PARIS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1125, 20 September 1871, Page 2

PARIS.

OTJfi OWff CORRESPONDENT.j Saturday, July 15, 1871. The country is rapidly getting intq smooth water, and the signs of mourning are disappearing. The trappings of woe do not suit the French character—• the people believe that which is without remedy should be without regard. Further, the nation deserves something approaching to a recreation. .It has astonished "capitalists in subscribing from its own resources Ihe. Prussian indemnity, and equally io. the world in the fund oi good sense displayed in tha complementary elections. The inhabitants are settling down to work, to find repose and wealth—they have confidence in M. Thiers more and more as time rolls on. He is felt to be an honest man with no aspirations either for the. purple or infallibility. There, the tendency of events is to eschew claims of parly o„r rights of dynasties. There is a commendable desire to prefer number one, and allow it to hence-, forth rule and administer. The republic is gaining in strength and favor —and has all the chances on its side of seeing length of days. It is cheap, and dispenses with such crutches as Saviours of Society, who, generally end by pushing society to its ruin. It is a tutelary saint at whose shrine every fraction of patriotism may worship—for all are equal before it—none are before or after. Here are the Orleanist priuces, among us like ordinary mortals. You can encounter the Comte de Paris on the boulevards, with an umbrella instead of a sceptre —serious and smiling —rather tall, with a beard like a German, of no formal cut. His complexion is rather dark. The Due de Chartres his brother, is the militaire of the family ---we believe he represents the brains ot it also Hi> eyes are blue—at once mild and energetic. The uncles are everywhere. I saw one pf them a few days ago silting at one of those little tables in front of a cafe, enjoying bis big drink and a weed- -his neighbors were two masons, who had left off work to enjoy their bread, wine, and a pipe the working man's real tiifin. ft would have been all the. same had the customers known each other. In France Jack, if deserving, is as good as his master, for the people " smile at the claims of long descent"—but show no contempt for it. It is worth makes the man - in character and intellect. It A thus they respect the Comte de. Chain: boro 1 and despise him at the same time. His late proclamation displays sufficient sense to prove him a simpleton; but his innate honor will guard his

from playing the knave. He has literally written himself down an ass—has illustrated that his family can neither learn nor forget. Some Kings place the crowns on their heads with their own hands. Buj; ihe Oonite de Ohambord has deliberately removed a crown from his. il Henry the Fifth,''" has abdicated, but has named no successor. His party—the Legitimists refuse to march through Coventry with him, under his il white flag," about which France knows little and cares less. It is the tricolor that has emancipated them—from that Bourbon regime, where men Wv',re only the counters of Kings. The Legitimists were the most formidable party in France—they included also : the ultramontanes—both are politically dead, and the country may well say—peace to their ashes. We are beginning now to pay for ;the a Berlin music of last year. The money must not only be raised, but paid for. The manner of finding the additional revenue is faulty, and the nation, much as it dislikes arithmetic, begins to perceive that the Minister of Finance is not a wizard. He discovers part of the funds by severe reductions in State employments—but there cannot be savings where everything has to .be re made, in factthehouse re-furnished Jt is not in harmony with either experience or healthy finance, that by simply increasing by twenty or a hundred per cent the sources of taxation, corresponding receipts will flow into the 'national coffers. Wise people, when articles are high priced, buy less of them or do without them. Again, all the calculations seem to be based on the national statistics of the Exhibition year —1867—one of the most prosperous France has ever seen. But there is a graver flaw in the budget, its estimates in being based on 1867, ignore completely the unhappy loss of Alsace and Lorraine with its 1,600.000 of inhabitants. The protective system is not adapted to France. Jt is sad and curious to witness the crowds of housekeepers which block up the grocers' shops to buy sugar, coffee, and such of the little wants of man here below, before the new duties come into operation. Jt will be a long time before we can .shake off the in> ader of high taxation. -The postage on letters has been so in .creased, that the authorities would seem to regard .the post-office as the goose that lays the golden egg. Nous ■serrons.

[to be continued. I