AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 304, 3 June 1875, Page 3

AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

(From a correspondent of the P ess.) PAEIS, April 6, The official world is becoming accustomed to the word Republic, and Ministers are commencing to talk politics in intelligible French. Since some two years the nation has been seeking its way, and has at last found it, hence why the country is so calm. To the clear, manly, out spoken circular of the Minister of Justice, succeeds the virile discourse of the Minister of Public Instruction, before the assembled savants, arrived from the four corners of France, at the Sorbonne. The representatives of science and national erudition cheered to the echo the Minister when he truthfully announced “the Republic is peace,” security, and revival of work. The Republic is settling down on a solid basis ; it is hardly a week when over the grave of Edgar Quinat, the orderly and respectable working population of Paris cheered Gambetta’s counsels of prudence and moderation ; and now the delegated savants of provincial Prance fiat the means for attaining the same end. No wonder the representatives of the three Pretenders are indulging in Jewish grief. The General Councils now being held open with presidential addresses, confirmatory of the salutary change effected in the country by the definite recognition of the Republic, welcoming it not so much as the most desirable of solutions, but as the only solution possible. Other sign : several monarchical journals, finding Othello’s occupation gone, are selling out, and are being quickly bought up by Conservative Republicans. There is not a letter from the Comte de Ohambord, not a photograph or a tract from Chiselhurst, to break the monotonous success of the Republic. And what will be the degree of felicity when martial law shall be abolished, and the Royalist and simulated friends relieved from mounting guard over the Republic, which was founded in spite of them. It is enough to drive M. Buffet to give office to a Republican, and to enjoy his forty winks in company with Gambetta. Since France is disinclined to try tb« advantages of an income tax, and that it is impossible to make the two ends of the budget meet by adding to the already high taxes, opinion is coming round to the idea of negotiating a new loan to wipe out the floating deficits and the momentary high estimates for reorganising the public services. It is not a bad plan to allow posterity to contribute a little to repair the ruin caused by the invasion, especially when contemporaries cannot meek the bill in full. Prance is rich enough to pay for her glory, and also for her misfortunes. The foreign relations of France continue to be sound, and will increase in utility as nations see she is in earnest in desiring peace. The people do not want to fight, far otherwise is their wish; but they will not the less have their military resources what a first-class Continental Power ought to be, in this age of peace on earth and good will toward men. Spain and France have become old friends again ; Italy and France are excellent neighbours, and certainly flirtations are taking place with Austria. The sensible idea is being agitated for founding an International Chamber of Commerce, and meets with general approval. Its guiding principle will be free trade, and uniformity, in as far as can be attained, will be its aim in all commercial relations. Diplomatists and officials will not be allowed to meddle in the society, an exclusion which promises a long life for the work. Names of weight are already associated with the idea, •which will further purpose to centralise international information, and to bring about international legislative ameliorations. Except the steeple and flat races, which iike Kings, observe a royal punctuality, everything else this spring, is in retard ; the Jeaves, the flowers, the balls, the open air imilitary concerts. Influenza and rheumatism, furs and top coats, are still the order of the day, and have every promise to retain that position for sometime longer. The first >df April was the time honored period for the bourgeoisie to take,pension of their country «eats.; at present the iidea of removal is farthest from their thoughts. One journal created quite -a eapaation by announcing to the sick that the swallows had returned, and one at least could be seen at any moment of .the day on the roof of the office ; convalescents crawled to see the harbinger of spring, and were rewarded by the spectacle—of a swallow weather cock. Even the horse show in the Palace of Industry does not draw—except wilful murder draughts. Perhap when the Fine Arts Exhibition succeeds, "Zephyrs may have commenced to blow. In ,the time of Lafontaine, every marquis had this pages ; to-day the sign of importance is to have horses, and the walls of your apartment covered with pictures, and every room a depot for ohjets d’ art. It would be a serious omission to overlook the rage for dogs; the poorest woman in Paris if not owner of a poodle can boast'of a cur. Formerly but one vendor of white fleecy puppies was to be encountered on the Boulevards, atpresent the fraternity is as numerous as the old do’ men, and about as righteous. Actresses generally prefer bull terriers, nothing more fashionable than the ugliest of pugs beside the prettiest of belles: •« Nature,” as Shakspeare says, “ hath meal and bran, contempt and grace.” No doubt the dreadfully long winter may explain why «o many young ladies are said to be suffering from excessive application to the piano ; the daughter of a well-known ambassador has been ordered to a thermal establishment to cure her of her musical malady.

The hippophagic banquet was a success in point of culinary art; Parisians require no such displays to initiate them into the mysteries of horse flesh the siege gave them an acquired taste, and twenty horse butcheries enable citizens to indulge in that meat, either from necessity, luxury, or in memory of hard times. At the dinner in question, the apostles of this philanthropise butchery, were served with the flesh of ass, horse, and mule; in the form of potted meat and sausages, the article becomes 'too dear for Blender purses, and mule must be regarded as a luxury. In the form of steak, horse is difficult to masticate, but cooked in the furnace, or boiled, it is the equal of beef. Until lately, a horse accidentally killed was only worth 20f at the knacker’s yard, to-day that price has risen sixfold. A M. Decroix has revelled on horseflesh since twenty years, and even eats it when derived from a diseased animal; to prove his taste for it he has eaten some of it raw, and would regard the present of a sirloin of beef or a leg of mutton as something like an insult. With the good intentioned connivance of some sisters of charity, he has unknowingly distributed among the poor succulent morsels of the flesh of horses and asses. At the close of the banquet each guest was presented with the photograph# of the hone, the mule, and the

