AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 407, 1 October 1875, Page 3

AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

(From a correspondent of the Press.) Paris, July 29. The Republican deputies have male a kind of “ all hands to the pumps” appeal, that none between them will bring forth resolutions, or make unnecessary speeches, in connection with the Public Powers Bill, so that these may be at once voted, and the dissolution decreed for the autumn. Never was an individual more justified to perform the happy dispatch. If the general elections be again postponed, the consequences would be very serious, for the nation has made up its mind to have a new House, and on the faith of this expectation has consented to according several political bonbons to the representative moribunds. The dying are ever honored, on the understanding, however, that they will not lay superfluously on the stage. Were deputies not to dissolve till they worked oil arrears of business, they would become as immortal as Academicians. Then the occasion is propitious for the elections; the tide is favorable to moderate conduct and general toleration,save tograntingthe clerical party the right to establish as many educational colleges as they have the means of doing so, a liberty Gambetta refuses them, while demanding it for himself. This is a spot on the sun, and may be pardoned to the ex-dictator for his ability in converting his irreconcilables to common sense and practical politics. Since the Bonapartists have been officially warned of the consequences they must expect, by distorting history and misrepresenting facts, they roar now as gently as sucking doves. To go in for any pretender is being daily considered more and more and more a proof of insanity. Everything promises that the country will drift into and settle down to a commonplace Republic, where the wicked will cease fropa troubling, and where the weary will find rest. The chances :are decidedly favorable to every man in France being at last able to sit under his own vine and fig tree.

The catastrophe at Toulouse has thrown a black shadow temporarily over the liveliness of the nation. With 20,000 persons reduced to destitution in the course of a night, and from one to two thousand persons estimated to be drowned or missing, it is impossible to have a light heart. The people are occupied in works of charity, while the brave soldiery recover the dead from beneath overturned houses, and bury corpses by the score by torchlight. From the highest to the lowest every one has done their duty. Generals vie with privates in the work of rescue and in the relief of sudden misery. The Marquis d’Hautpoul is drowned while succoring some ouvriers, and all perish as they embrace each other. The fittest place that man can die, is where he dies for man. It is in the basin of the Garonne that the terrible inundation has taken place. The Garonne rises in the valley of Arau in Spain, and follows a devious course till it arrives at Toulouse. This latter commnicates with the Atlantic by the Garonne, and with the Mediterranean by the Languedoc canal. After as well as in Toulouse the river flows in a continued plain to the end of its course ; its bed is not profound, hence frequent overflowings and terrible ravages ; it flows at the rate of two miles an hour, and its average width is nearly one-third of a mile. After passing Bordeaux the Garonne joins the Dordogne, andthus reunion then receives the name of the Girone, a mass of water often attaining a breadth of nine milts, and which empties itself into the ocean, on one side near the fashionable little watering place of Royan. No flood like the present has been seen since a century, but periodical inundations have occurred in 1815, 1835, 1855, and 1875. There is something curious in these recurring cycles of twenty years, each surpassing its predecessor in severity. The persistent rain added to the rapid melting of the snow, account Ifor the suddenness of the deluge, which arrived like a thief in the night, attacking the manufacturing quarter of the city before alarm could be given. Survivors linger about the ruins of their habitations, removing stones and timber, hoping to discover the remains of their relatives. Toulouse will derive some advantages from the state of siege under which it lives like other portions of France, Thieves have been arrested plying their ordinary calling during the height of the calamity, and some endeavored to fire a few of the buildings. The court martial will speedily deal with the wreckers, as soon as the military can spare a firing party from thoir rescue work.

June is the month ol cherries, as May is that of flowers, but owing to the creation of railways, the south sends such immense consignments of fruit, that the pomological calendar will require a Julian kind of revision. Cherries never were so plentiful as this season, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau was perfectly right in devoting some of bis most piquant pages to them, though his favorite Montmorency cherries are no longer in fashion, and not a cherry tree exists near his old residence, the Hermitage, as I can testify from a personal visit a few days ago. France does not extend her gratitude to Lucullus for importing the fruit ; she claims to have had cherries before his became known, especially one dwarf variety, that intoxicates like wine if immoderately eaten. Strange, grapes, if largely partaken of, no

