OUR PARIS LETTER

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 343, 31 October 1879, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Paris, September 11

Thanks to the Pays, once a Bonapartist organ, we are informed, the Republic is on its last legs, and thai in a few days, perhaps hours, the partizans of Henri V. will be quite prepared for a rising. So a vulgar Vendean outbreak is the miracle the Comte de Chambord has been expecting since half a century. The legitimists, according to the Pays, are not wrong to try their hand at overthrowing the Government, adding, that power will belong not to the most worthy, but to the most ready. In this patriotic undertaking the remains of the Bonapartist faction have no objection to lend assistance. Must not the Republic be wellfixed to be able not only to tolerate this language, but better still, to despise it, and, not the less, because from that ex-lion among ladies, de Cassagnac, Bottom is at last translated. Still, before selling the bearskin, it is prudent to have first killed the animal.

A second contingent of the amnestied communists have arrived, and the usual dramatic meetings and recognitions have been re-enacted; so much is human nature the same in mankind. It is a wise child that knows its own father, but a boy or girl might be excused for not recognizing pa after an absence of nine years, when paterfamilias appears bronzed like an-Indian god ; hair unkempt; a tom-cat with a ribbon round its neck under one arm, and a grinning monkey on a shoulder with a dog or two in leash for the bulk of his baggage. Some men were dressed in canvas, resembling sailors after a hornpipe, or in a " shiver' my timbers " frame of mind. Many shewed their weakness still for red colors, by displaying in their button-holes the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, thus discounting permission to wetvr that decoration. The most cheerful sight was the 125 babies, as ruddy as cherries ; they seemed to join in the enthusiastic shouts for France and the Republic. Before now, have not little hills skipped for joy ? The Government ought to send that battalion of olive branches into Normandy to reproach the well-to-do inhabitants of that rich region of France, for their Mede and Persian resolution not to increase and multiply. Excepting this, the Normand Gars generally follow other divine injunctions. It will be a sad day for France if she has to keep up her population by importing babies. The ex-Com-munists have been welcomed like prodigal soiis by their relatives ; in the Chaumont Park a banquet was served, Spartanlike in its equality, and Rabelaisian from thegood things ,* music was provided, as it is the food of love, and fireworks wound up the gathering ; but the honored guests must have deemed the display a poor affair compared with their own during massacre week of May, 1871. The pardoned are obtaining work ; they loathe politics, which is excusable, as nine years' transportation for loving such not wisely, but too well, is sufficient to provoke a collapse all political enthusiasm. The only serious charge brought against the returned by the royalist journals is, the great need they stood in of soap and toilette vinegar. Now Louis XIV., who had as unlimited a supply of these as he had of mistresses, only took one bath in his life, but as a set off he patronized an aperient draught monthly, the official gazette duly announc: ing the fact, d la mode Laputan, that ajourd'hui le roi se purge. Pity Paris has not a free public bath like New York, where the hoi polloi could benefit by a " sheep dip." To attempt to find anything new ma

