THE PRUSSIANS AT ORLEANS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 2801, 28 January 1871, Page 3

THE PRUSSIANS AT ORLEANS.

M. Ame'de'e Achard, in a letter to the Moniteur, speaking of the late occupa? tion of Orleans by the Prussians, says :— The first hours following the occupation of Orleans were terrible. Bands of soldiers broke into the houses and established themselves everywhere, leaving the barns to the proprietors ; and everything within their reach disappeared. Instead of the dirty rags which they threw about, they took shirts, stockings, handkerchiefs, anything they could find. .The rest went into their pockets and their knapsacks; then, replete with all they had found in the kitchens and cellars; they slept; rooms meant for two people contained thirty lying in heaps. The arrival of an officer put a stop to this disorder, particularly if the room happened to suit him. Blows with the flat of his sword, and often kicks, dispersed the crowd, which settled itself in the yards and outhouses. Order came later, but order of a hard, methodical, dry, haughty, implacable sort. The population was spared personal violence, for the discipline under which the Prussian soldier bends is of iron, and. wherever there is an officer he allows of no infraction of it unless specially commanded. | Moral violence was, however, constant and unremitting, and this is the bitterest acd most painful to a sensitive people. The Turks cannot help being grave. The Prussians are naturally arrogant; even when they wish to be civil, they remain overt earing. They are masters, and make this felt. Their politeness is not always and eve'ywhere equal. Contrary to what takes place in a lake when a stone is thrown in, it is on the outer circumference that the harsh and evil working of the invasion is most felt. It became brutal farthest from head-quar-ters. It became orderly and lost its asperity and violence as it approached the centre ; rapine disappeared. There remained only requisitions, coldly imposed and coldly executed.. Sometimes the angry German blood asserted itself. There were explosions .of fury about champagne when it was not sufficiently plentiful, or about dishes not exquisi'e enough. Officers were seen to draw their Bwords on servants, and to stagger after them ready to run them through ; and one of them at the Hotel dv Loiret thought fib to enter the dining-room on horseback. Were it permitted to philosophise on this sad Bubject, it might be asked how officers who are continually brutal in their behaviour to iheir own soldiers, who actually thrash them, and evtin' strike them in the ranks, in uniform, can be gentle towards the inhabitants of a conquered city 1 It _ has been observed in the French hospitals at Orleans that thewoundßof the Germans are chiefly from pieces of shell—comparatively few bullet« ounds — but that the French have chiefly been wounded by the needle gun. The inference is. obvious, that the French fired wildly, too fast, and without aiming, and perhaps at too great a distance. The Chaßßepot is a had weapon for recruits, and especially for young French soldiers, impetuous and difficult to control.