Yet another disaster for France ! Will the list never
end ? The Provisional Government seated at Tours had with infinite trouble and difficulty enrolled, armed, and in some sort drilled about 90,000 men, whom they called the Army of the Loire. They were posted in three divisions, at Tours, Bourges, and Orleans, each being about sixty miles from the other, just too far for full support. The Prussians, dreading lest these forces should ultimately become an army, detached the Bavarian General, Von der Tann—who has had an extraordinary amount of hot work to do in this war— with a corps d'annee and a half, say 35,000 men, to break it up. They moved forward towards Orleans, and on October 10 attacked and captured Arthenay. The General, Chalron, in command, ordered forward General Reyan, with 15,000 men ; but after a very sharp contest, in which the French suffered heavily from the superiority of the German artillery, the General was forced back into the forest, "which," says General Chalron, "I am de- termined to hold." In this engagement the French generally retreated in good order, but one body of Mobiles are said, by an English correspondent, to have been panic-struck, and to have behaved discreditably.
