All the other excuses of the Germans are of the same kind. Their very weakness proves that they are slanders. For example, Germany has endeavoured to spread in foreign countries, and especially in Switzerland, a rumour to the effect that people on their way back from enemy countries who had stopped in France, and also Swiss subjects, had been ill-treated by the French authorities. The object of this grotesque report was obviously to forestall charges under the same heading which would fall on Germany, and to prepare the public opinion of the world to think that charges outstanding against them were cancelled by the necessity of resorting to reprisals for acts committed in France. The Swiss newspapers did not fail to denounce the German manœuvre. To show the extent to which the policy of lying was being carried, the _Journal de Genève_ published a letter from the Swiss Consul at Besançon, giving the highest praise to the manner in which Germans and Austrians had been treated in France. Moreover, of what value can these slanders be when, on the other hand, documentary evidence proves that the French authorities have behaved to the Germans with an excess of indulgence. It is certain, at least, that nowhere in France has any hatred been shown to the prisoners. Even prisoners of war have been most energetically protected by the heads of the army against the passions of crowds. On this head here is a note which a French general, Commandant at Angers, addressed to the newspapers of this town— “For some days convoys of prisoners of war have been passing through the Angers railway station. “Part of the civil population, and not always the best part, crowds on the bridge above the station and utter cries when they think they recognise an enemy uniform on the platform. These demonstrations are unbecoming; if the Germans behave like brutes to their prisoners, there is no reason why we should imitate them. A nation like France, which boasts with good right of being the most civilised of all, cannot, by acting like them, follow in the footsteps of the barbarians whom we are on the way to conquer at our will and pleasure, with arms in our hands. I beg, therefore, the staff of the local press to be good enough to invite civilians to maintain the calmness and dignity which are the qualities of strong races, conscious of their place in civilisation. “GÉNÉRAL D’ORMESSON.” TRIVIAL ACTS HAVE SOMETIMES BEEN THE CAUSE OF TERRIBLE REPRISALS One of the manœuvres practised by the Germans consists in their firing some gunshots themselves, at the moment when they were entering a village evacuated by enemy troops, and pretending that these shots came from civilians. Consequently they began to resort to what they called reprisals. All the more did they resort to them when the smallest actual offence gave them any pretext.