asß, that were slaughtered to make 130 guests happy. “ Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore,” said Hamlet to the players, Parasians may address the same compliment to the company of Russian actors now within our walls, and who have come all the way from Moscow to represent, not a drama, but a comedy, and in language that none understands a word, although nearly the dialogues have been suppressed. It ia brave on the part of the artistes to sacrifice their roles thus for our pleasure. Unable to ravish the ears, they arc content to dazzle the eyes, for the piece acted —“A Bussian Marriage during the Sixteenth Century is simply barbarism on a groundwoik of gold. The boyards look proud and savage, with their cafetans erabroidorecl with gold, their robes with spangles of silver, their topcoats ornamented with figures of outlandish birds, their red boots with golden fringe, and their long hair ornamented with a gold skull cap. The women are dressed in long white gowns, fastening to the waist by diamond-studded belts, giving them at once the air of queens and priestesses; the reverences and three kisses exchanged at every moment, has a sacerdotal character about it; sons in presence of their fathers appear like slaves, with bowed head and hanging arms. The ms rriage ceremony—for this is the whole piece—opens by presenting the negotiators with salt and bread in a golden salver; the nuptial toilette recalls something like the taking of the veil; the bride is undressed, and redressed, pending procession with tapers and solemn music; go.d bracelets are placed on her arms, so heavy as to resemble chains, and to symbolise her servitude; then a red veil is dropped over her, as on the head of a victim decorated for a sacrifice. In the sixteenth century Russia, as Asia, imprisoned woman, and the bridegroom and bride never saw each other till they met at the marriage formalities. The parents then bless the young couple, the ceremony recalling the tent of a patriarch, rather than the don; on of a Muscovite. The wedding banquet suggests those that Gargantuamust have enjoyed; the table is splendid, and groans under gold and silver plate; the drinking is deep; soon a boyard rolls under the table, then another jumps up to execute a jig, recalling what must be the first steps of a dancing bear. When the Earl of Carlisle went to Moscow as ambassador of Charles 11., his voyage was viewed as what would be to to-day a similar mission to the Lama of Thibet, and the Court of the Czar appeared to the Earl to be about as fantastical; his Majesty sat motionless and speechless on a pyramidal throne, like an Indian idol, surrounded by boyards, clad in furs and precious ornaments. Six dayslater abanquet was given, and the strangers were placed at a side table; each guest was expected to partake of five hundred dishes, and had only one plate ; as for napkins r they were as scarce as at the King of Congo’s table. The repast lasted nine hours, and the company only broke up when the Czar, owing to excessive drinking, had a fit of bleeding at the nose. It was then the custom for the priests to deliver written passports to the dying, addressed to Saints Peter o r Nicholas, to admit them without any quarantine, directly to heaven. The Czarina was imprisoned like a Sultana; when ill, the doctor could only visit her in a darkened room, and was authorised only to feel her pulse through the sleeve of her dress.

The spiritualists and mediums have had their annual fete around the tomb of AllanKardeck, their founder ; it was the anniversary of his' death, if from the spiritist point of view he can be included among the departed . The gathering of 800 persons had a weird-like character, but the air did not seem troubled, and the police had nothing to do in the way of interference in this world or the other. An authority states, that there are in this moment 8000 spiritists in Paris, about seven per cent of whom can compel departed persons to come from the other world and re-appear in this. The fraternity seems to be just as full of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, as less advantageously situated mortals, nor is the world in any way improved by their superior knowledge. Robert Houdia’s successor exposes the tricks of the spirit world every night; front seats 5f each. A private lesson for 20f. The Society of Painters does not admit to its annual exhibition historical sketches, wisely considering the permission might be abused for political ends. M. Pichio, the painter of the “ Death of Baudin,” complains that his painting, the ‘‘Triumph of Order,” has just been rejected, although his subject inculcates meroy on the part of conquerors, and prudence on the part of the disaffected. The picture represents a wall, against which Communists are ranged, and two mitrailleuses play on them; two army officers are blowing the brains out of some wounded men with their revolvers; around are heaps of dead national guards, and a woman with her bleeding child in her arms. Such a work would at all events create a sensation as lively as the incidents of the Coup d’Btat. A Dr Onimus has drawn the attention of the Academy of Sciences to the “ telegraph malady,” as experienced by the clerks. It is in some respects not unlike the “ cramp” writers are often subject to, and where curved letters become straight lines, and lines dots, attended with painful tremblings of the arm, and sleeplessness. A committee has been nominated to examine the matter. A few celebrities have arrived—a Chinese from Pekin, who is said to be the inspector of the Pagodas in that capital, and consequently entitled by Buddha to commit seven sins daily without these being placed to his account in the other world; Ly-Fo is the mildest of looking men, and doubtless never abuses his privilege. He is travelling on his own account to study western civilization, A French gentleman has been named editor of the official gazette of Siam; he is bound to support the policy of the Court, and, failing to do so. must be prepared to receive fifty blows of a bamboo cane on his feet, among other penalties; but then his reward is handsome; every subject must become a subscriber, and those who fail to pay their subscriptions are liable to be bastinadoed.

An Italian named Amatti, a baker, has arrived here to be-tested by the doctors ae to the extraordinary fineness of his sense ot hearing. At a distance of ten yards he boasts of being able to hear persons who may speak only in a whisper. On listening only once to a note on a violin, or the peculiar bark of a dog, he will imitate both; At five hundred yards, he can tell from the noise of a musket to what system the arm belongs. “ Have you change for a ten franc piece ?” ‘ I think I have,” replied the friend, “ Well then, lend them to me, as I hare not a sous.”