OUR PARIS LETTER.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 359, 26 December 1879, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER.

(from our own correspondent.) Paris, Nov. 6. M. Gambetta seems destined to be always setting houses in order ; he has in his day done good work in this respect. Eecently he overhauled his official residence at the Hotel Bourbon—odd title for a leading Republican's home, but M. Grevy lives in a palace, and the chief magistrates of Venice had also palatial residences—he has now made a " voyage round my chamber," he might boast, for he has taken official possession of the Chambre dcs Deputies, and visited it from cellar—the anniversary of Guy Fawkes is in the air—to garret. Hβ has replaced all the Republican symbols and decorations that the Second Empire had covered with other tapestry or new paint. The accommodation is excellent, the heating and ventilation more than fair; the Strangers Gallery is spacious, and the Press has: not only a roomy compartment, but a special staircase leading to it. The arrangements for the buffet promise to be excellent—the cellars'are stocked for half a dozen years, which corresponds to the "ciimateric duration" of a fixed regime for ever in France—according to M. Littre of fifteen years dating from 1870. With all the comforts of a home thus at their command, the deputies ought to turn out some practical work for the nation.

There are twenty cemeteries in and around Paris, some definitely closed containing two millions of dead. 50,000 is the round average nninber of deaths in the capital annually; In 1871 this number was nearly doubled. It is calculated that from four to seven thousand persons visit the cemeteries on week: daj T s, and nearly double these figures on Sundays. But the great Fete dcs Morts is the Ist of November, and which runs into the following day. This has just been held, and some threequarters of a million of individuals have made their pious pilgrimage to the bivouacs of the dead. Many of the poorer classes of society put in an appearance in some graveyard, though having neither relative nor friend there, in order to pray at the pillar-cross in the centre of the cemetery for such buried elsewhere. This throwing of the across our chamber door even foi a few hours in the twelvemonth is not bad ; it compels reflection and gravity, creates a hearing for humiliation, and makes the most proud and the most vain feel their littleness.

This anniversary is always a basiness matter with the French, and treated with seriousness and decorum, for they never forget there is a time and a place for everything. Families pray in grovups aroun a tomb, after first renewing the decorations —immortelles, wreaths, mottot'S, plaster cherubim and seraphim, suspending bouquets, or, planting flowers and dwart ! shrubs. Here.and there a basket may be , encountered, out of which will be taken a pot of paint and brushes, a hammer and nails, the mourner humbly repairing the effects of a year. But Baron Haussman has stated that this kind of culie expires in 35 years, and it is only necessary to throw a look into the lumber section of a cemetery to confirm this cycle of grief, and note the piles of discarded tomb-stones once sacred to a loved one's memory, and now being sold, to be used as a memento for another inconsolable sorrow. For a stranger a few hours ofymeditotion among

the tombs enables an estimate to be made of the popularity of the great departed. The number of souvenirs deposited on a tomb is a kind of plebiscite. It is thus that Thiers, Raspail, and Ledra Eollin were most honored ; then the common grave of the soldiers killed during the siege—the Communists excepted; these lie apart, forgotten and remembered at once. Dβ Mtisset and Auber were not overlooked ; Bossini'was better remembered than BeY anger. Danton lives green in the souls of many, but the Due de Moray was no more thought of than his master Napoleon 111. Grouchy's epitaph has been amplified by the scribble "traitor;" Baudin and G. Cavaignac are still favorites; Allan-Kar-dec, under his druidical dolman, has not been forgotten by his "speerits" in the flesh ; his tomb had more favors than that of Balzac or Abelard and Heloise. At Montparnasse, Sainte-Beuve and Edgar Quinet are more highly prized than the " Four Sergeants of Rochelle;" while at St. Oven, the half-dozen victims of recent terrible murders were not lost to sight; they are buried within a stone's throw of each other. Living under an open Republic explains why there were no political demonstrations, no display of police, no keeping of soldiers in their barrack and under arms for an emergency. The mortuary honors rendered, the living return to life's duties, thus the theatres are very crowded on these sevenings; they act as " pills to purge melancholy." It is the moment when the undertaker's "helps" are gay. as it is the period for settling accounts with those who live by the dead—the guardians who keep graves trim." Formerly the "mutes" in France were bound to cry in the streets the names of the dead ; they had also the monopoly of crying the sale of wines, and artilces lost. They were bound at a funeral to display on their breasts a painted cardboard, representing the coat of arms of the defunct. They had a part interest in the issuing of letters of invitation to a funeral. This was a source of misery to Cardinal Mazarin, who feared death as much as Eichelieu despised it, as the wags imitated the letters and invited the Cardinal to attend his own funeral. He managed, however, while allowing the Parisians to dance, to make them later pay for the music.

