LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

FROM. WITHIN THE PRUSSIAN LINES NEAR PARIS.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1

enclose you another letter which I have unexpectedly received from the same French friend, two of whose communications

you have already printed.—I am, Sir, &c., J. M. LUDLOW.

"27th October.

44 It is from amidst the Prussian lines that I am trying to owfite to you. I have no notion if my letter will reach, or by -what way ; but I write to you as the only comfort I can find in our tribulations. My mother, with a courageous good-sense ‘which no one in Paris at the time approved of, determined on .remaining in our little house. The idea of seeing everything pillaged and destroyed, as in so many empty houses of Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne, &c., was what made her stay. As to me, dt was the hope of making myself individually more useful than kI could have been in Paris. Faithful to my decentralizing principles, I laboured as far as possible for resistance, for the organization of the National Guard. But all my efforts -were shattered against municipal inertness. Nothing need 'be apprehended from the Prussians,' it was said, in a district -of which the great landowners are all zealous Protestants, whose -sons bear the red-cross armlet, who have hoisted on their cluiteaux ,the flag of the International.' So the Prussians were let come -unresisted, and they have fleeced us exactly as if we had received them with musket-shots. The country is exhausted ; a peasant's horse sells for Eve francs,—it costs six a day to feed one ! and even at this price there will be no more rations of oats after a few days.

"We have no news whatever from Paris, at best now and then a few rare newspapers which travellers may bring in secretly from Franoe,—for we are in Prussia! At Versailles the local news- papers are suppressed ; there is nothing but a wretched little sheet published in French under the dictation of a Prussian, which all the cafes are obliged to take in, and which only seeks to make the people bend the knee before the King of Prussia, and Napoleon, whom he wishes to thrust on us, as a security for his war-indemnity, and for the happiness of France ! All the officers whom we have to lodge are perpetually dwelling on this absurd theme of a Napoleonic restoration.

"I know not what will become of Paris before the new disaster which I have just learnt,—the capitulation of Metz. Only eight or ten days back we had some chances of salvation. It. is said that the Army of the Loire has its advanced posts not far from us. The night before last and last night, at the same hour, red lights were seen towards Paris, and, quite at the other extremity of the horizon, as it were, electric signals replying from a very great dis- tance. At first I thought it was a fire, then an aurora borealis ; but the stars were visible, shining with a greenish light through the purple radiance. Can means have been found of colouring the white electric light, so as to make it tell by means of prismatic rays what can no longer be sent by the telegraph wire ? 0 my poor France if fall thou must, crushed wholly beneath the weight of Germanic invasion, mayest thou yet find children ready to shed their young blood to expiate the base frivolity, the corruptions, the ignorance of their fathers ! Fall, 0 my country ! but may the mind and the energy of thy savants shed a last splendour over thy shroud ! defend thyself yet in Paris, though all but stifled under the blockade, more severe every day I It would have been so easy to break the invest- ing lines only eight days back ! Ah ! if Trochu knew ! Last Friday there was a terrible alarm in Versailles ; they were packing up already at the Royal quarters, the gates were kept shut for two hours, whilst the inhabitants were forbidden to remain in the streets in case of an alarm, under pain of death !

"Our only distraction is to hear the cannon. Never did dilettante, fanatical for his Beethoven, listen with an ear more tensely subtle to the shades of instrumentation of the Conservatoire de Musique than do we, as we climb the woods, to the noises of war. Wherever the wind may be, we think we distinguish the various parts of the vast orchestra, in which Mont Valdrien is the counter-bass, and Vanves, Issy, Chatillon, Montrouge, and Bicatre are the altos. Nor is the Prussian firing the same in sound as ours ; both the noise of our artillery and that of the chassepat

differ from theirs But what anguish, what torture, every day renewed for the last six weeks, to be living thus, morally suffo- cated by the Prussians ! Nor can you imagine the wild joy with which we were transported the other day, on discovering in the woods a glade from which Mont Val6rien could be seen. Yes ! to see it, to touch it with one's eyes, there two short leagues off ! It held its tongue that day, but to see it was pleasure enough. Thither is now our daily pilgrimage. There are means of avoid- ing the Prussian sentries, and of reaching the spot without danger. With a telescope one sees the cannon, the very artillerymen passing behind their huge pieces ; one fancies one hears the French trumpets, one's ears sing, one becomes merry as a child for a few moments, and then cold reality reappears on the high road ; one hears the slow, monotonous rumble of the interminable convop of food and ammunition for the Prussian Army,—a sound never to be forgotten, and which will often come back to me in my dreams.

