SKETCHES IN PARIS DURING THE OCCUPATION.

Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 891, 5 June 1871, Page 2

SKETCHES IN PARIS DURING THE OCCUPATION.

At the word the cavalry trumpets ring oVit, and the officers shout " March !" On they go up the deserted Avenue, followed* by the 80th Regiment playing lustily the Paris March. On, through the appalling solitude of the Avenue Beaugar, across the Place d'Eylaw, where stood a solitary horseman, and up the Avenue de Malakoff to the Place dv Roi de Borne. There were those among the on-lookera who had seen the French soldiers inarch with their English allies into the grim fortress from which this avenue takes its name. Where are the men who stormed the Manielon, the dauntless and crafty campaigners of Crimea 1 Alas ! their courage sapped, their craft gone, they, and men who should have been as they, are languishing in the German prisons, and the conquerors of the new era of warfare are marching in triumph over them up the avenue named after one of their deeds of prowess. The head of the long snaky column marches steadily on through curious groups — for the Avenue de Mak« koff is densely populated, and its inhabitants cannot resist the humiliating fascination — till at length it reaches the Place da Roi de Rome, a bastion-like promontory of table-land overlooking the whole of Paris eastward and southward. Lo ! before the Teuton host lies Paris as in a panorama. Over against rose the glided dome of the Invalides. Are the ashes of the First Napoleon quiescent in the sar-r cophagus to-day ? Behind, the grand pile of the Arch of Triumph rears its head. In the distance rise the towers of St. Sulpice and Pantheon, and Notre Dame. At our feet winds the Seine, striped out with its' beautiful quays, esplanade and bridges ; beyond the Champs de Mars, clad with the white tents of the French. On the " Field of the God of War" a dense mass has collected of French soldiers, no longer warriors. And what effect has this rich and varied panorama on the German soldiery ? Business first of course. They tramp on with the stolidity of perfect discipline, form companies on the grassy slope leading down to the river, and pile arms with mathematical precision. And then they are free to stare and wonder. It is blank wonderment at first ; then the gradual dawn of profound silent admiration. The wistfulness of that concentrated fixture of the multitudinous eyes ! And then a man with a deep sigh, such as a man heaves after a long pull at a beer flask, gasps out the single word " Wunderschon !" He breaks the ice. There is a chorus of "wunderschon," and the Toutons, with the love of pure beauty, which is one of their best attributes, fall to quiet, thoughtful comment on the glories of Paris. They lay down on the grass, and drink their fill of the sight ; they roll it like a sweet, morsel under their tongue ; they late themselves, so to speak, in the beauties of the beautiful city. The Pont dv Champs de Mars down below has its German end still held by a Zouave guard, and they have run a rude barricade across it, consisting of a mule cart and a few baskets. A company is marched down ; it halts, and the hauptmann rides out and parleys with the Zouave officer amid the intense interest, not unmingled with hooting, of the densely lined quay on the opposite side. The fezzes* cross the bridge, and the spiked hemlets occupy the hither end ', straightway the two sentries of the "double post" are stalking to and fro as if they had held the ground from beyond the memory of man. Up on the brow of the slope his reverence, the division chaplain, on a white horse, is gazing open-mouthed on the scene ; but never mind him, let us push now to the Arch of Triumph. As we walk along the Hue dv Roi de Rome, we see the chalk marks of the quartier meister already on the doom, and the German flag is floating from the conciergerie window of the Commandant, The neighborhood of the Arch of Triumph is densely crowded with the infantry of the 6th Army Corps halted, with portly old Von Tumpling sitting in his saddle at their head. Thickly interspersed with them were Parisians, chiefly of the lower order. Boys, tatterdemalion gamins,, were in wild profusion — young rascals of wonderful pantomimic ability, with a concerted shrill whistle that drowned or discorded the music of the bands. Already the versatile rogues had learned to mimic the harsh words of command and the somewhat clumsy gestures of the men. Impudent varlets they were, and they had apparently ganged the good temper of the Hussars who kept the ground, for they mocked without ceasing, in apparent certainty of impunity. But clear the way ye gamins. At a lumbering canter come some gigantic cuirassiers of the Guard Corps, and then the general staff. No, good friends with the broad Sclave - features,' ye stout kinder of old Von Trampling, you need not glance so keenly up at the arch there. For the Emperor comes not, neither comes his. son, yet the blood royal of Prussia is not unrepresented. For there is Prince Albrechtj of the cavalry, and burly Admiral Adalbert, looking uncommonly like the late Sir Charles Napier, and as bad a rider us are most sailors. And here is a face familiar to and honored by me, by reason of sincere respect and many kindnesses— the face of the Heir Apparent to the throne of Saxony, at once a Prince and a soldier. And he of Saxe Coburg and Gotha, and Leopold of Bavaria, and Leopold of Hohenzollern, and not to waste the readers 1 time and my own ink ; the whole ruck of the « ZioeiU Stafftl" the, blue-blooded band of " wee " German lairdies," not a few of them very big in their own conceit. Other pens than mine will doubtless be fain to give the catalogue in extenso — in mercy I refrain. Following the general staff come the Bavarian troops, marching still to the breakdown in half-company columns. The men of the 6th Army Corps follow them towards the Place de la Concorde, and we fall into the tide on the broad side walk. The soldiers already billeted are staring out of window or loitering by the door? ways. I ask a Hessian dragoqn what ha thinks of Paris. " Oh, it's very fine," he he replies, much in the tone of the Scotch bailie who thought Edinburgh could- not hold a candle to Peebles, " But" — there was a but in every fibre of the tone — " but he had got nothing to eat yet, and there was no straw for his own or his horse's bed." Not surely a fierce requisitionist this man,"whose mmmum bonum in the bed line lies in a lock of straw ; wood was another want which the occupants of the little theatres on the Champs Elyse'es were repairing by dragging but and chopping up the chairs and benches, with which they lit their al fresco fires in the garden plats. The 22nd Division men