The Working Man's Congress at Marseilles has wound up its twelve seances ; the proceedings have not been of a nature to augment the interest in the working class, and that they deserve, nor, to encourage or fortify their friends. It is lamentable that delegates after a life of 25 or 30 years in workshops, have not been able to submit any practical measure to improve their condition. They are not in their communism the disciples of the learned Fourier or the honest Cabet. These dreamers had nothing common with the brutal and violent collectivism of the speakers at Marseilles—French nihilists, who would sequester all property to the State, to be later divided among all individuals. Of course real workmen and true liberals scout such apostles who are prepared to solve every social question by the logic of a pike and the pathos of a blow, and by disseminating hatred and distrust alienate practical sympathies. Louis Blanc was denounced by the very clasa which a few weeks previously unyoked the horses and took their place in drawing his carriage. Proudhon, in his action on the masses, was lesj dangerous than Louis Blanc, for he maintained that nothing could supply the place of the regular play of free forces. Now Louis Blanc has never reprobated the insurrection of March, 1871; he does not inculcate among the people respect for the law, as the only means of upholding law ; he amuses the masses with gilded sophisms, which they translate after the fashion of Louis XIV.—" The State, it is us."

The position of the Ministry is improved in proportion, as it rebukes with stern impartiality all who aim to bring the law into contempt. The Bishop of Angers is extensively pouring oil on the fire that rages between the Church and modern France, by denouncing the principles of liberty and legal equality bequeathed by the Revolution, and apologising for the 2nd December, coup d'Etat. His conduct only aids the Ferry Educational Bill, for in the struggle for clerical or lay domination Frenchmen will stand by the State and modern society.

Charity is ever a good occupation. At present Paris is occupied preparing a grand fete to relieve the distress of the Murcians. The generosity will aid to make the French better liked in Spain. Among other propositions was one for giving a real bull fight in the Hippodrome, but the Government is not favorable to the spectacle, which, however, is not rare in very Southern France.

The theatre dcs Nations has brought out a five act drama, Les Jlirabeau, by M. Jules Claretie. It depicts the family of the celebrated tribune, proverbial for I their quarrels. The father, the Marquis— " Friend of Men," did not include his two sons in this category; he turned them adrift on the world. The mother was three-fourths of a lunatic. Mirabeau arrives in Paris and leads a dissipated life, although writing pamphlets for the publisher, Valras, whose discarded wife was unconsciously Mirabeau's mistress. When the States General wore convoked, Mirabeau was selected to be the representative of France, and with difficulty a seat was found for him. Hβ was now supplied with abundance of money by a young Dutch lady, Mdlle. de Nehra, who fell in love with him, and whom he rewarded by making her his mistrees. She paid all his debts, and declared she did so to clear him of the accusation of having beem bribed. This paper fell into the hands of the exmistress; Nehra demanded it. An unseemly struggle ensnes, when she throws Nehra into the flooded moat, and is drowned. Valras witnesses the crime, recognizes his wife, and exercises his right of branding her forehead with a red-hot iron to indicate her as an adultress. Then follows the great Mirabeau's career, devoted to his country, as he swore it would be over the corpse of his young mistress, Henriette. The last scene, is that of the famous oath of the Jeu dv Paume. The piece is admirably mounted, the costumes historically correct, and the interpretation commendable. The National Opera revived Faust in order to introduce prima donna Mdlle Heilbron. This young lady made a favorable impression on Parisians seven years ago in comic opera, and her graceful person, handsome eyes, and cunning smiles were only enhanced by her determination to succeed, Th« role of Marguerite quickly reveals the talent of an artiste. There was the souvenir of Mdine. Carrahlo to contend against; her voice, elegant and pure, and her uncomparable

manner to pronounce the words, each word, each note dropping Hke a pearl. For Parisians Mdlle Nilson haa never equalled Mdme. Carrahlo. Mdlle Heilbron does not come up to either. Her voice lacks true tenderness" and real passion, and she does not impress the spectator as possessing that subdued, veiled modesty as claimed by Goqnod's Marguerite. - ■>..;■

The effort to introduce the English helmet into the French army is anything but popular. When the soldiers appear in the streets with the new headdress the people call them Prussians, and the small boys and women salute them stones; yet the kepi is insupportable, as anyone can see who observes the march past of an infantry regiment on a warm day. The French ought to remember that the Romans never disdained to borrow whatever was excellent in the warfare of' their conquered enemies.