tion, however hostile and venturesome, attempt even against small bodies of armed men who always move with caution, and against troops who do not make night marches unless in large bodies? The Prussian cavalry are everywhere. There is no neglect, no insouciance. Nothing is taken on trust. The people in the towns and villages are quite aghast."

On the 5th of September the Germans entered the ancient cathedral city of Rheims. In the morning a few cavalry soldiers entered the town, one of whom was attacked by an old Frenchman; the hussar fired his pistol, wounded his assailant, and then, with his companions, galloped out of the city. In the afternoon a large body of troops appeared, followed by the main army, whereupon the mayor formally surrendered the town, and the king of Prussia's headquarters were established in the episcopal palace.

A notable incident occurred when the Germans, under the Duke William of Mecklenburg, arrived at the fortress of Laon, which General Vinoy's corps left early on the morning of the 6th September. On the evening of that day three uhlans presented themselves at the gate, and demanded admission; but the gardes mobiles fired on them, and they were dismounted and made prisoners. On the following day three more uhlans arrived with a flag of truce. One was admitted, after having had his eyes bandaged; but General Theremin d'Hame, the commandant of the citadel, would not treat with him on account of his inferior rank. On the 8th of September more Prussians appeared; a lieutenant-colonel presented himself as parlementaire, and was received by General d'Hame, who refused to surrender the citadel, but the maire came to terms for the town. On the 9th, however, the general received a telegram from the War minister to surrender, as the place was not in a state to defend itself. Two officers of the mobile were sent to the Prussian camp to make the announcement; and accordingly, towards noon a corps of Prussian infantry, a thousand strong, preceded and followed by cavalry, escorting a group of superior officers, entered the town with their band playing. A portion of this force immediately marched to the citadel, just before occupied by the mobiles, who laid down their arms and were declared prisoners of war on parole. At the moment the mobiles were defiling the powder magazine exploded,

causing fearful consternation in the ranks both of friends and foes. Fifty Germans and 300 gardes

mobiles perished in the catastrophe, and several hundred soldiers and civilians were more or less severely wounded. Roofs were blown off the houses and windows broken, both in Laon and the neighbouring village of Vaux. This sanguinary incident naturally caused great irritation among the Germans, who immediately placed the commandant under arrest. The king of Prussia ordered a judicial investigation to be made into the cause of the explosion, which resulted in establishing the complete innocence of General Theremin d'Hame, who died shortly after of his own injuries. The perpetrator was declared to be a certain inspector of artillery, missing after the catastrophe, and believed to have had no accomplices. By a portion of the French press the perpetrators of the barbarous deed were eulogized as devoted patriots, who preferred death to dishonour. The following abbreviation of a touching letter, written by the unfortunate General to Madame d'Hame shortly after the explosion, shows that he held a contrary opinion, and gives a glimpse of the condition of affairs at the period of which we are writing :-" You will be in great anxiety on my account, beloved. To-day I am able to write and comfort you, which the injuries to my head would not let me do before. A hard trial has fallen on me. You know that sixteen days since the command of this department was assigned to me, without staff, or a single man or officer of the regulars. I was left alone with a battalion of mobiles, who had been called out on the 8th of August. The men, terrified at the rumours flying about, deserted wholesale, and were reduced one half. We had no means of resistance, and a telegram from the minister told me, if necessary, to fall back on Soissons. Unhappily this came too late. The Prussian summons to surrender arrived soon after it, and there was no means of withdrawal. After two days of parleying, I was obliged to surrender, the citadel being in face of a whole army corps. When the duke of Mecklenburg entered he was astonished to see who had defended the place-mere peasants in blouses, many of them without a cartridge-box. The duke had asked me whether I was related to F. Theremin, formerly of our foreign office, and I had scarcely answered this, and one or two other friendly questions, when a terrific explosion

covered the ground with dead and dying. The event was so surprising that one could only attribute it to treason, and to-day it is manifest to all that the garde d'artillerie is alone responsible for it. Yet all my life long I shall be grieved that so rascally a deed was perpetrated where I had the command. Happily the duke and his brigadier, Count Alvensleben, are only slightly wounded. I was to have had my freedom, and my sword had been given back to me. All is changed now. I am a prisoner and in hospital, and know not when I may be well and free again. But as soon as permitted I will, by a pass, hasten to you and my daughter, who must, for the present, use her Christian faith to bear the trial that has come upon us." A month after the above was written General d'Hame died of his wounds.