"At present, in general, provisions are distributed to the soldiers, but we have always to add something, sometimes a great deal, and wine always. One Prussian eats as much as four Frenchmen at least. Our poor commune is set down by this time for more than 80,000 francs in requisitions on the budget. About 6,000 francs worth of wine have been taken from the houses of absentees. Wood is now becoming scarce. Not through real, evident want, which could be met, but through the longing for destruction. They light fires to roast an ox for making their coffee. At my cousins' the gardener gave them wood ready sawn and faggots ; no, they must break doors, furniture, tools, to throw into the fire ; and it is said that these men are our superiors in civilization ! No,—they are strong, they are marvellously organized ; this war has been Prussia's dream for two generations. They are revenged for Jena and for all the past viotories of France. But their mode of making war is the calculated refinement of ruin and pillage. Should you complain to their officers, they often answer with the utmost politeness that they are very sorry ; that it is not soldiers of their corps who have done the mischief,—but it is never their soldiers, always those of another regiment! As to the deserted houses which they have occupied, nothing can give an idea to those who have not seen it of the filthiness, of the mania for destruction of these heroes of Strasburg and Metz

broken mirrors, wainscotings torn out and burnt, &c. I thought the evil was at its height at the second invasion ; the fourth has come, and they are picked troops, the Landwehr of the Guard, all married men of from 25 to 40. Individually they are very well, but as a body they will have done more harm to the country than all the rest. What will it be if the siege of Paris drags on ? They are to take Lyons, it is said, next week, as well as Tours. And yet there are moments when all hope does not abandon me. "30th October. Frightful weather. Almost continuous rain. Still, a farmer told me that in ploughing the soil is very hard yet at the bottom of the furrow. On the other hand, there are many places in the plain of Way, between Meudon and Chatillon, where the plough has to be turned aside in order not to turn up the dead of the 19th September. Three days ago a Prussian, coming back wet to the bone from the trenching work now going on towards Chatillon, was looking melancholy ; a friend of ours asked him if this navvy's work suited him, if he would not rather return to his shop at Hamburg '0 yes ; war is a sad thing, very sad! But to dig ditches in the mud and to cut with a spade through a comrade's body, that is horrible! to see the head separate itself, livid and hideous, from the spit of earth which has not yet decomposed it !' A whole file of diggers exhumed almost at once a row of corpses, here and there French, but by their own avowal many Prussian. It was found necessary to cover up again at once the horrid remains and to change the line of the trench. The officer who lives with us took good care not to give us these details, but the soldiers are more willing to speak. Yet he himself allowed that typhus had broken out after their stay on that soil ; some deaths have occurred already. There are here ambulances in both chateaux with 250 sick, besides empty houses taken for con- valescents. Versailles is reserved for the wounded, who already, it is said, fill up all disposable beds. But note the following fact :- The International Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded, which has in this war put universal charity to a great and splendid trial, has declared* the neutrality of hospitals and ambulances. Prussia, in her hypocrisy, laughs at all such engagements. I have seen pass three detachments of French prisoners tramping painfully through the mud of our roads, which are worn out with the huge army traffic, escorted by horsemen, pistol in hand, who sought to prevent the poor fellows from speaking. The day before yesterday, during a moment's stoppage at a turn of the road, I went up to one of our men : You were made prisoner at Garches a few days back ? '

Bah! they didn't need to burn much powder for the taking of us. I have been for the last two months in Versailles hos- pital, like my comrades there ; some of them can't walk.