trip between Paris and London, would be as presumptuous as for a voyager to discover something original in the Holy Land or up the Nile. Yet I had occasion to accompany some old Baits, and_ also a very clever Parisian who was making his first trip to England, the latter certain in advance to be the life of the party, and to indulge in observations worthy- of being recorded. He was going to Cambridgeshire, " to be present at the death" of a near relative, and as he was to inherit something handsome, he swore on the crown of his melon —the French for a billycock hat—that if we admitted him to a seat in our compartment, he would stand a dinner, to be served in the luxurious Continental Hotel, where the shades of Lucullus and Brillat-Savarin soar over every repast, as soon as his mourning was over. He was admitted nem con. Though the obliging officials of the Chemin dv Fer de Nord had, by a card, notified to all whom it might concern, that our compartment waa let and reserved, our friend added, "ferme les dimauches ci fetes, and every evening from 7.45 till 2 a.m. next morning, hour of arrival at Calais." The mail boat was crowded, evidence that human nature prefers the shortest of sea routes to escape a sickness, the fear of which after all being, like death, most in apprehension. But stomachs were wellbehaved, and the French part of the sea afforded us a most beautiful phosphorescent way, which lasted till the Foreland lights came well in view, with their admirable application of electricity, never, hurting the eye, and never showing the slightest inclination to " wink " like electric lamps generally when one so frequently passes from light into darkness. Following the advice of a patriarchal traveller, we resolved not to be bundled and huddled into the mail train, like a letter bag, or a basket of fish having only a few hours to keep fresh ; we took the ordinary express, and by so doing had, with the majority of passengers, time to enjoy a real cup of English made tea, that would brace a Russian soldier for Paradise. In the meantime our luggage had been examined without any fuss or feathers, and our seats secured. In point of extreme civility, our French friend admitted there was no difference to be found between the officials of the two nations' lines; he preferred the English carriages as being less stuffy than those in his own country—more roomy and more hygienic, while the solid coupling of the carriages and their soft running at lightning speed amused him as a child. A wrinkle worth remembering : By taking the express from Victoria or Ho 1 born for Dover, the traveller arrives several minutes before the mail, and can thus have the pick of the berths and stow away his small impedimenta. Hardly had we left Dover than the haze which hung over the channel became a downright fog. Our Frenchman complained he had " caught it," knew it was as peculiar to England as roast beef or plum pudding, avowed he already felt its depressing influences, and fearing he might do something rash, commenced noting down in time his last will and testament. Occasionally a lift in the fog occurred, to show hop-poles, like painted ships upon a painted ocean ; he could not judge if the maids of Kent were fair, and he would prefer that, to noting the backwardness of the crops. He drove to the Liverpool street station to go " Eastward Ho !" and vainly searching for a lavatory, he lost a train. There were lavatories advertised everywhere, but not one open ; those at the railway termini were as firmly closed as the gates of Paradise till eight o'clock. Two hours of a wait to wash your hands ! Worse still, the refreshment stalls and shops followed the rules of the lavatories, and when Spiers and Pond unlocked, the girls had still a sleepy look, and commenced scrubbing and brushing. Tea, stronger than it was hot, was in time prepared, and when a roll was asked for, one having the antiquarian date of 24 hours was offered. I feel it just to say one or two religious book-shops had opened early; but I think sinners would be in a better mood for conversion if previously enabled to. have the means to wash, and to enjoy a hasty meal. London seems to have no such institutions as Oremeries, where from five in the morning one can obtain coffee, chocolate, and fresh milk, with a variety of hot rolls, and at a small cost. Our Parisian found London sadly dirty; the working classes anything but commendable in appearance, and deficient in the smartness and general tidiness of the ouvrier. As for the work-girls, they are centuries behind those of Paris. The shoe-blacks lie described as mere bundles of rags. The cabs and hansoms he found excellent, but the drivers repulsively shabby and unclean. The 'busses look very lilliputian after those of Paris, and conductors in ordinary civilian costume and chimney-pot hat, " suspended from the vehicle as over a drop," afforded him much amusement. In many of these matters, I have the regret to add, Old England has to make, up much lee way. Death has been busy with literary men of late. Baron Taylor, the father of litterateurs, has died at the age of 90, full of honors and respect. Hia parents were English, who had become naturalised, and accident led to his being born in Brussels. However, as Thackeray remarked in his own case, a' man is not supposed to be considered a horse because bom in a stable. The deceased wrote some pleasing dramas, but he was more a handy man connected with all intellectual projects. He introduced many ameliorations in stage decorations, andfounded several benefit societies for literary men. He was the commercial traveller for the French museums, and negotiated tho purchase of the obelisk on the Place de la Concorde, and which cost, according to Prudhon, exactly at the rate of eight sous per lb. Comte de Noe, better known as Cham, was one of the editors of Charivari ; he illustrated his own humorous writings— very amusing for the moment, but not of that order of caricature which will live on while illustrating history. He was a gaunt man, said to be the shadow of Sarah Bernhardt, and hie long arms and legs were proverbial: In politics he was a reactionist, and this very largely enslaved his talent.

While the Communists are returning to their Ithaca, with the cry of joy of a Cicero, Ministers are setting out for their vacation —a coincidence that timid ladies note. On the 18th March, 1.871,1 saw Thiers and his Cabinet bolt from Paris, like a lightning express ; but we have "changed all that— as Moliere's doctor observed of the position of the heart.

When M. Grevy goes to receive his dividends at the Bank, he waits his turn in the crowd like his footman.

A gentleman invited to" a day's shooting fitted himself out as an arsenal, and on

arriving at the park, blazed away for a few hours. He killed nothing, but boasted of having well frightened all the game. " Papa, why do we pray for our ' daily' bread, instead of for all our life ?" " Because otherwise it would become too hard to eat, my child." Landais in his dictionary says :—" Milady " is the female of "Mi-lord."

Marie: " You told me, inadame, to buy the dearest things for table." " Yes, but not to be dearer at the house than at the market," replied the mistress.