AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 441, 12 November 1875, Page 3

AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

(From a correspondent of the Press.') Pakis, September 21. There reigns in the world of French politics a dead calm, the forerunner, according to some soothsayers, of a destructive and prolonged cataclysm. Other seers, quite as authorised, tell us that this lull is the commencement of a long period of halcyon days that France is destined to enjoy under the somewhat autocratic republic of Marshal MacMahon. Before reaching this haven of repose, the country must, however, traverse the troubled waters of general elections. It is understood that these elections will take place in December or January. This belief, though general, is baHed upon very scanty grounds. France is a country where improbable events alone are probable, and where things predicted seldom come to pass at the date fixed beforehand. The Assembly has lost in the eyes of the nation all moral authority, but it must be remembered that it contains a vast number of nobodies belonging to all parties. They know, or fear, that after the next elections, Versailles will see them no longer, and they will retard the inevitable dissolution by all available means. Up to the present time M. Buffet has lent them his powerful aid. Still the Government must recognise that the fatal day cannot be deferred till the Greek Calends. Government, in common with everybody else, cannot yet even guess the probable result of the campaign. A good deal depends upon the electoral law yet to be voted. If the system of sorutin 'tie liste, that is to say, voting by Department, be adopted, the Republicans and Bonapartists will certainly carry the day. But if the sorutin d'arrondissement, that is, the cutting up of the Departments into voting districts, be adopted, the result may be very different. M. Buffet's programme is said to consist in an appeal to moderate men of all parties. If executed, it will bring together for the defence of the Republic, a body of men who are anything but Republican. However, the sole aim of M. Buffet would seem to be to make the nation forget the legal name of its Government. This system is carried out even in the smallest things. Thus the head of the Republic is to be replaced on the stamps by a design representing Peace and Commerce. Naturally this system has produced much bitter feeling in the country, and it is the real cause of the formation of a Radical Republican party, under Messrs Naquet and Louis Blanc. In this state of things one may well receive with suspicion the reported conversion to republicanism of the Urleanist Princes. Their organ indeed owns with a charming frankness that the Princes can but be thinking of using the Republic as a cat's-paw, and it recalls to mind the example of Jason, who, once in possession of the Golden Fleece, repudiated his enchantress-wife, Medea, by whose spells the prize had really been won. This paper, however, had no need to go back to the Greeks for an example of this sort. Precedents are not wanting even in the history of the Orleans family. Did not its founder, Henry IV., put away his first wife, the belle Margot, after using her as a stepping-stone to the throne of France.

But for the moment the gay city of Paris but little heed to the morrow. Winter is coming on, and one must hasten to enjoy tho fine summer days which succeed each other only too swiftly since the commence mont of the month. Politics are very well during the sunless days of winter, and the Parisian dearly loves a wrangling discussion with an intimate enemy about one of the many Centres of the Assembly. But the cafe, with its many lights and chatting groups of domino-players, can now onlj find

customers among the foreign and provincial sightseers who throng the town, Paris is empty, at least of Parisians. Those who possess a chateau remain there to recruit their strength for the winter campaign. A few bathers still tarry at Trouville and other places on the Normandy coast. Some of the leaders of fashion have settled at Biarritz, whose splendour waxed and waned with the fortunes of the Second Empire. At the world-renowned baths and springs of Vichy, the season has been "brought to an abrupt close by an inurdation of the river AUier. Even at Paris, however, some persons must remain at work. Rut the sun shines, to use a French proverb, for everyone at least once a week. On Sunday the shopkeeper an! the workman can take their trip to the country. Every fine Sunday nearly 250,000 Parisians, or about one-eighth of the population spend the day in one of the hundred little villages scattered around Paris. Each locality has its annual fete, lasting generally one day. At some places, however, it is prolonged from Sunday to Sunday. One of the most important of these fetes is that of St Cloud, which commenced last week, and will not finish until the end of the month. The booths and shows are crowded every Sunday evening by a throng of pleasure seekers from Paris, who return about midnight to their homes carrying triumphantly in one hand a Chinese lantern, and in the other a mirliton. The mirliton is a sort of primitive flute in painted wood inscribed with numerous mottoes, from which a clever player can draw a series of discordant sounds capable of waking the Seven Sleepers. The longer the instrument, the greater the torture for the neighbours of the musician, and mirletons run up to six feet. The fete finishes by a ball in the open air. Among the spectators one can often remark shame-faced American and English visitors, trying to find an excuse for their presence in the rule : " at Rome do as the Romaus do." All these festivities take place at a little distance from the ruins of the palace of Saint Cloud, whose crumbling walls, lit up by the soft moonlight, cast no gloom on the mirth of the dancers. This happy lorgetfulness is at once the bad and the good point of the French character. A French paper the other day seriously gave as a proof of national prosperity the fact that the Parisians were spending twenty-five million francs a year on play-going, or a fifth more than they spent even in the palmiest days of the empire.