The town of Laon is situated seventy-five miles north-east of Paris, and is the capital of the department of the Aisne. Its traditionary history extends back to the reign of Clovis, and during the Carlovingian dynasty it formed a part of the possessions of the crown. The city was surrounded by an ancient wall, and possessed a handsome cathedral dating from the twelfth century. The fortress had sustained frequent sieges, and in 1594 was taken from the League by Henry IV. During the campaign of 1814 it was the scene of a sanguinary engagement between Napoleon I. and Marshal Blücher, in which, after a conflict of great obstinacy and varying success, the French were finally beaten, with a loss of forty-eight guns and between 5000 and 6000 prisoners.

After the affair at Laon the German armies continued to advance uninterruptedly (with the exception of a few futile attempts at obstruction by the felling of trees and the blowing up of bridges) towards Paris, which, as previously arranged, they approached by three main roads, the one from Soissons, through Villers-Cotterets and Dommartin; the second from Meaux, through which they had come from Epernay and ChâteauThierry; and the third from Provins, through Brie, which leads to the junctions of the rivers Seine and Marne, close to Paris on its south-east side. When they reached so near the capital their progress was not allowed altogether undisputed. At Chateau - Thierry a Prussian reconnoitring party was driven back by a body of French cavalry. At Montereau and Melun engagements took place between uhlans and francs-tireurs, and

heavy fighting occurred near Colmar between these irregulars and the Germans, in which the French. sustained defeat and lost several prisoners.

It was in the suburban village of Créteil, on the Marne, two miles in front of the Fort de Charenton that the Prussian scouts made their first appearance on the 16th September. Two days before, the main body of the German armies had reached the streams which fence Paris on its eastern front. The Crown Prince of Saxony was posted at Meaux, on the Marne, and the Crown Prince of Prussia at Melun, on the Seine, with the design of converging from those points on their destined prize. The fortifications of the city, however, saved it from a sudden attack, although, as yet, they were comparatively ill armed, and had not the support of an army outside. Their unprotected state enabled the invaders from the first to seize positions which gave them the power of effectually investing the capital, and which never could have been occupied had the French possessed an army of such strength as that with which MacMahon undertook his fatal march to Sedan.

General Trochu, who well knew the importance of preventing the enemy from closing in on the city, had endeavoured, as far as was in his power, to retard the investment, and to strengthen the external line of the defences where they were weakest. With this object he had stationed troops outside the eastern and southern forts, with orders to attack the Germans in flank as they advanced, and, if possible, to drive them back; and he had constructed, and partly armed, works on the heights which, from Clamart to Chatillon, command the forts of Issy, Vanves, and Montrouge, along the southern verge of Paris.

With any considerable number of good troops and an adequate field artillery, General Trochu would at this time have made it impossible for the Germans to take up their investing line on such an enormous circumference without defeating again a French army. The French, holding the centre, might have struck vigorously at different portions of the force closing round the city, and might have cut it into fragments before it found time to construct entrenchments and batteries, to tighten its hold upon its victim.