more intoxicates than barley. During the middle ages, cherries were a royal luxury, da hothouse pines are now. With the levelling tend noies of our age, what fruit will have a iiio .i inly five centuries hence, if the old w. u holds out so iong, just to spite philoso| he s and Dr Gumming? By the-bye, it is time for Europe' to have another cataclysm to enable the prophets about the coming of the crack o’doom 10 keep their hand in. The Hamburghers have a very pretty fete in honor of cnerries. When the Hussites invaded that city and threatened it with total destruction, a citizen, named Wolf, proposed to send all the children, aged from seven to fourteen years, dressed in grave clothes, to the commander of the siege. Crassus was so impiessed with the spectacle, that he regaled the children with cherries, promised to spare their city, and they returned, waving branches of cherry trees laden with fruit, and shouting victory. Happy times, when pity sometimes moderated force. It is hardly worth the world’s while to have lived 4GO years, to not reserve us as much mercy. It rains as if it were fashionable to do so. Heaven has too much listened to the prayers of agriculturists and market gardeners, and, like everything else in France, we finish by having too much, In 1860 it rained so constantly during the summer, that the map of “ tourism ” was everywhere inundated, and pilgrimages were undertaken in the interests of fine weather ; since politics have monopolised pilgrimages, less faith is placed in their efficacy. The French astronomers console us by the assurance that we will be roasted towards the close of July. The Church has no prayers for cool weal her, the Fathers, the sly rogues, knew the value of allowing the misconducted to feel a foretaste of that place where the bad niggers go. Well, despite the rain and the tbreatenings of a roasting sun, people leave for the sea-side, because the season orders it if the weather does not permit it. "Deauville is likely to be the crack watering-place this year for the creme de la creme of society,*a particular locality being selected each summer for their Jecca. Those who desire to be near this kind of life, and yet to escape four toilettes a day, cau very quietly find a haven of rest in the neighborhood of Havre.

The fishing season is good; the Seine seems to be swarming with gudgeon, carp, and perch, and the fishermen never were so numerous, which indicates contentment and easy circumstances. Even bobbing for eels from early morn to dewy eve is better than boozing in a wine shop. That the sport is assuming formidable dimensions is exemplified by the quantity of fishing tackle for sale in the ironmongers’ shops; the drapers’ advertise special costumes, at of course ridiculously low prices—some include the apparatus with the outfit. Every pare of th« Seine seems to be invaded from five in the morning ; at the mouths of the sewers, the good positions, the amateurs most do congregate, all in regulation positions, rod horizontal, and the eyes fixed on the morsel of a quill which forms the tell tale of the nibbles ; each undulation of the quill is reflected in the physiognomy of the disciple of Saint Peter, who doubtless dreams of the squibs in the journals, announcing the capture of carp some fifteen pounds weight. Dogs dream of bones, and fishermen of fish. What is most remarkable in this little army is its taciturnity ; vehemence of passion is expressed by mutism and immobility; silence is here gold, and woe betide the disturber of the peace ; the smothered maledictions that are addressed to him ought to crush him for ever ; the man that would trouble the waters, the stillness of the scene, by a sceptical laugh, aye, by a broad grin, a deep sigh, or a few bars even from a funeral march, would be voted fit for treasons, strategems, and spoils. The favorite trick played on beginners is to divert their attention for a moment and bait the hook with a red herring.

A very rational reform has been inaugurated in high life. From June to September nothing is more unnatural than to dine at seven o’clock, in closing the shutters, and lighting the candelabra; then a series of hot dishes, circulating for some three hours, tell upon the company ; the flowers that ornament the table fade, and the ladies reflect the purgatory also. Instead of dinners it is resolved to give substantial lunches at four o’clock, where the comestibles would be light, as cold as practicable, and served on the lawn ; ceremony being largely dispensed with in the way of toilettes and attendance. After the repast, dancing under the chestnuts, where the drawing-room piano alone suffices for an orchestra, and where each lady plays a waltz in rotation. The party breaks up in sufficient time to allow the ladies to return and make their toilettes for the opera, &c. Middle-aged ladies cannot well appear at these reunions , if desirous of concealing the effects on them of the “ snows fall of time,” and that no beautiful-for-ever making composition, can remedy the ravages.

Since betting amphitheatres have been suppressed, the horsey world has taken to the system of a flag way exchange on the Boulevard des Italiens. They say they are as well entitled to block the way as those stock brokers who congregate every afternoon on the opposite side of the way, The passers-by can only wish a plague on both your bouses. The cabman question is about receiving a solution. The Prefect of Police is studying the question of empowering all cabmen, who are worthy of it, to carry good conduct stripes on their coat sleeves. Nervous ladies would then have no cause to be afraid, Would it not be well to add a medal in the case of those who would refuse a tip, and stop in the street without cross-examining you as to where you are going and alleging as a wind-up, that their horse wants baiting ? Dr Demarquay has left a model will. Originally coming to Paris without a sous or a friend, he worked his way up to the topmast position in his profession. He died immensely rich ; has bequeathed sums to found annual prizes in surgery ; presented legacies to his pupils, and souvenirs to his old patients.