But no matter ; there will be men enough to take our places. Don't lose heart. If not Bazaine, it will be some one else who will be coming here. We shall be avenged some day or other.'

I slipped into his hand the little tobacco I had on me ; a rush of Prussians separated us, and I drew back, forcing in a tear which would have given too much pleasure to our enemies. I followed them with my eyes for a long time, till they disappeared in the fog and rain, some of them walking painfully with a stick, some with only a jacket on, others having still the cloak or capote. How many a stage they had yet to Chateau-Thierry, where they will find the rail! Poor little French Tourlouraut! men do not do thee justice. Thou art small and ignorant beside the Prussian, —so be it ; but if there were only thy simple patriotism at the top of the army, we should not be so sick !

"Falsehood is so familiar to the Prussians in matters of war and politics, that sometimes I can hardly believe in the capitulation of Metz, for which there were yesterday great rejoicings. If true, how many battalions of new recruits will not be required to struggle against the enormous masses that are crushing us! These events, like Sadowa, prove the uselessness of great permanent armies. For the future, I think we shall have to organize the armed nation, not like Prussia, but preserving a weak effective of regular troops, in order to have elastic cadres and capable instruc- tors. I cannot believe in the perpetuation of French military routine, with its madly extravagent budgets, at the bottom of which one finds only empty arsenals and fortresses which have no serious armament.

"November 4. I had lost the hope of sending you this letter, but a worthy fellow who hopes to reach the French advanced posts towards — consents to take charge of it, and undertakes to have it conveyed to a French post-office It is but too true, Bazaine and his army have completed the ruin of France.

* Rot the International Society, but the Geneva Convention.—.1.11.L t Cant term for soldier.—.T. M. L.

It is the military bankruptcy of the French Army, and a bank- ruptcy the most fraudulent, the most ignoble that the world has. ever seen. I had hoped that, to wash his conscience from.. Mexican stains, Bazaine would attempt something great and heroic. Butno, be capitulates! Without going back to the retreat of the- Ten Thousand, did not Moreau withdraw from the Danube to. the Rhine, having in front of him armies very superior to his. own, by a route infinitely longer than from Metz to Mezieres, Valenciennes and Arras, reaching which he was saved, and saved France?

"Everything turns against us. The weather has become dry an& fine again ; with the northerly winds, the Prussian heavy artillery can soon be mounted in batteries. Several balloons have passed' over our heads, bearing further on their tidings, whilst we gaze on them as they pass, with eyes pleased and envious at once. Just now it is announced to us that one of these balloons has come- down at Chartres, in the midst of the Prussians ; that the Paris. despatches are very bad, and that civil war has come to add its.

horrors to our disasters. My God ! is not the measure yet full? I seek no longer now who may save us ; I ask myself who might yet.

betray us. Bourbaki, it is said, has thrown up his command and gone- over to England. Let me hear no more about African Generals Algeria has made some very good soldiers, but in the way of officers it has produced but a few fine swordsmen and plenty of absinthe-drinkers. It is now long ago since one of my friends, a. very distinguished artillery officer (one of the creators of the rifle

commonly called the chassepot), used to tell me that he did not know one general to whom he would trust an army of 100,000,

men for a Prussian campaign. Poor fellow ! he has learnt by experience how truly he then spoke, for he must now be killed or- a prisoner.

"I never reckoned on any efficacious intervention on the part or England, Austria, and Russia ; perhaps they may obtain a promise

not to bombard Paris as Strasburg was bombarded, or a diminution. in the quota of millions to be paid, but Europe will neither wish. to plaster up again the Napoleonic empire, nor yet to help us clearing away the ground for the laying of the first stone of the

Third Republic. We are pitied, perhaps ; probably the world' wonders greatly. But France can only find in herself the strength. of despair. She must go on to the last catastrophe. William of Prussia, perhaps, like a Titus, will be the delight of the German world, after having treated us to the best of his power as the Jews,. were treated after the taking of Jerusalem. Adieu, once more