n which rolls over to us tells the story. The forts are busy. You can hear the shells and see the twinkle of J;h'e flash as they burst. Below my window, late as it is, are a group of French people apart from a knot of the soldiers of the Guard, looking out on the spectacle. Would not the inside of their heads or the visible expression of their thoughts offer a very singular contrast, and make us all feel some little diffidence in dogmatising about right or wrong?— at least I think it ought: And what will it be when the time for the bombardment comes—^s it is coming fast ? The nights are not very cold as yet, but it will probably not? be long before the German soldier is driven to the last extremity, and puts on his great coat. I presume there would be a very considerable agitation if the sentries on duty in London had to mount guard in their tunics. Well, I can assure you that at the present moment the German soldiers on outpost duty rarely year their overcoats. You may see their tunics stained with the butt end of their rifles when they come in to be relieved in the aiorning, looking raw and cold enough but by no meanu unfit for work. The secret lies in the use of warm jinder-* clothing, worsted wrappers, jackets, and the like, which will not suffice in wet weather. . October 25. I visited the Belagerungs Park— the Siege Train — to-day. I suppose . the French know where it is. Hundreds of. Frenchmen pass it every day. Spies

abound — sometimes they are caught and shot — oftentimes it is believed they escape. But, at all events, I am not going to expose you to the risk of communicating what may be among the "things not generally known.*' I remember bjin'4 once <>n a day censure I because in one of my letters I mentioned that a windmill on the plateau befme Sebastopol was used as a powder magazine But my excuse then, and a very sufficient one I hold it to be now, was that the letter was written just on th^ eve of our bombardment on the 17th of October, and that it could not have reached >md di.l not reach England till lon-j after the day on which L>rd Riglan, Sir John Burguyne, an*d all our authorities said we were to be in Sebasmpul. As it s<> happened, \v3 were not. The French batteries were snuffed nut, and the assault became impracticable. Th;it de- ] cision wai arrived at long hefnre the letter appe "ml in print. QwidaArem? Simply this : that if the bombardment of Paris fails ; I do not wish to expose myself to eliminations, and intend to be, if I can, jon the safe side. This I do, not because iof any caution received or any silence imposed on me ; on the contrary, nothing c>uld be more frank thau ill* exposition of the whole \naterial — guns, mortara, ammunition, rounds per gun, ranges, weights, and charges. Indeed, the powers of the Prussian field artillery are known to every gunner" in Europe. I went over the park with two officers of the Staff, one of the artillery, in the midst of a rainstorm which turned the soil of the plateau into deep, slippery, but tenacious mud. It is a powerful park, but on the whole I would say more remarkable as an exhibition of penetrating and farreaching ordnance than as a display of potency in vertical fire. There are' rifled guns which look like field-pieces, and shoot like rifles'. These are the guns which 3id their work at Toul and Strasboug, and which are known as 24-pounders, throwing a shell of nearly 841 b (i.e., 761 b.) weight, and there are the smaller pieces to which I have alluded. There are short smooth-bored iron gunsforshell — a kind of of howitzar, something like an old 56 cwt gun. Then there are rifled bronze guns, and, finally, mortars of the old fashion, throwing SOlbshell. Onefeature of the park is the varietyof types presented in theseige materiel. Prussia cannot have contemplated great sieges, at all events, for here I find mortars of a very ancient pattern from Ooblentz, with dates indicating that they were cast a hundre 1 years and more ago ; one, indeed, goes back for its birth to the seventeenth century. But mortars of all ordnance are the least improved and seem to be least susceptible of improvement. It is a reflection, however, which cones on one in connexion with the date that the allies could not have taken up their position on the plateau before Sebastopol had the place been provided with rifled ordnance such as I saw to-day, and, on the other hand, it could not have held out or saved its ships and forts so long had the English and French been possessed of such precise and farreaching artillery. The ranges of the more powerful rifled guns here are 7500 schritt, of the amaller 5000 schritt— and 10,000 schritt make one German mile — equal to a little more than 4| English miles. So your readers cm calculate for themselves, considering the schritt as an English pace. Bnt the increased force of modern cannon, it must be recollected, tells on both sidts. The siege works must be commenced a great, way off in comparison with oM approaches and the parallels of even the year 1854 Any good plxn of Paris and its environs — if there be such a plan — that, of 1839 by the engineers of the War Department is the best I have seen for gunenl U3e — will indicate the ground from which the line of the outer defences must be bombirded, and all soldiers know that the bombardment of a regular work is nearly useless, and ought never to produce a surrender. Even when every g:in is dismounted — a difficult thing to manage— the fort is not breached — the gar r son is in its bomb proofs sheltered till the moment of the assault, when the fire must cease. See what was done at F>rt Snmter. Itamembor what was effected by the Russians behind mere earthworks at Sabastopol, and then calculate the chances of success here, all the conditions of courage and discipline of the defenders, being equal to th.S3 qualities of the Confederates and Russians. There is just the point to he solved — will the men who will be called on to meet the Prussian columns stand up to their work I It seems a strange question to ask of and concerning Frenchmen, but the accounts we get here indicate an immense demoralisation on the part of the levies of the new Republic when working in masses in the field. The men are brave enough, no doubt, bnt there is no cohesion, no military consistency Like the Sepoys in 1857 and 1858, they , will fight stoutly as individuals, but as an army they are incapable of holding together against regular forces. lam assuming that the German guns are only directed against the forts, or, to speak preu3tly, against the works which it is considered desirable to leduce. What would happen if an actual bombardment of the city of Paris behind the works were to be ventured upon no one can say. There are no data to go upon. Such *a thing has never been seen or heard of in history. Those who know the French best are most at a los 3to form any opinion respecting the effects of such a proceeding. It must always be remem•bered 'that the city may prove to be not easily set on fire, and if the batteries, *once* beginning, do not produce a signal effect before the supply of ammunition is exhausted, the extraordinary " versatility" of the Parisians may induce them TPL__beUeve they have won an immense victory. Never was it true till now that Paris is not France.. I hope to have "more time to give a little news before the next messenger starts. The moments are precious. The curtain is about to rise on another scene of a drama of stupendous interest ; all the world is the audience. They wait in feverish excitement for the next act. What are the actors doing behind the drop 1 The German army is busy feeding itself, getting up supplies, strengthening its positions, but it must not be supposed they are not working sedulously because their handicraft is not seen as^ ye.. I send you the two latest numbers of the " New Versailles" paper, which continues to supply the people with news. You will there read of the preparations for the great German Congress. There are constant Cabinet Councils of the military bodies. No doubt, the question of supplies is serious. The reign of the " Requirist" is over. The Francs-Tireurs

have, at all events, contrived to check the < p -rations of the "two Uhlans" who hitherto did what they liked all over France. They also cause much misery to their own people. A convoy of st-venteen waggons was seized at Dreux the other day by the French, but the greater part of them would have brought- in stores for the French Hospital in Versailles. A day of exciting rumors about the surrender of Metz has been followed by a calm anticipation of the event. Captain Robhina, Queen's Messenger, arrived this afternoon, at 3.30 with despatches from the Foreign Office for C >unt Bismarck. It is believed by the French that the British Government is doin^ its utmost to save Paris, but what they most desire is an intervention which cm give peace to Erance. But when the terms are named they speak as )f they had not suffered defeat, and as if the rights of conquest wore some new thing.