Mr. Russell, the Times' correspondent at Versailles, writes, in 'the
letter published yesterday, " I do not like to say much on what seems to me the inexplicable harshness of Herr von Bran-
• chitsch, prefect of the department, towards the mayor and municipality of Versailles, because it may be explicable, and I hope it is. M. Rameau is in a cell in the common prison here, and has been ill nearly to death. Three of the Town Council have been arrested, and are in prison also for the same offence. That offence is said to be their refusal to pay a fine imposed on them for not opening a store of groceries here on a certain day. The groce- ries were bought in Germany by the mayor and municipality [of Versailles], but the German authorities refused to allow them to be 'conveyed to Versailles by the French railways under their control." If Mr. Russell's account of the matter, confirmed by other corre- spondents, is true, the German prefect appears to be acting on the
• ancient principle applied by Pharaoh to the people of Israel, when he ordered them to make bricks without straw, and -then punished them for not having made them. No doubt a combination of finesse with violence is far more fascinating to -half-civilized taskmasters than violence without finesse. Even Mt. Squeers was subtle in discovering excuses for thrashing Smike,
aria found his that operation. enhanced by the subtlety of his pretextir.
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