OUR PARIS LETTER.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume IV, Issue 412, 23 August 1876, Page 3

OUR PARIS LETTER.

(VKOM OTTB OWN COBBESPONDENT.) Pabis. June 10. The French are commencing to perceive that the Eastern question cannot be for them either a subject of merriment or a matter of indifference. Their > position is furthermore delicate in the extreme; Germany as usual concealing her play, having induced France to approve of the ultimatum of the three Emperors, even before she had cognisance of its details. Since the invasion she has lost no opportunity to make love to Russia, a power that did everything against her, overlooking England whose crime consists in not fighting for her. but otherwise helping her. The

French thus show a weakness for despotic Russia, that prevented Austria from helping them, and covered t lie Gem an violors with all honors, rather than liberalism, whether such be represented by England -or Austria. Such is, the vein in wbich Kinile de Girardin writes. '1 he French, however, have made a halt ; they are consternated at John Bull going to fight the three Emperors if necessary, the better to get at the champion, Russia ; they feel queer in being thus declared not absolutely necessary to "save England" once more from a Crimean encounter, and th^y oannot but feel jealous of the honor and profit Perftde Albion reaps in the eyes of the world, for her pluck, decided action, and plain speaking. If compelled by events, France will not hesitate to decide against Russia, and so be cured of a very dangerous flirtation. The Slavs have arrived too loto in Europe to regulate continental difficulties aocording to their ambition.

Perhaps Alphonse Karr has said the mot about Abdul Aziz ; formerly the Turks strangled their Sultans, now they suicide them." The deceased is one difficulty lets, and people treat his memory, as he himself lived, without any bowels of compassion. The condition of Turkey has been brought home to Parisians by the public funeral given to M. Moulins, the massacred French consul at Salonica. Thousands in France only learned by the crime, that there was such a place as Salonica at all, and that they had an official there. The curiosity of the funeral consisted in the absence of the Turkish embassy, and the four encased coffins, with the seals of the consulate as large as those of a Papal bull.

A more attractive event will be the ooming public funeral of George Sand, the distin guished novelist, who expected to live to 80, has succumbed at 72, at Nohant, where her life may be said to have had its- head quarters. Her marriage with the Baron Duderant was unhappy, so Bhe separated from him, and came to Paris, and adopted literaturo as a profession. Her two children, and her numerous grandchildren have made her declining years happiness itself j but we can hardly apply the word " declining " to a lady aged 72, who wrote till last week as vigorously as she did when but 28, and writing too, at her favorite time ever during the night. All her character and life are in her books, as she was rather silent in conversation. Her weakness for masculine habits was notorious . she for a long time dressed in male attire, like Rosa Bonheur, taking advantage of the carnival, to appear " disguised in jupons ; " she was a capital shot, a Diana Verdon, and smoked like a Bildago. She felt proud of being an illegitimate descendant of the Kings of Poland, no matter whiob, and being thus related by the main gauche to the Bourbons, which may account for her never heartily taking to the "Republic. She was Lamartme'a iEgeria in 1848, and coquetted a little with the Second Kmpire. Her first novel appeared in 1832, and till her death no writer has ever surpassed her in industry. It is wonderful the sustained elegance and attractiveness she dippluys in the midst of such fecundity. Dramatic invention only holds a second rank in her works, and correct social observations, no place at all. She imagined, created societies, but depicted no realities. The base of her novels never change ; it is ever the struggie of amorous passion against manners, prejudices, and instil ut ions. From her Indiana to her Tout de Percemont, all is a long series of irregular passions, misunderstood tendencies, victims of education or of caste, and of marriages ill-assorted. For a while George Sand belonged to the Werther school, which she quickly deserted for her natural sympathies for tousseau and Voltaire. She completely broke down when dealing with the Bubjest of the emancipation of women ; she obseuved instead of enlightened the sub 1 ject. Balzac made humanity as he saw it, Geoge Sand as she wished it. Before her death she said, " I have drank too much of life ;" there is no doubt she expended a great deal of it. Her loss will not be as Hugo asserts, " a monument for hnmanity," but it will be a loss for letters. Mmes. de Servine, de Stael, mid de Girardia, were great, but Mme. Sand was the noblest Koman of them all. Her books will, from their clear and simp'e style, occupy ever an honorable position in a library ; they are not the sources, however, where readers ought to go to learn to think, but where even the most illustrious can learn to write. Her cognomen " George Sand " was partly derived form that of Jules Sandeau, with whom she wrote in common, and was accidentally manufactured by a confrere, for tho title page of a novel, while the printer's devil was waiting for the proof. The Chamber of Deputies has re-conferred on the State the sole right to confer university degrees ; the Ultramontane party aimed to have also the power to accord diplomas after its own heart, so France has shown she is liberal at the core, and will have no mixing up of politics with religion, If the Bishops attempt to kick, the Chamber will simply stop their grog. Bismarck was right when he said, Republican France will settle the Ultra' montane difficulty. The discussion had ateo another important consequenoe, it has broken up the Bonapartists into two sections, one to march with the times, the other with the Vatican.