On the 18th September, a feeble fragment of the French regular army, under General Vinoy, attacked the leading columns of the Crown Prince

of Saxony as they debouched into the valley of the Marne; but it was soon forced to fall back before them. The next day another attack was made by the French between St. Denis and Gonesse with a similar result; in the evening, on the southern side, they put forth an effort more vigorous and protracted, but still fruitless. On the 17th, the third army, under the Crown Prince of Prussia, was headed by the fifth corps, which, at Villeneuve St. George threw pontoon bridges over the Seine, by which the fifth, sixth, and second Bavarian corps passed, to take up their positions in the investing line from the Seine westward by Sévres to Bougival, north-west of the city. To cover this operation, the seventeenth infantry brigade of the fifth corps, supported by two squadrons and two batteries, occupied a strong position on the heights of Limeil, extending across the high road to Melun and the Lyons railway, to Boissy St. Leger. Five companies occupied the woods of the Château Brevannes, at the foot of the hill on the Paris side of the position. At two p.m. eight battalions of French regulars, and two batteries, under the command of General Ducrot, debouched from Charenton on the tongue of land lying between the Seine and Marne. The ground was admirably chosen, as both flanks of the attacking force were covered by rivers; but notwithstanding the advantage of their position, the French were defeated and driven back in wild confusion by the five German companies posted in the woods of Brevannes, aided by the two batteries on the heights of Limeil. On the 18th, the fifth German corps, covered by a squadron of cavalry on the side towards Paris, advanced with its leading division (ninth) to Bièvre, and the tenth division to Palaiseau. The head of this column had a slight skirmish with some French troops posted to the north of Bièvre, near Petit Bicêtre, in the afternoon. On the same day the second Bavarian corps had crossed the Seine and occupied Longjumeau (on the left bank), while the head of the sixth corps arrived at the bridge, and prepared to pass it early the next morning, in the meantime constructing another bridge. On the morning of the 19th the following corps commenced their march: the fifth on Versailles, in two columns, by Bièvre and Jouy; the Bavarians on Chatenay, by Palaiseau; the sixth on Chenilly, by Villeneuve le Roi and Orly. The head of the ninth division (fifth corps), after debouching from

Bièvre, was again attacked by a French force in the fortified position at Petit Bicêtre, but the attack was soon repulsed. The division was about to resume its march on Versailles when it was once more attacked, and this time so vigorously and by so large a force (the whole of the French fourteenth corps), that it was very hard pressed. But one Bavarian brigade, which had reached Chatenay, came to its assistance at Villa Coublay (on the summit of the plateau); and another, advancing on Sceaux, threatened the enemy's flank, whilst a third marched on Bourg-la-Reine, to cut off his retreat; the remaining brigade of the Bavarian corps meanwhile occupying Croix de Bernis. The tenth division, fifth corps, arriving on its march from Palaiseau, at Jouy, at this time, was, with the reserve artillery, also directed on Villa Coublay, and the fire of the latter, from the plateau, caused the French to evacuate their position at Petit Bicêtre, and retreat rapidly on Chatillon, so that the fifth German corps was enabled to resume its march on Versailles soon after eleven o'clock a.m. By their retrograde movement the French were brought into closer contact with the advance of the Bavarians at Bourg. To gain time to carry off the guns which had been placed in the earthworks near Chatillon, they occupied a strong position along the edge of the plateau and towards Meudon, bringing twenty-six field guns into battery, and even threatening Fontenay and Plessis with attacks which seemed sufficiently serious to cause the Bavarian general, Von Hartmann, to suspend the advance of the two brigades in front until he could bring the other two up to their support. A pause thus ensued in the fire on both sides. About an hour after, it was again opened with renewed vigour by the Bavarians, who, perceiving that the enemy was withdrawing his "position" guns and preparing to retreat, made a general attack and carried the redoubt at three p.m., capturing eight pieces of artillery, and driving the French under the guns of forts Vanves and Montrouge. During these proceedings the sixth corps crossed the river, and advancing on Villejuif and Vitry, by Choisy, Orly, and Thiais, came up on the right of the Bavarians; but its further progress was arrested by the fire of a large French redoubt on the heights above Villejuif. On the evening of the 19th the third army occupied the line of Bougival, Sèvres, Meudon, Clamart, Bourgla-Reine, L'Hay, Chevilly, Choisy-le-Roi, and, in conjunction with the Würtemburg division, the

Marne. On the morning of the 20th the city was thus invested on all sides.

