A SLANG CRY IN PARIS.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 83, 16 December 1864, Page 6 (Supplement)

A SLANG CRY IN PARIS.

[From.the London Daily Telegraph.] ; - • "Eh, Lambert !" ", Ohh, Lambert I 1 , 1 "Vive Lambert?" "As-ill vu Libert?" " Otie\t ;Lauibert ?' ; .'During the \Pe"fce Napolebn, all Paris, T lias ;i been ringing with these : odd ' impromptu ; variations on the ; lagt new- cry. Gamins shrieked! ,' it; oiitV -merry . grise'ttes ■ echoed '■ it ; : ; Zouaves ;.and : - ; Tiircos " bauinaged " ;' each, -other H-with • it ; j ; " m oda'me ~r ' ' ' passed : ; it to . ' ! ' ' ■ mocked : "'monsieuv "--with it.. . Itwas hv the ciz/es; : the tlieatre'3, the streets, ' the i squares, : the public „ ; gardens, the boulevards. Gl-o -where you would there was" ho' escaping Lamberfc. iV; - ; " JffoiJ^/ Lambert!"- " Teriez, Lambert!'' : "ffli>, Lambert !^ Figaro - was never so ; übiquitous; ; ' the ' " Roi d'Yveiot "-never so famous/ the 'Mail with the; Iron: Mask, never so ; . mysterious. ; ''Grave; . old^ gentlemen were pestered with; anxious inquiries f about Lambert f'Hrenieridous ; gendarmes i; were ruffled, with Ms name;' it travelled to Enghien ;iit spread to Pas'syj anaTersaill'es, ahd;St. Cioud : ;j it ' sprang from a whisper into : a chorus 'with Werybody shouting '..out 1 the absurd /pafconymicJ;- ;{Tiie Emperor and impress ' passing along -through: the illuminations, "came ;in for it. ■ " Vive Monsieur Lambert! 'Vive' Madame Lambert! Vive le petit Lambert!" arose from a ; thousand 7: throats/ with; ati'aeoompaniinent ofthe loudest laughter., .'lf ;an unhappy Parisian had; prepared -himself 7 in - any reinarkable manner for the fesfciTities— if he was guilty of a white hat/ "or a' summer suit of peculiar splendor— it was •" Yoil&- Lambert:!" Tlie whole force of the ridiculous cry was ' forced ; upon ■ Mm ' till he wa's tortured into retirement/ ; Lambert was' everybody— -anybody— nobody. He was here, thpre/ every where, and nowhere. All the world was interested in him.' No one knew, anything about him ; where j or why,'ov whence, or how, or when, oi* whither Lambert, not a, soul could have told ,- but every man, woman, 1 and child through the great day of the-/c^e was cracking ' his, or her/ or; its ■'"':' side with tlie enormous joke of shouting "Lambert ! Js?A,Lambert ! 07ie, ; Lambert ! " under hat-brims, bonnet-borders, over the crowd, in the parterre, at the entree of tha cafe — everywhere/ and all the festival long. Tha popular paroxysm came to such a pass that solemn disquiet seized the minds of the police correcHonelle, the Minister of the Interior was perplexed, the heart of the Prefect of the Seine was troubled within him. M. the Intendent of Public Safety chafed at Lambert.:Lambert was very seriously discussed; -in the bureaux ; Lambert was to bo inquired into ; Lfimbert^ lids been inquired into. Was he merely a myth,"an au«y nothing, an" tinconditionad "■ Parisian evoked froni tho merry thouglit of a poulet y born' in a chainpagiio-bubble, and cliristenecl : witly a laugh? Or was iie ' soutething awful, something real, something portentously although invisibly : existenfcs?— the Mene, Mem, on" the wall over again — iTomesis in','a joke— the Kepublic Redivhva, mth a hat oh instead of a Phrygian can ? Such nervous work is it for the empire when Paris makes its mind 'up to do anything at all in union, that the 'mcro shouting t: Lambert " all day, with laughter and Mlariduss upvoav, has occasioned quite a Ministerial difficulty aud auxie'-y. Meantime- ouv correspondent has furnished ; the solution most accepted at.Pavis, and very fannyit is if true.' 'V La Femmv; Perdue, that is to say^ our old friend. "■" the -Unprotected Temale," is, accord-;-ing to this vevv version 1 , the aixthoi* of the whole mystery. Lambijrb, the ; real, the yevitable, the authentic Lambert, nqw suddenly become the most famous personage of the day, is a jolly farmer of the provinces, who eonceiv <1 the idea of bringing Madams Lambert to th.efdte. Disgorged, for the first time in her life into the breathless bustle of the " Grare" at Paris the good lady lost b'er lord and master, and vainly -■might for him up aud down th.e platfbrm. r ' Ha-st thou seen Lambert ?" " Where is ray Lambert ?" " Mow Dieu ! oil est Lambert ?" These weve her pathetic cries, which fell upon the sharpest ears in;. the world for the ridiculous. Paris caught up! the accents of Madame : Paris, mad for bagatelles, accepted Lambert with delight/with transport, with inspiration ; a million people echoed the good old lady, and, if the story is true, " that's the humor of it." In such a caso we wonder whether Lambert was discovered, aud what tlie reflections of the worthy couple must be, to find tliemselres the heroes by acclamation of the festival to which 'they came as simple spectators. 