THE FIGHTING OUTSIDE PARIS.

Grey River Argus, Volume X, Issue 802, 21 February 1871, Page 3

THE FIGHTING OUTSIDE PARIS.

The dreadful aspect of the battle-field outside Paris, after the great sorfie, is thus descrii ed by a correspondent of the London Times : — There is a park just at the extreme end of the village of Villiers, on the Paris side. Before and all around it raged the battle on both days — the 30th of November and the 2nd of December. The chateau is officers' quarters. How it suffered! There is scarcely a window-sash left in one side of it, and to approach it there is no necessity to make use of the entrance £ate. The wall is smashed from top to bottom in a dozen places. I entered near the gate, and the first sight I saw was ten dead Saxons in a row. Their faces were covered, and three of their comrades watched over them. Passing through the park in the direction of Paris, I walked out thr< usrh an embrasure in the wall and came upon rising ground. It was one of the hottest pirts of the battle-field, and almost the centre ••f the scene of fighting. Heavens, what a sight! To see the men advancing rmder fire of the forts, and falling at every step ; to see the ! Frt-nch and Saxons amid that horrid din of artillery, shooHng one another down with Chassepot. and neeHJe-gun ; to hear the " hurrahs " followed by a volley, and as the smoke died away to find the lines thinned, and living men advancing over the prostrate bodies of deafi and dying, was horrible, bnt nothing like so horrible as the si^hfc of the battle-field, with hundreds of dead and dying there in the cold air, the sun shining on the ; r ghastly features and stiff forms, while the cannon on Avron and Noge.nt were thundering with sounds which shook the earth for miles round.

One of the first great groups I came upon was composed of sixty French soldiers. A few Saxons and Wnrtembergers lay around them ; but the Germans had already removed and laid in their last sleeping-place most of the dead. The centre of the group was formed of a close lino of forty-six. You could not have placed a body between any two. They fell shoulder to shoulder just as they had stood to fire. By far the greater number of. them were on their backs, with their feet to Paris and their heads to Villiers. Also, it was painfully evident that many of them, and of others whom I saw subsequently, but who had lived probably many hours without a hand to lend them succor, and in piercing snow and frost. One poor fellow lay on his face. He had two rifle wounds in his back. He had partly stripped himself, and he died with a hand on each bullet-hole. Several had taken of their knapsacks and placed them under their heads, and so pillowed, had breathedtheir last.breath. Others cleched their water bottles in one hand, bnt had been unable to remove the cork, and died without being able to wet their liris in th^ir last agony. Sume, in their snffe ings, hal burrowed their faces in the thick clay on which they lay, and turned their bloody and earth-stained faces upward before they expired. Two soldiers T saw, who had their arms fixed and tleir fists clenched, as if while dying, they were engaged in a pugilistic encounter. Only very few were on their sides. These had their knapsacks under their heads. There were men on whose faces beamed the smile of an infant, and whose countenances were like handsome wax-work. The express* n of others was that of +•"■»•- --rible agony. Every feat re was contor • ; their ir^s had been convulsively jur&eil up until their knees stuck into their 3tomachs, and their finger and thumb nails had been squeezed until they became riveted into the palms of theirhands. Behind, before, <»nd at the corners of this line of forty-six dead men were others, Saxons and French. One had a frightful wound in the face. He had pulled his hands up into his sleeves to warm them, but his cap had fallen off, and the blood clotted in his hair till it was all in Woody mais. Near him was •-mother, who had taken a biscuit from his knapsack and a bottle from his side, and had partaken of both. More than one of the slain had died with the hands clasped in prayer ; and near one I found a little piaster medallion of the Blessed Virgin. A portion of the edge had been shot off it. The Chassepots and need'eguns were still in many a dead man's hand, and lying between his arm and his body.

Similar were the sights all over the plateau between Villiers and Brie, and Villiers and Champigny ; and among the corpses were knapsacks, helmets, shakos, bayonets, and many a letter scaled and directed to relatives and friends both in Germany and France. Near a cemetery, situated on the battlefield itself, I saw between 200 and 300 dead French soldier* collected closely together; they had been removed from where they had fallen, and collected in that spot for burial. All were regulars, and a considerable proportion of them were men of at least 25 or 30 years of age. They were dead, nearer to Paris than any spot I visited, though the fortifications were much too close to be at all agreeable, and Neuilly-sur-Marne and F«ntenay-sui-Bos seemed to be within a few minutes' distance on my right and left. I hope there were no wounded. No armistice fi r the removal of the dead and wounded had been agreed to ; but both sides have been removing them by night. So late as last night some, of the German wounded werefo'ind among the dead, and are now in the hospital. What m\i3t have V>een their sufferings in snow and frost since the 2nd instant, for they had been lying t tit day and wight since then, if not since the 30th.