FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1076, 17 October 1883, Page 4

FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

„ V^e,, attitude ,pf the French popular mmS ioward&rEngjand,” observes the . World, will never be understood unless certain facts in addition to those already mentioned are taken into consideration. Independently ot the Waterloo business, the French dislike us for more pertinent and practical reasons. Thirtetfityears ago Paris was the ‘smart’ capital of Europe. That equivocal distinction now belongs to London. The fashionableHtikigUslL who used to make a point of passing some weeks, probably mores than once a year, in the Paris of the Empire, now loudly complain that the capital has lost all its charms since the Republic came into existence. M. Gambetta aimed at perpetuating for Paris something of the prestige she enjoyed in the days of Napoleon Ilf., and, apart from his efforts in this did more than any other public Frenchman of his time to establish and extend a good understanding between the two countries.' ‘ But M. Gambetta is no more, and though M. Jules; Ferry protests that the supreme wish of the French Republic is to keep on good terrtis with England, the French, and especially the Parisian populace, is fiiled-wTth impotent fury at the thought that the social, and. therefore the commercial burcome’ of the past decade has beehfayorableto England and prejudicial .feathers thrown into the air-. ; direction of the wind, soudo the comments of the French press upon: many social matters of minor: import serve as an index to Fffehcb ;* feeliiig l in ’ a graver context. o.ther day published an article' sheering at the leaders of English society for the ease with which they receive with open arms ladies and gentlemen who have been exiled from the severer Circle's .of the polite world in Parii n While we in London pride qu cosmopolitan attributes which we are rapidly developing, our French critics taunt us with our combined pharasaism and social gullibility. There are'Tjo plays w.hich produce such applause >in. French theatres ; as those which I satirise pretended virtue and selectuess; of‘high life ’ in England. OirbttT we are moved by'none of these 1 .against ourselves, because we have persuaded ourselves into thinking it is the chic thing to do. It WQtyld bp auditable to our intelligence if we discerned that there was more "than a casual significance in these tau 3ffPfl-rm* ;i : - -