ou the Place de Roi de Rome had been (feble to stack arms and lie down. Not so their comrades on the Place de la Concorde. There was too many disturbent elements simmering in the vicinity. It is true that the single officers walked unmolested through the crowds on the side walks, that the Princes rode leisurely to and fro, the cynosures of all eyes. But there was an ugly yeasty throng not so much in the Champs Elyse'es as in the Place de la Concorde. Here the Bavarians stood to their positions looking up at the statues of the chief French cities, the faces of which were each veiled in crape. Through the film of black, German Strassburg looked down dimly upon the German Soldiers, her pedestal still bedight with the wreaths and garlands which grateful Pans had affixed thereunto. Down the vista of each entering street was apparent first a thin and vacillating line of red-breeched troops of the line, nearer now to the Germans than ever they had dared to come before. Behind this line again a densely-packed crowd of angry, truculent faces, with a dash of the ■wolf about the eyes of them, bloodthirsty, yet cowards the whole pack. Looking at them is one man by the statue of Rouen here, whom not to name would be to leave my description incomplete — a tall strong man, in a Cuirassier uniform with"out the cuiiass, but with the helmet. Paris looks at the keen eyes, the bntsqiie moustache, and the sqare lower jay, as if it ought to know them, yet is not quite sure about it. Take your helmet off, Otto von Bismarck-Schonhausen, and let the gazers have the worth of their money in a long stare.

It has been the custom lately to gauge the civilisation of a period or place by the amount of attention and respect shown to the fairer and weaker sex. By this measurement New Zealand should occupy a foremost place in the estimation of those who would hold up the banner of women's rights. Formerly lady visitors to the Parliament House of New Zealand had to put up with a veri* table box, and although wanting the latticed bars of the Ladies' Gallery in the English House of Commons was nearly as objectionable as so very few could obtain sitting room. This session, however, will show a difference. Where formerly there was bare room for coffee and crochet, ladies might now with a little co-operative ingenuity produce a sort of New Zealand Bayeux tapestry. The gallery is to be extended as far as the reporters' gallery. As the ballot has banished many of the orators of the House this session, it is to be hoped that the ladies will not seek to nil the vacancy in the eloquence of the room below, as the reporters might be bothered under the circumstances.