The plan of the Exhibition Building has been decided upon ; the Jena bridge will be widened to 123 feet, and its approaches masted in great taste ; visitors arriving by the river, will be taken by lifts and deposited in the very centre of the building. On the Trocadero, an immense rotunda will be erected, capable of accommodating ten thoui sand persons ; this will be a concert hall. The estimate for the structure is thirLymillionß of francs, and the State will be the contractor. Pariß cannot be made a seaport in the sense as Bordeaux is one, by then, but the project, approved by the municipality, of deepening the bed of the Seine to make the river navigable for vessels drawing ten feet of water, will be commenced. Already companies are in the air to supply Parisians in their homes with genuine sea water. There are several bakeries in the city doing an excellent business by making bread with sea water, as biscuits and even pastry. Bottles of sea water are to be had at the same time, which is asserted on the authority of medical certificates to make a capital table beverage. "Old Salts" are not caught in this trap. If the subterranean railway be not inaugurated by 1878, cosmopolitan visitors can at all events studj the plans. But what interests France is the resolution of the Parliament to commence making the thousaud miles of local railways itself, and then handing the lines over to the groat companies to be worked. Publio opinion ia not at all in favour of' the State

conceding the making of" feeding lines to monster companies. M. Garabetfa promises to take in hand the redressing' of a shameful nuisance,, that by which railway companies increape their tariffs by 30 and 50 per cent, on Sundays and holidays. What a busy life the ex-Dictator must have j he has- no lesathan 532 abuses that he promises to remedy — all he asks for is time. Bis two journals are very well conducted, save occasionally when a " talented writer seizes the pen.' r One of these phenomena has just astonished Parisians, and more especially the railway and postal authorities. Ibe text) is the "Indian Mail j" this, we ere told, consists of only a locomotive and one carriage devoted to the transport and sorting of letters ; only two clerkp, muffled in furs and whaler's boots j. no passengers and no luggage van consequently. The traiD leaves the Northern railway terminus, and sweeps on to Marseilles, where it joins the Italian line for Brindisi. Greater wonders still ; this one carriage may contain an order, emanating from the East Indian Company, which consists solely of merchants, ordering their representatives at Calcutta to direct 120 millions of people to at "once cultivate opium, which means famine, instead of rice, which signifies abundance." Also, excursion trains, at nominal fares, run, it seems, between Manchester and Calcutta, and which are much patronised by the "cutlers of Manchester desirous of collecting fragments of Indian gods, to hunt elephants, or chase tigers."

The ladies at the race courses are often inconvenienced as to where to place their fans, the " k'rict card," and their betting book, for it ia as essential to carry this little book and a lead pencil as the card itself ; by an ingenious arrangement these can now be all gracefully lodged in the folds of the jupe. It is gratifying to state that ladieß do not take to practical betting, and the w^men who set up professionally aa bookmakers have been hunted' down by the police ; they were merely demimondians under another disguise. Intoxication is not a Gallic vice, and it is to be hoped neither will be horse gambling. Louis Ehillippe's remains, ns well sb those of several members of his family, — for lie was a fruitful vine directly and indirectly — deceased in exile, have been unostentatiously buried in France. Not a Bonapartist has attempted to take advantage of the KepubliVs " equality and liberty" programme, and solicit the earae privilege for the Man of Sedan. The Czar is said to be eDJoying himself at ■Ems, just as if he had no important business on hand. Bis favourite amusement is whist, and he plays high. He was so enjoying himself when ha was informed of the Sultan's downfall ; he remained silent, twirled his moustache, and continued his play. The Tribunal has decided that no qualification or prefix can authorise one journal to appropriate the standing name of another. A journal was brought out at Bouen, and sold in the kiosques of Paris, oalled the "'Little Figaro," The Figaro took an action against the conductors, and obtained the annulation of the title. This rules also the fate of a score of other Figaro publications devoted »o finance, industry, letters, &c. It was a general trading on a popular title, just as when Bochefort'a Lanterne appeared* it had fifty imitators in the course of a. week.