OUR PARIS LETTER.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 360, 30 December 1879, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER.

Varieties.

(FROM OUR .OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Paris, Nov. 6,

The Prefect of Police has allowed the directors of theatres to keep the houses open till half-past twelve, which is a great boon to.the cabmen, who enjoy increased fares after midnight; it allows the theatres to open later, and so enables one to dine less hurriedly. In the reign of Louis XIII the theatres commenced at two' m the afternoon and finished at four; society" then had four meals a day—breakfast at eight, dinner at noon,, lunch at five, and

supper at nine. Under Louis Xyi and the First Empire, breakfast was at nine, dinner at two, and supper at ten, after the closing of the theatres. . .

The First .Gharaber of the rievy Law ..pourts has been inaugurated," the old having been burned by the Communists. It ia the site of the famous aalle where the wm of Louis XlV—making, his bastaids his heirs—was broken, where the Revolutionary Tribunal * held its- sittings, and where Marier Antoinette waa tried.

There is a burning and shining medical light in Paris, who fills the journals with his advertisements and portraits. Among his other qualifications is that of having been a •' Brahmin priest, artd having driven thecar of Juggernaut." He claims to' cure cancer by the " gifaco," but which printers have occasionally set up as /' guano." Dumas says--" Friendship ends where borrowing commences."

A club has been started by the blackr balled candidates of other clubs; it is a new Salon dcs refuses.

Gambetta invites the officer who is on guard each day at the Chambre dcs Deputies to breakfast with him.

The municipality intend to designate the alleys in the cemeteries, after the American fashion of the streets,; by numbers..

" Monsieur, why did you read the letter I dropped?" "To see if it waa worth' while calling you back to take it."

A u artist, in taking a photo of a tomb in Pere Lachaise, begged it not to stir. The " authentic title of Marquis, dating creation from 1668;" is advertised for sale.

Sarah Bernhardt name was hissed at the Trocadero concert. She promised to declaim for a charity, but cavalierly abstained. 0» _„; shß; was- jealous of Patti, just as she is of Croizette.

France produces as many almanacs as she does barrels of wine, only the former harvest never suffers from oidium, philloxera, or frosts. There is a choice from the " Almanac of sagacity " up to that for " Lunatics at large."

Some of the ancient seigniors of France when they desired to found a town on their lands, accorded certain privileges to tenants; among others, the right to beat Wives on certain days in the year.

Deputy Naquet is the apostle of divorce; he is married, and lives on the most affectionate terms with his wife, but away from her. He draws such heart-rending pictures of conjugal life that he asserts he "receives several letters from ladies sympathising with his miseries.

The Government has refused the liberty to ha.vk the "Almanac of illustrated robbers," containing a portrait of the late Prince Louis Napoleon.

Fashionable ladies have for sporting costume in wet weather a kind of sou'wester hat, an indiarubber coat, and cashmere pantaloons tucked into Hessian boots. In the evening, to the opera of Romeo et Juliette.

The Theatre dcs Nations is to bring out Werner's tragedy of " Marfin Luther." During his recent visit to Paris, Mr Gladstone attended divine service in the Abbe Loyson's church, and left a donation of IOOOfr.

France supports a school of Statuary at Rome, where she sends her best pupils of the School of Fine Arts to complete their studies for two years. It is complained that not a single pupil sent in a model or design for the symbolical statue of the Republic as thrown open to competition by the municipality. Yet art is like death and taxes, eminently democratic.

The Prince of Wales when he visits Paris is called "the barometer of public security." The police have caught a fafhous old gaol-bird, the Comte de Navarre, a modern Cartouche. He is 76 years of age, and was denounced by one of his mistresseshe has two —in a fit of jealousy.

A rich merchant has eloped with his son's young wife, emptying the safe to the extent of 180,000fr. The fugitives have been arrested at Marseilles.

To the new school of painters, Realists and Impressionists is now to be added, the "Tachistes," because with a single daub of the brush they can paint a sky.

The famous ex-demi-mondian Mme. Elluini, an institution under the second Empire, has sent out cards that she " has returned to her town house." This is the creature who, with other members of the " Old Guard," went into mourning on fh* death of the Prince Imperial, and had masses celebrated for him.

" A man who has ceased to love is one who has awakened from a deep sleep."

Alexandre Dumas has-purchased a farm in Calvados ; he intends) to become agriculturist, like his fellow dramatist, Labiche. Besides, he has just been made a grandfather. Wife to husband, who is an author : " I should like to be one of your books, as then you would occupy yourself with me." " I wish you were, ma clierie, an almanac, so that I could change you yearly."

At the siege of La Rochelle, the Comte de Grancy was wounded by a musket ball in the knee. Transported to a monastery} the doctors probed the wound for a. long time. ." What are you doing ?" asked the Comte. "We are searching for the ball." "Well, you will find it in my vest pocket."

M.. Zola's Nana continues to be devoured* notwithstanding, or perhaps in consequence of, its coarseness, which is "art." His next romance will treat of the Commune. Charles Nodier describes -Rabelais as a " Homeric buffoon." " Our Shakspeare in comedy'7writes,Sainte Beuve.

.; Fiddlers are so scarce in France that the popular Opera has had to import violinists from Italy.

A poor fool was arrested a few radrnings ago in the streets, clothed only in his night chemise ; he told the policeman he adopted that costume to avoid pickpockets. '"...',• 7.. Napoleon 17 proposed to Josephine, in order to' escape from being divorced, to simulate being enceinte. He then consulted his private physician, declined to be a party,to the subterfuge. The marriage with Marie Therese was the result.

Difference between professions: A cashier adds, a robber subtracts, a woman multiplies, and ; modern murder "divides." Deiblec, the executioner, boasts his improved, guillotine can chop off two heads in six France is prepared for eVery f A society of "Pious Printers" has been formed in Paris, but when anything goes wrong, cursing ia not excluded.