Our Contributors

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 477, 22 February 1881, Page 3

Our Contributors

OUR PARIS LETTER.

Danton's motto was—" Audacity, audacity, always audacity !" Tho Comniunists arc resolved to net on tlie advice ; thus Rochefort's Fidus Achates, one Pain, proposes to erect a monument in " memory of the hrave Communists who fell in 1871." Their number is ostium ted fit 85,000, ns M. Pain himsi'lf, at ihe ceremonial inauguration of the statue to Thiers at St. Germain, accused the shade of the ex-President with having massacred that number of his fellow citizens, for loving the Republic not too wisely, but too well. One hardly knows whether to laugh or to be indignant nt the proposition. The originator bases his reasoning on the maxim : orthodoxy is his doxy, and heterodoxy every other body's doxy. The Communists have been weighed in the balance" and found wanting ; condemned in the name of the law, they have bceu executed. But Louis XVI. and his Queen Marie Antoinette have also been declared guilty, and yet have their monument in the form of an expiating chapel on the Boulevard Haussmann, | and that the Communists, be it said in passing, had not time to demolish it. The bravest of. the brave, Marshal Ney, alike betrayed Napoleon I. and Louis XVIII.; he swore to deliver the Oorsican tyrant in a cage to the r stored Bourbon, but on encountering the escaped from Elba, he joined him in his march on Paris. In the course of time whfMi the Republic becomes really " Athenian and amiable"—a thing of beauty and a joy for ever—every party may be left free to embellish the capital with an historical head stone, sacred to the memory of ideal greatness or lost love.

The Communists stir a good deal just, now, but they make neither converts nor progress. The Government continues wisely to turn a blind eye to their goings on ; if there be method, there is at the same time prudence in their madness. A manifestation was organised a few days ago to deposit on Ferres' tomb a red bouquet, laid down on the same leviathan lines as that recently presented by Paris to London's Lord Mayor in recognition of his turtle soup and Boman punch. Louise Michel " the hero in petticoats," decided to remain away—an act of sagacity that reflects credit on her hallucinatory ideas. It is true, but only human nature, there is not an ames-tit-d Communist, beginning even with Rochefort and ending with the vilest gaol-bird that found liberty in the ranks of the Federnls of March, 1871, who would like to return for ten years to Now Caledonia, and as they cannot expect to become Ministers or Ambassadors, they will be contented—by compulsion—to be pleased with that state in which it has pleased God lo place them. IWhofo'rt Ims crme out of the de C'ippcy libel trial roducul in-j irs-lige ; he cut up badly ; he vks net \n\ phnky and (what will never be pardoned) he was not oven wiltv : not a brilliant repnrtie. The Bemh, ennipnte.l of good unci true Republican jud cs, smiled a bis finical wnys nnd menu?, and in th bands of counsel be wns but nn inlant; . tut then he knew be would be condemned in advance, sis peop/tt generally expect to be who make charges without a screed of evidence. He cited 45' witnesses, including one dead five years since, for Roclufort is capital at joking, but never produced one. It is still epen to him to do so on nppe.al, but he has had enough of law—l2,oooirs. and costs to pay convinces a man greatly of the way lie should go. He got off with half the damages claimed, as he pleaded patriotism in ebullition, and anti-Bona-partism at white beat. General de Cissy left the Court froe of the imputation of Bagineism—treason and speculation. He had already pleaded a true bill to the count of having a mistress, but this— like bigamy—has long since ceased to be a hanging matter in Fr.incc. The extraordinary matter would be his not having one ; but he should have kept his fair Rosamond in a H. John's wood bower, and never allowed her to look in at the War Office with a Paul Pry timidity of " I hope I don't intrude." The general has handed the damages over to the Military Orphan Asylum. Other pleasantry—-the debris even of the Bonapartists has broken up, the Old , Guard has died or surrendered, and the ■ yo'ing has decamped bag and baggage to the Republicans. Only Paul de Cassiignae remains, like Victor Hugo, to represent the sole, or the last, man's fidelity. The, parting guests declare no- * thing but confusion reigns respecting ideas, principles, apd persons. Now no party can live, move, and have its being , which has for its base only confusion in i' ' t ' n " n --^ , -* fc becomes not divided, but '" it censes to exist. However, all times the Imperialists were never more than n party of expedients, never of principles ; the Empires, though facts, were not I lie !e>s adventures : they started from ihe sovereignty of the nation, to end in Csesarism—the absolute negation of that sovereignty. It was confusion, and whon the moment arrived for the suppression * of that confusion—ar, at present, the party exists no more. The Orloanists —of late years—had no principles, ;uid they vuntei! what t'le J-ioTKi.j.arf'.-'i.s •>■:<■;■ *" posswSHi, Cut!!.'*■!■. W cm,,, see::;.; ,::.„ Sir-tor Aγ.Me. liothiiiO , <'o:r:iiUr, 'J:.- •■;,;■;:■■ blood Of Ui'>;i!li--ai jl!!.v . ,--fr.,l(.;i !{.-.; r<,. w lie.-m-wards u\?,o. (■(■uun< : \>,r,v. : -. .i • ■■,'<■- Frenchmen «]o, hv imiiiciui-. 1 ■•; »■.<■«<;■•■.;•.•■■ -nippoiting; it (.;; miu'-' , . , .■.;,»:•.■ which is i'.npnrf.ii.'iL, bui, ;<■ ■••:■ : • lik." iii'son-T' v.'.iU;. , ;>■,. ; •■■•= ■• ■.- •■'; ; ; ■;■ ill' I! < ■.';■•"!* V: .'!"■'