Whichever side wins, it is grievous and horrible. Feelings are blunted, unfair dealing is suggested and believed in, and contact with each other, which ought to dispel prejudices, is likely to engender more hatred than at first. It is awful and horrible. If there were a dynasty in France, it might end; but now that the prosecution of war is in the hands of the people, who can say how far it may go? The Times says it does not believe in Paris besieged or resisting. I say that Paris and what we call the most luxurious French society is infinitely more capable of a sacrifice of what they acknowledge to be luxuries, than the virtuous English society is of comforts which are the more costly of the two. Our Pharisaical self-contentment is at the bottom of that argument throughout. Ah! it is better to have no possessions at all than to run the risk of getting attached to them. How horrible to belong to one's possessions rather than they should be our property!"

It was in this cruise that occurred the catastrophe of the loss of H.M.S. "Captain," almost immediately after which the squadron returned to England.

In the month of October, Admiral Wellesley assumed the command of the Channel Squadron; and Captain Goodenough was relieved on October 25th, 1870.

CHAPTER V.

WORK AMONG THE FRENCH PEASANTS ABOUT

SEDAN-COMMITTEE OF DESIGNS OF SHIPS-DIEPPE-NAVAL EDUCATION-APPOINTED NAVAL ATTACHÉ.

CAPTAIN GOODENOUGH did not, however, remain long idle. The war had already brought many hardships to the districts in which it had raged, and several English societies were doing what they could for the relief of the inhabitants, as well as of the wounded. Among them, the French Peasant Relief Fund, under the direction of the Daily News, which was working among the peasants about Sedan, had just appealed for volunteers to assist in the distribution of food which was being made in that neighbourhood. Captain Goodenough offered his services, which were immediately accepted; and on November 8th started, with his wife, for Bouillon, a small Belgian town, close to the frontier, and about ten miles from Sedan. Of the assistance which he then gave, Mr. Bullock Hall, the energetic director of the undertaking, has lately publicly written in the following terms :

"In the dreariest period of the gloomiest of Novembers, when autumnal rains were giving place to snow, and sleet, and frozen winter fogs, and we whose business it was to convey food and clothing over the slippery and almost impassable roads to the

G

destitute in the villages about Sedan, were almost in despair at the task we had undertaken, and were in sore need of encouragement, there came in answer to our appeal for volunteers, a man, the very sight of whom at once communicated new life to us. Here was a man, the very model of an Englishman, with unbounded energy, and combining extreme gentleness with an iron sense of duty; born to command, and with a genius for communicating the love of order and regularity, which characterised him; a man before whom one could only feel inclined to bow down; here was this man come to place himself meekly under orders, and to go plodding day after day through snow and slush."

The following extracts from Captain Goodenough's own letters give some account of the work done :

"BOUILLON, November 21st.

"I was in Sedan two days ago. The town looked dismally dull. A few knots of people stood chatting at different points near the bridge, and in the market place, and were probably deriving comfort from the report that the siege of Mézières is raised. It is certain that there was fighting on Thursday and Friday, and that some Germans were driven over the frontier on that day; but fancy their being in ignorance of what had been done at a place only twelve miles off, two days before. The only bright shops were those of the pâtissiers, which, as usual, looked cheerful enough. In scarcely any of the others was there more than one jet of gas burning. I went into a bookseller's, who was so painfully affected, poor fellow, when some German soldiers came in, he was like a man with delirium tremens. One is almost afraid to sympathise with them, they have sons or brothers in the Mobiles at Mézières, and every shot they hear fired during the day is a shock and pain to them. The expression of their faces was like a continued moan, and as though they were saying, 'How long, O God, how long !' in plaintive agony. This was the note

which struck me throughout, and which was continued and impressed on me by the sermon we heard on Sunday at the Protestant Church. It is the church of the Pasteur Goulden, who is now in England, and the sermon was from the pasteur des annexes, who has charge of the neighbouring towns and villages where there is no resident clergyman. His sermon was on 1 Tim. ii. 1, 2, and he began by referring to his last sermon, in which he enjoined the practice of charity among the many poor, and desired his hearers not to be disheartened at being deceived and imposed on by the people who sometimes came to them and to prepare themselves by prayer to meet such cases justly, temperately, and wisely. Then he went on to bid the congregation pray for all men-for kings, remembering that while St. Paul wrote, Nero was emperor; for all people—for both peoples in the great war; for the extension of brotherly spirit and kindness, which would prevent the possibility of future wars, and breathe a spirit of humanity into the conduct of this war; for peace-ah! that we may have peace at last, as the fruit of our labours, peace among all men, and wisdom in rulers to maintain it. And shall we not pray for our dear country-that this war may do us good? Already we see it has done good; we were living in too great luxury. Our sons were growing up in enervating habits of idleness and self-indulgence, were neglecting, and caring for none of the manly virtues. Do we not already see a change? Is there not a greater love of country already apparent, and a growing inclination to live for the good of the country, and not for our enjoyment? And before peace is made, before we are quite triumphed over, may we not pray for a little success for our country. 'Oh, God! a little success, only a little, so that we may not be utterly humbled and despised in the eyes of surrounding nations.' It was this cry of nature which was so touching to listen to. All his sermon had been so wise, and so temperatenot clever, but excellent, and all eloquence restrained by practical earnestness; and this little cry from the heart was enough to bring tears to one's eyes. I went to see him in his vestry after service,

for I wanted to ask if his Protestants in the different villages had received their share in the distributions of bread, and I find that all has been fairly arranged. Directly after church I started for Bazeilles, through Balan. Balan begins at the gates of the town, and in every bend of the long street the bullet marks on the walls and shutters show that the ground was yielded bit by bit. A crowd of people with pannikins and jugs was collecting at the door of a factory, and a long stream of young and old women were coming from Bazeilles to get the soup, which Dr. Davis pays for, and which Mdlles. Goulden, sisters of the pasteur, distribute. There is an interval of three quarters of a mile, and then one sees Bazeilles. A single house stands at each end of the village, I think they have been used as Field Lazareths. Everything else is burnt. Here and there the walls seem sound enough to allow of the place being fitted up again, but nineteen out of twenty among the houses must be pulled down altogether to be rebuilt. We soon fell in with some people, who were saving some potatoes out of a cellar, which was letting in the rain —a man and wife and two pretty little children, who came up to us, and followed us about. The man had been a weaver, and had a loom which was worth 200 francs, and on it a piece of cloth within one day of being finished. He had gone off to Belgium with his family on the day of the battle, and had returned after a fortnight to find his house destroyed, and nothing left but a little lean-to at the back of the house, which had escaped the fire, and into which his pig had wandered from its stye. It was very thin after a fortnight, still he turned it into eighty francs, and so had enough to give him bread for some time. All this was told with much cheerfulness and resignation both by husband and wife. A little lower down we came upon an old man with an axe, who had been chopping wood, and he at once began to speak of, not his own, but his neighbour's misfortunes-the poor widow with seven children, whose husband died three years ago, and who had lost everything and was living in her cellar. Really, until we questioned him, he never spoke of his own ruined