_Thursday, September 22nd, evening._--The French are indefatigable in denouncing us to the world as cruel and destructive barbarians; and the English press--particularly the _Standard_, which is notoriously hostile to us--willingly lends them its assistance. The grossest calumnies respecting our conduct towards the French population and the prisoners in our hands are circulated almost daily by that newspaper, and always purport to come either from eye-witnesses or other well-informed sources. Thus, for instance, the Duc de FitzJames recently drew a horrible picture of the abominations of which we had been guilty in Bazeilles, adding the assurance that he exaggerated nothing; and a M. L., who represents himself to be a French officer whom we had captured at Sedan and subjected to ill-treatment, complains in a lamentable tone of Prussian inhumanity. Bernstorff sent the article in question to the Chief, with the suggestion that the charges should be refuted. The complaint of M. L. might, perhaps, be left to answer itself, but that of the Duke is calculated to affect even those across the Channel who are disposed in our favour. Besides, impudent calumny is always apt to leave some traces behind it. A refutal of these shameful slanders is accordingly being despatched to-day to certain London newspapers that are friendly to us. As the greater part of this communication was dictated by the Chief, it is worthy of special attention. “In this war, as in every other, a great number of villages have been burned down, mostly by artillery fire, German as well as French. In these cases women and children who had sought refuge in the cellars and had not escaped in time, lost their lives in the flames. That was also the case in Bazeilles, which was several times stormed by our infantry. The Duc de FitzJames is only an eye-witness so far as the ruins of the village are concerned, which he saw after the battle, just as thousands more saw and regretted its fate. All the rest of his report is based on the stories of the unfortunate and exasperated villagers. In a country where even the Government has developed an unexampled talent for systematic lying, it is not to be expected that angry peasants, standing on the ruins of their homes, would bear truthful witness against their enemies. It is established by official reports that the inhabitants of Bazeilles, not in uniform but in their blouses and shirt-sleeves, fired out of their windows at our troops and wounded soldiers, and that they killed whole batches of the latter in their houses. It has been likewise proved that women armed with knives and guns were guilty of the greatest cruelty towards the fatally wounded, and that other women, certainly not in the uniform of the National Guards, took part in the fight with the male inhabitants, loading their rifles and even firing themselves, and that, like the other combatants, some of them were in these circumstances wounded or killed.