The behaviour of a part of the French troops engaged in the combats around the city rendered. of no effect the superior advantages of their position. They had belonged to regiments of MacMahon's own corps; but demoralized through repeated defeats, they fled panic-stricken from the field at the first appearance of danger, and refused to renew the contest. The losses of the French were few in killed and wounded, but the number of prisoners was variously estimated at from 2000 to 3000, besides the eight guns captured in the redoubt, as already mentioned. On the German side the Crown Prince of Prussia reported that the investing of the city had been effected with little loss-the chief casualties occurring in the seventh regiment. In Paris the establishment of a courtmartial for the trial of "cowards and deserters" was proclaimed by the minister of War; and General Trochu issued to the garrison of the capital a manifesto containing the subjoined passage, which | strikingly illustrates some of the difficulties with which the French military leaders had to contend: —“ In the fight of yesterday, which lasted during nearly the whole day, and in which our artillery, whose firmness cannot be too highly praised, inflicted upon the enemy enormous losses, some incidents occurred which you ought to be made acquainted with, in the interest of the great cause which we are all defending. An unjustifiable panic, which all the efforts of an excellent commander and his officers could not arrest, seized upon the provisional regiment of zouaves which held our right. From the commencement of the action the greater number of those soldiers fell back in disorder upon the city, and there spread the wildest alarm. To excuse their conduct the fugitives have declared that they were being led to certain destruction, while, in fact, their strength was undiminished, and they had no wounded; that cartridges were deficient, while they had not made use, as I ascertained for myself, of those with which they were provided; that they had been betrayed by their leaders, &c. The truth is, that these unworthy soldiers compromised from the very beginning an affair from which, notwithstanding their conduct, very important results were obtained. Some other soldiers of various regiments of infantry were similarly culpable. Already the misfortunes which we

war had thrown back into Paris undisciplined and demoralized soldiers, who caused there uneasiness and trouble, and who from the force of circumstances have escaped from the authority of their officers and from all punishment. I am firmly resolved to put an end to such serious disorders. I order all the defenders of Paris to seize every man, all soldiers and gardes mobiles, who shall be found in the city in a state of drunkenness, or spreading abroad scandalous stories and dishonouring the uniform which they wear." The misfortunes caused by these panic-stricken troops were increased by the French engineering department having constructed the redoubt captured by the Germans between the villages of Chatillon and Clamart, apart from the permanent defences of the city. When the Germans crossed the Seine the work was unfinished, and should have been dismantled and destroyed; but was left, armed, to fall into the hands of the enemy, who immediately transformed it into a redoubt facing towards forts Vanves and Montrouge. Captain Bingham, in his "Siege of Paris," says, that had the Prussians followed up their advantage the city would have been at their mercy—the regular troops being demoralized and the mobiles and national guards being quite untrained. The people felt highly indignant that after so many lessons their soldiers should again have allowed themselves to be so ignominiously routed; and there was a loud outcry against the Zouaves especially, who, as representatives of the late régime, were denounced as dastardly prætorians, fit to act against unarmed citizens, but useless when opposed to armed troops.

The

The entry of the Germans into Versailles may be noticed in a few sentences. On the 18th of September three death's head hussars presented themselves at one of the town gates and demanded a parley with the authorities, but the maire refused. to treat with any soldier under the rank of a general, or who was not furnished with full powers. next morning the demand was renewed by an aidede-camp, followed by a single cavalry soldier, and a long discussion ensued. a long discussion ensued. Since six o'clock the cannon had been booming on the road from Versailles to Sceaux, about three miles from the town. The aide-de-camp required accommodation for the wounded, and the keys of all forage stores. These demands having led to a warm debate, the officer departed to consult his general. In less than an hour an aide-de-camp to the general commanding