Our Contributors

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 479, 25 February 1881, Page 2

Our Contributors

OUR PARIS LETTER,

Paris, Dec. 1

The clerical question is becoming small by degrees ; the Vatican cannot but perceive that France, though Catholic after her own fashion, is not at ill 1 Ultramontane. It is well known that His Holiness, though naturally disposed to moderation, is not a free agent, but has to submit to that occult domination which ruled the la t years of Pio Nono. In France they are the " lay friends " of the Church, as Leo XIII. himself shrewdly perceives, that are compromising the Church by using it as an instrument for their political ends and agitation ; hence why Vaticanism has no hold on this country, and why it is likely to imperil the Church itself. Men hold alOOf. , ■;:-:

These observations apply with force to the manifestation: made in memory of Lacordaire, the restorer of the Order of Capucins in France. Their private chapel having been closed in consequence of their refusal to submit to the law, the nineteenth anniversary was held in the St. Augustin Church, famous for its Bonapartigt obituary masses. All the many leading adversaries of the Republic were present. A sermon followed, preached by the Pere Monsabre, which was nothing more than a denunciation of the Decrees. He indulged in apostolic knocks against the Republic, but he did not explain by what right the religious orders ought to be exempted from obeying the laws of the land like Dick. Tom and 'Any. Impossible for the cause of religion to be promoted by this political alliance.

There was a slight attempt at a row outside: a few devotees indulged in uncomplimentary epithets respecting the Republic, commenced to push the police, and practice in a general knocking about. Some arrests were made ; a few hours in the c 11, with water ad libitum and uninterrupted reflection, reduced them to a fitting state to appear before the magistrate. An Englishman was arrested, and righteously so: he has no excuse for meddling in these matters. If his feelings be over-charged wilh electricity, let him find tranquillity by signing an address to the Archbishop of Paris, in the name of the people of England, dating it from Tooley-street.

M. de Villemessant, the founder of Figaro, was one day waited upon by a lire duchess at his private residence. Though at table, he not the less instnntly came to give the interview solicited ; during half-an-hour she upbraided him for having' rejected some literary production. Such conduct towards her she found " extraordinary." " You will find," he replied, " something more extraordinary still, madame, that a simple journalist turns a duchess out of his house ; " ho rang the bell nnd ordered a servant to open the front door for her.

" The very high and the very powerful Duchess de Chmcuse has had to appear before the P.M. for slapping , tho face of a gendarme on the occasion of the expulsion of the monks of Solesmes. She is the lady in Franco the most noted for her ferocious pride and the unhealthy import nee she attaches to herself. To be summoned like a common criminal before the local courts has fallen like a thunderclap in her neighborhood and circle. Only a Republic could be guilty of such an act of—equality. Her friends predict tho Ileign of Terror to be at hand, and already see the red arms, or beams, oi the guillotine. She is a descendant of M.'irshal d'Aucre, whose remains were so horribly treated by his own soldiers after they assassinated him. Her son, the late and young Due de Luynes, died bravely during the invasion of 1870-71 ; but slandering tongues whispered he had been shot in the back. The duchess had him disinterred,dressed in his uniform that he wore when killed, and exposed the corpse on the steps— covered with snow—of the castle, and invited the peasantry to come and so,o the grievous rent made by Prussian bullets. The poor 1 'dy has in her life suffered a good deal, so much allowance mint bo made for h> r rashness. She is a capital painter, and her bush h always at the service of charity.

M. Gambetta's fete is, lilc; man's happiness, always to hp, but never is. The cause of the present postponement is tho roughened feelings caused by the Rocheforfc trial, the Radicals having , made a Star-Chamber matter of the event, and they knew that Gambetta is the enemy of Rochefort, who saw at a glance that the de Cissy business was n case of pure libel ; and, further, that a Parliamentary enquiry into charges, which the Minister of War states does not exist, is nonsense. The ladies are the most disappointed.

Another bachelor high functionary (M. de St. Hilaire, Minister of Foreign Affairs) intends to make the fair sex happy in the interim—he will give very shortly a niacin i eit ball.

Paris is settling down to the work o preparing U> hired : the New Year is at hand when the nof-tr-bc forgotten classes commence to be disagreeably polite, and the most economical feel the necessity of having some balance nt their bankers. The monster shops nre stocked with toy books and toys, having finished their season of soft goods ; indeed, shops of this class are rapidly becoming simple stores, with several " fall " trades.

The beautiful faoade of Belgium that w;is so attractive, in tlio l?nedos Nations, ponding the exhibition rf 1878, is to bi> world" d np in the new General Post ofitoo. Another novelty spoken of is a pneumatic guillotine capable of whipping off a head as a gmt of wind does a hah

Abraham was commanded to count the stars of heaven. A member of the Statistical Society of Paris has been engaged on a similar work of patience :

he has counted the number of hairs on the heads of three lady friends of the same age. The blonde had 140,000, the the brown 109,000, and red 88,000, and not one borrowed from another crown. Carroty locks, which here suggests coolness, cannot, then, be the cause of the warm temperaments said to be the attribute of their owners.

M. Gambetta is an early riser ; he visited the Zoo Gardens the other day at 8 a.m. to see the lions, especially one that had died the previous day, and whose skin he was invited to purchase for a rug—a present for his papa.

M. Delesvaux was a celebrated Bona partist judge ; he boasted his appointment was made to ostensibly condemn political opponents. He so informed Rochefort several times. On Sept. 4th, 1870, hearing that Rochefort was a Minister, the judge shot himself. A valet arriving to tell him to rise, lound only a corpse.