OUR LADIES' LETTER.

Evening Star, Issue 4285, 20 November 1876, Page 3

OUR LADIES' LETTER.

Pabis, September 30. Swallows and chimney sweeps are leaving Paris. The vendors ot roast chestnuts will soon be tramping up from Lyons to spend their season in the capital. The drives of the Bois de Boulogne are already crowded at fashionable hours; the last day of the autumn races is fixed for Sunday next; the play-bills, the shop fronts everything suggests the approach of winter. Our legal lords and superiors are still lingering in the country, leaving France to be governed by head clerks, and the President himself, after a round of hard work as Commander-in-Chief during the late grand manoeuvres and breakfastings, is enjoying himselt for a week among the partridges not far from Orleans, and, en passant, though a faithful and accomplished son of H. Hubert, the only "game"#the Marshall likes is a rabbit and pigeons. Odd, also, that the refugee monarchs, the ex-Queen of Spain—she has her town house here still—and the ex-Kings of Hanover and Naples are celebrated in Paris for their weakness for dishes of pigeon. Our late cosmopolitan poet, Goque, complimented them upon that peculiarity of character as indicating a dove like nature. Back to our muttons. The ministers are reported to be hiding away at their country seats, visiting their electors, presiding at agricultural meetings, and avoiding gene rally the s ; ght of a Paris newspaper as much as a military guard would the civil burial of a member of the Legion of Honor. Those fiery Republicans, Messrs Naquet and Co., are stumping the warm-blooded south, and in after dinner orations are proving, to their own satisfaction at least, that Marat, and liobespierre, and A. Just were the angels of the Revolution, and that Gambctta, like Mirabeau, is a traitor to the Republic. Gambetta quietly takes his ease in his inn near St. Gothard, endeavoring to cure an accidentally bad leg of some months' standing, and as he has many admirers in England, they ought to present him with a little of Holloway. However, he is not crippled in mind, as he will soon prove, when legislators commence to wend their way to the chief dead city of France—Versailles. M. Thiers has given a good example by returning first to Paris from Geneva, as he takes generally his vacation rambles in Switzerland. Being a very little n - an his enemies uncharitably say he likes the Helv. t\o hills, because he then looks bigger. One thing is | certain, he is in the enjoyment of the best of health, and owing to the care of the most devoted of wives, and the most affectionate of sisters-in-law, he promises to live as long as did Old Parr. He is rapidly approaching i- urscore, and such is the belief in the Meth aselah element of his character, that his life last week was selected among one of the three, for a lease, and the thirty-one years. There's a new source of flattery for octogenarians ! M. Thiers had promised to pass the month of October in Italy, but he feared the Italian reporters, who last year published imaginary interviews with the Nestor of European diplomatists at Florence, when he was snugly at home in a chdlet at Geneva. The Italians do not like Thiers. He was, and is, the opponent of their national unity, and has a "strong political weakness" for the Holy Father; afto, in his younger days he was witty at the expense of the Latius. Stopping at an hotel at Genoa, he wrote some stanzas—we all have our youthful foibles—where he wound up with the line. " In Italy all is marble, «yen. %o the ceal hid dislike for the descendants of Romulus. Quite recently some one remarked in his presence that the conduct of the Itajiane, jn respect to the Servian war, was a mystery, *'Npt a bit," replied Thiers, ''ltaly is looking dowp on the row frpm her balcony, and waiting fop gome ope in the crowd to throw something at her—- < the Tyrol, for exmxfa." Thiers has ever

been what Dr. Johnion calls a "good hater/' and hit vanity is, to be accepted at knowing everything. If ho could only discover a care for the phylloxera, those insects that promise in due time to devour all the vineyards in France, his countrymen would almost get up a revolution in his favor to gratify his darling wish—to be a Becond time President of the Republic. Theijip :rted American vines are hefd responsible for the presence of the eight plagues, as the \ankee3 are reproached with inundating the country with the new linger toy, the eric eric. But, after accusing the American vines of introducing the insects, the botanical faculty still recommend the importation of slips of American vines, on which to graft the delicate vine of France. If this be not vegetable homoeopathy, it is at least making Tenterden steeple responsible for the Goodwin sands. The vintage is on the point of commencing. Except in song and painting, there is not much poetry in the gathering of the grapes. The peasant girls do not particularly dress for this more than any other agricultural operation; and rough porters, carrying baskets of fruit, to empty into still larger paniers on the backs of mules and donkeys, suggest nothing romantic. If rain falls, the last dregs of the ideal are washed out of the whole proceeding. At the winepresses the men are as scantily dressed as a French baker. The old customs connected with the opening of the vintage are rapidly disappearing ; the gathering cannot be commenced till the Mayor of the village issues his decree. In most other countries the first bunch of grapes is carried in triumph to the village church, the opening day being regarded as a feast. Similarly, the first bottle of the new wine wa3 presented to the priest, who might be excused for recalling, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. The farmer, when pressed by his wife for a present, invariably answers, "Wait till after the vintage." Liko hop-pickers, bands of grape-gatherers traverse the villages for employment, aud the local cooper is a more important personage than a pretender or Worth, the inan-dressmaker, and in busy seaseasons, as well as plentiful ones, he often receives a full cask of wine for two empty ones. In some renowned vineyards the pickers are watched, as if they were employe's of a mint, in order to prevent their eating too many of the valuable grapes; and the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the field, are as unpopular at that period as Prussians. Clos Vougeot is a renowned vineyard, and a Free Thinker might take off his hat when visiting it, to honor the old monks who planted it. Even at the present time, when a regiment passes before its entrance, the officer in command orders his men to carry arms, to salute this most rcyal vineyard, though we be in a Republic. A Frenchman would excuse anyone for imitating the Duke of Clarence in a butt of such liquor. Suresnes, a village outside Paris, was in its day famous for its wine. Henri IV. and his minister Sully sang hosannas in its favor; now-a-days the grapes compete with Orleans vinegar. In Balzac's time, Parisians volunteered to gather the grapes at Suresnes on condition that they would be allowed to eat to satiety of the fruit; it was a favorite outing for students and their sweethearts. The latter now prefer the Sunday race-courses, and endeavor to out-wit American and English book-makers, praising when they win, invoking all Jupiter's thunderbolts on the foreigners when they lose. Gambling is a marked passion with the French, so much so, that the Home Minister has had to prohibit a child's game—the mechanical racing horses, that were started like a barrel organ and went round till the clock-work went down—the jockey nearest the winning post being the victor.