The Parisians can, however, throw off this childishness at will. All the young men of twenty-eight years of age have just been called out for a month's service in accordance with the new army law. Very few have tried to evade this call, and in the ranks their conduct has given great satisfaction. From one end of France to the other a series of sham campaigns are in course of execution. This " little war," however, resembles very little the real article. There is a deal more of sham than of fighting in the operations. Rival generals in the heat of warfare must respect a peasant's cornfield. The following story shows that the make-belief is sometimes carried a little too far :—A band of skirmishers discovers asleep under a hedge a private of the rival army. Naturally they wake him up, and inform him that he is a prisoner of war. Nothing disconcerted, their captive draws from his pocket an order proving that in his simple persou he represents a whole regiment of cavalry, and that the skirmishers have fill en into an ambush. Such a lesson as this would hardly prepare a young recruit for a real campaign. Young France could find in la chasse, that is in hunting and shooting, a better occasion to prepare himself for the fatigues of war. Government makes no small sum by the sale of shooting licenses, and the readymade clothing establishments advertise profusely their hunting costumes all complete, for 19fr. But iu order to shoot you musthave something to shoot at. Game there is none. You can shoot your dog it is true, and they do say that pointer cutlets a la soubue are delicious. Still it would be a costly dish. Princes can occasionally afford a gamekeeper. At the graiides battues of Compiegne, under the Empire, each noble sportsman was accompanied by a marker, whose duty it was to announce to the company the result of each shot. One day the Prince of H had the luck to hit with both barrels. With the left he brought down a quail, and with the right a chamberlain of the Emperer. The marker proclaimed the result with the most perfect sang frohd. " One quail and one chamberlain," just as if the latter victim were legitimate game. Fishing has still greater charms for the Parisian than the pleasures of La Chasse. The rivers are almost as wanting in fish as the woods are in game; but the patience of the French Izaak Walton is inexhaustible. He thinks a day's labour from sunrise to sunset well repaid by a catch of half a hundred minnows. This passion for the gentle craft is innate in Parisians of all classes. One of the public men of the day owes his present high position to his cleverness in taking advantage of the fishing mania of one of Louis Philippe's ministers. He was then a clerk in one of the Ministries, and likely to remain so for want of influential friends. Learning that the Minister Salvandy spent his mornings fishing incognito for gudgeon on the banks of the Seine, he rose before daybreak, aud when the Minister arrived he found his usual place occupied. To his great vexation, the next morning it was again taken by the same stranger. After a week he asked his fellow angler his reasons for leaving his bed so early. "Ah ! you see, sir," replied the stranger, "my name is B , and lam clerk at the Home Office. I fish early, being obliged to spend my day at the Miuistry." That evening M. de Salvandy had his rival appointed to a lucrative post at Marseilles, with orders to leave immediately for his new residence, and the next morning the Minister found his place vacant on the banks of the Seine.

There is at present a vacancy for a clerk •mip in the Ministry of Commerce and Agriculture. Four thousand applications have been received, which has compelled the Minister to adjourn all appointments. The municipal authorities have decided to supersede the pavement of the hilly street of Notre Dame de Lorette by Macadam, thus avoiding the breaking down of horses. It is a district famous for " falls."