ENTRY OF THE GERMANS INTO PARIS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 113, 15 May 1871, Page 2

ENTRY OF THE GERMANS INTO PARIS.

CFrom the Correspondent of the Daily News.) I have striven exceedingly hard to think well of Paris under tbis tribulation of hers. Nor have I been altogether without justification. Only on the 28th, when everybody was talking of revolution and anarchy, I made a perambulation of the quarters whence were reported the chief disturbances, and I came back unmolested ; and after what I had seen, with the word " calumniation " ready on my lips. The silence and solitude of jthe Avenue Beaugar, by which we entered Paris, seemed very pathetic. The proud beauty, I said* to'- 1 myself, is veiling her humiliation. The Avenue de Malakoff took the edge For remainder oj news see fourth page.

off the sentiment, and it vanished utterly^ when a little woman who kept an auberge,< wher-a'l Quenched ; my thirst in beer, ira-i* portuned pae to bring her as na-Myj Prussian customers as possible; and did not hesitate to designate , them as bons garqons. She might hft-yei an isolated case; but the aspect of the Champs Elys&es clenched the nail. All Paris was there, as you may have seen on a day when there was a grand Imperial pageant. Ladies in dainty dresses and high heeled boots tripped about ; chevaliers of France with, the ribbons in their button holes gratified their curiosity at the expense of their honor. The windows were so. full that I imagine some of them must have been let for money. ' But it was the conduct of what may he designated the mob, that disgusted me most. Touch a, German soldier they dare not. They lowered — half a hundred of the whiteblooded hounds — before a solitary Uhlan strolling his horse listlessly about. But let them only catch an unfortunate civiiiau, and then just mark their valour. Fortunately they are too limp and vague to know how to take life adroitly, else many a murder might have been done in Paris this afternoon. Say you I speak from prejudice ? My prejudice, if I have any, was fain to lie the other way. I speak from soreboned experience. As I walked down the Champs Elysees, the Crown Prince of Saxony with his staff rode by. His guest for many a week past, I wjould have eaten dirt had I not raised my hat to his Royal Highness. He returned my salute, and, beckoning to me, shook hands, and a short conversation ensued. After I had taken my leave, Count Urztheim, his aide-de-camp, rode after me to communicate from the Priuce a piece of information which he was kind enough to think would be of interest to me. My companion and myself soon found that this episode had gained us the marked attention of about a hundred of the hungry prowlers after heroic seizures on which no risk was attendant. We thought little of the demonstration at first, and tried to lose our suite by turning back in the rear of the Bavarians, and halting there, but our unconcern seemed but to aggravate the patriots. After much consultation a little party came forward and civilly requested us to accompany them to a certain post. Although apprehensive of the consequences, we were unwilling to appeal to the Bavarian officers, and so be the possible means of precipitating a fracas ; we therefore complied. No sooner -were we outside the German quarter than the tactics were changed. My friend was torn away from me, and as yet I have seen no more of him. Cries of " Mouchard," " Sacr£ Prussieu," "Cochon," assailed me. Somebody hit me over the head with a stick ; another kicked me from behind j yet another tripped me up. I went down, and the patriots jumped on me with sabots. I struggled up, and hitting out right and left, made my way to an officer of the National Guard.; He laughed and turned away. Then they got me down again, striking each other ; in their eagerness to have a blow at me. Some clamoured "to the Seine with him," but others, the majority, were for the police • station. Thither accordingly I was conducted in a novel fashion, on my back and dragged by the legs, a distance of some 300 yards. Needless to say that my coat was in ribbons, my head was cot, my back bumped into bruises, my legs torn nearly out of the sockets. Great powers ! how I longed, as they dragged me along, for a single j section of the old Royal Dragoops, so that I I might have a chance at but three of the cowards at the time ! Chucked inside; the police-station like a bale of goods. I was conveyed by a back door, and -in; the pleasing companionship of a drunken woman, a blouse who had stolen a lump of putty, and a tatterdemalion who had been Been selling a , couple , of ; cigars to a German, to a certain prefect, a venerable gentleman in a white tie. ,1 sent a note, to the British Embassy, whence emanated with creditable alacrity the porter, an official whom I have learnt to look upon as tbe British Embassy incarnate. The benevolent prefect released me, and I was glad to slink home in my soiled and tattered clothes. I paid another visit, h.6w«eV-pr r to the Place de la Concorde, from which I. have but just returned. I recognise j threatening symptoms. The French tnobj is sorely taxing the patience of the! Bavarians, whose blood is beginning! evidently to rise. I should in no wise! wonder.. if there were wild work before! morning. Why have not the Germans] cleared their quarter anc( held it militarily ? ; Surely the mistake is great and dangerous. Disturbances are rife in. the other parts of Paris. Behind the . closed , gate ; of . La Chapelle stand a field battery an^ a battery of mitrailleuses.' There 6rer6o field cannon of the National Guard -in the etabr'aatires of • the endeiku between!' }^} B gate and that of 'St. Ouieitij a clear violation of the terms of the convention, which prescribes undefended fohifießtioiis. * ~