Our Paris Letter.

Manawatu Herald, 13 April 1895, Page 3

Our Paris Letter.

Paris, Ist Feb., 1895. It is a " fierce light that beats upqn the throne "it seernst to be a ■ stil^fiercer one that illumines the, ( ElysfS. The very hour at which } the different presidents have gone to - bed and risen in the morning seems ' am,ong other things, to have been ( registered in the archives. M. ' Thiers was, according to these docu- ' m^nts very matutinal ; at half past * five, he was in his office at work. ' Marshal Mac Mahon began work ' •bout seven and always practised military punctuality. . ■ Things changed when M. Grevy Wftß elected. He worked till two or thr^e o'clock in the morning, but he never began work again till 10 a.m. M, Carnot seldom worked after midnight. He got up early and ha rarely entered his office before \ •leven. M. Casiinir-Perier, who loves i plenty of out-door exercise, began ; wprfc at aeven, after a good brisk i w3kv As to the new President, M. FeMix Fatlte, he- seems like treading in the firtit steps of M. Thiers, for, in all seasons* both winter and summer he riafirat five o'clock ; and since he has- been at the Elyee" has had his secretaries r called at 5 80 to work with him. Speaking of M. Faure, the President .'faf ; : the Society for the suppressidtr of t6bacco ismoking, M. Deervix harmffde theall-impdrtan^discovery thaiW.-Falix Faure does not dislike a gofod cigar, and what is more, that he actually smokes several every day. This in itself far from an extraordinary fact. What ia strange, however, is that h* is the first President of this Republic, who has let the fumes of the noxi&us weed pervade the sacred precincts of the Elysee. ijf." Thiers bad a righteous horror of. tobacco. His first care when get^tig* his military household topettier was to ask for a non-smoking captain as aide-de-camp, Marshal Mac Mahon was in his younger days a great smoker, but before he became President he gave up the habit, owing to an illness which it was feared smoking would aggravate. M.Jules Gre'ry had smoked and coloured a pipe or two in his young daysj but as he found that the habit affected his head and his wonderful memory, he gave it up entirely. In any case, he was never known to smoke after he became President. As regards poor M. Carnot, he not onlj would not t-mohe himself, but rcssbled his secretaries to rtfiain alao,^ he could not bear the faint

odour of stale smoke Which hang 3 about the clothes of an habitual smoker. M. GasimhvPcrier, it is wellknown, never smoked.