'But the^authorities are not quite satisfied with this version— they don't yet accept " the Unprotected Female"-— they are Minting forttio. needle iu tlio pottle of hay with all the dogs of the law ; and a long business ii-wiH be, -we think, with Pai-is shouting " Qhd, Lambert!" for the Chanson de chasse, and all society, at the merriest capital of the universe, melted into idlest and wildest laughter over a cry that means notliing, came from nothing; and must end iii nothing. . ' •■ .-• What a wovld of mystery there is in these abrupt: electrical infections of the popular mind, . abaurdi meaningless as they seem. If it were possible to trace this 'happy nonsense from the, first laughing lips' that flung it to the -air/ to Paris' screaming and shouting it all over the city in ebildish glee, we shoilld know move of tha diemin ctes ideas than we guess at now.- Who does start all the phrases, the fancy woi'ds, the fashions the .social slang that leap into vogue, arid iu a week gain, general currency? There must be the person somewhere who first ■wore a paper" collar and said, •' all serene," " Eight you a-*G," aud was inquisitive on the subject of " Who's your hatter." Somebody or other must have been the first tho very first, to wish in melodious lyrics that" he was ' " with Nancy," aud to express the desire to pass ■ existence in Ihis life and the next, with that fabulous maiden " on a second- floor !" There must have been a beginning somewhere or other to the popularity of beards, to crinoline, to "Piccadilly weepers," to spoon bonnets, and spatterdashes. Who did shoot the dog ? we want to know, since the question at certain" seasons is universal ? Who brings in the tip-eat that strikes us on the nose or fcbe hoop tbat trips us up. They come all at onco, like plagues of Egypt, in any English town stricken with the infection. Why or whence was " "Walker " flref; made expressive of sarcasm and deliberate doubt, and wherefore is "Governor" the accepted address of an inferior to his superior, upon light and and easy occasions ? Wo burst ,with ignorance upon tho subjects,' as also "the sharp longing to know how ilis that all the.organs in tow n and country suddeuly break out into one particular in no which you sbnll hear whistled iu a turnip-Geld of Norfolk or Cheshire, and in the Lambeth Now-cut ? Will nobody investigate for science the conditions which a joke, a phrase, a slang word, must fulfil to leap into life ready armed, like ' Minerva ? What audacious Yankee 'brain invented the awful vocable " skedaddled," which, lias boen hcavd m Iho British. Senate, and is now classical English ? Wiio first called the conlmlmg sections of America, to tho confusion of all ordinary readers, " Confederates "and " Federals," or launched into Yankee political dictionaries the atrocious parly names of '' plug-uglies," " dead rabbits," and " blood tubs " ? -But these names have at least a nieatiin^j of their own, and the osaoueo of a' really popular word or turn of expression seems to' be that it must have ■ none. . Who sets it going, then ? Does it come by chance or is the' theory of spontaneous generation h-iic of argot and slang, and nigger tunes, and little boy's games, and "Lambert " ? That mysterious cry reminds us, however, nofc to be 1 lost in the mazes of such aninqui^y, wliich might yet reward tbe keenest investigation, and puzzloDr. Oolenso himself. It was intensely, childish, immensely absurd ridiculously silly, for all Paris to go shout-

ing" 'JEU> •l/ambert\l" from^morning to night,: and laughing^ . inestiriguishably .at' the a pleasantry But all Paris did it, as if seized by an] epidemic of ■idle fun ; arid hidden sympathy H '■ 'and' i we -should like, quite much^as M. /the Prefect < p£. Police^ to. understanaa the thing thovbughly; including. the yefe debpar question why that potent iunetipnary is bo ; gravely alarmed at-nonserisc which would be iunnoticed most 1 prudent of English^ Pc-lide '.Commissiorier's^^"/:--;-' 1 -^;-. : ; ; ' f! -" ':•