PARIS.

Southland Times, Issue 1594, 21 June 1872, Page 3

PARIS.

(FBOM OUB OWN COBBE3PONDENT.)

April 3. All goes well ; not s black spot on the horizon at home or abroad. Conspirators find their occupation gone. Italy loves France more than ever ; her recent flirtations with Prussia were only the incidents of the season. Spain even presents no uneasiness, and England and Belgium are next to grateful owing to the denunciation of the commercial treaties. The army stands aloof from all factions, and remains attached to law and order. Tbe treasury has found all the money required for the current year, the country iB rich and industrious, and this " Security being what Rothschild calls ' gooi,' A loan will be shortly of course set on foot." Such is the substance of the President's farewell message to the Assembly. It bas created a very favorable impression in Paris as well as in the provinces, and M. Thiers is more than ever regarded as the needful Medicine Man. If he but holds to his promise not to impose his own views in reference to the finances, education, and army reform, the nation will ardently second him, and France will rapidly recover her prestige. Power and respect will return to her as she labors to become wise and practical. Signs are not wanting that the French are resolved to do something more than mourn over the causes of their misfortunes .* in Bcience, art, and literature real earnest life is perceptible. The hallowed time just passed through has proved that a religious revival is abroad ; never can a period be recalled when so many men took the sacrament as on Easter Sunday last ; even the Voltarian press notes with bitterness tbis " decadence" on the part of " the most intellectual people of the world." Not only the clergy but prominent persons are boldly attacking the indifference of the age. In the journals there is a diminution in the froth and phrases daily served up, and an inclination to practise, rather than talk about, the " whole duty of man." The J public and private educational establish- i ments are filled with pupils. I visitedsome of the municipal evening schools recently, and they too had no vacant Beats ; adults of both sexes, and of every i age, were assiduously remedying a neglected education, or acquiring for the first time the proof of knowledge being power. Chance enabled me to meet the director of the chief institution in Paris for the teaching of living languages. He asserted his classes were crowded, that the pupils do not as in former years withdraw after the firßt quarter, but tenaciously hold on. Some of his professors earn as much as 900 francs per month, private tuitions included, and among the latter are conspicuous members of the Upper Ten, who are resolutely studying English and German. Tbe

latter language is being extensively studied, as it will count for much in the exceptions to be made as to the duration of service under the flag, in the new scheme of military reform, as well as for promotions in the army. One of his most promising pupils he assured me was an old man aged 75 years, who decided to study to give an example to young men. Alfieri commenced his Greek at 50 years. The doctrine of Infallibility bas not yet been proclaimed in France in accordance with the Concordat, and Dr Michaud is gradually finding himself the representative of an increasing school. Cardinal Donnet, Bishop of Bordeaux, has unintentionally brought the " Old Catholic" question into prominence. The abbots Ingua and Mouls refused to subscribe to the new doctrine, but avowed their motto to be semper idem respecting j ; the old. He ordered, them to renounce i their clerical costume, and no one I questions his right to order. But he availed himself of the complaisant assistance of the Commissary of Police to serve his notice to quit the soutane on the two dissidents. Hence the protests, the danger to society, from the civil thus aiding the religious power, and that the Tribunal must decide. If a priest commits a criminal offence his bishop can unfrock him and the law will support him ; but the code docs not accord that power against a priest because he declines to subscribe to a new article of faith, and which the Concordat has not yet officially recognised. The civil power oversteps its limits when pronouncing which doxy is right and which wrong. The blunder is an inning for tbe Michaudists. Since the Ultramontanists advocate the " Rule or Ruin" doctrine — tbe Pope before your country — they are forcing Frenchmen to make up their minds. The Bishop of Orleans prefers France to the Vatican. The bets about the Trochu trial have varied as much as Tichborne bonds. The public had long since made up its mind about the General, and were amused at the idea of his seeking a reversal of its judgment by a jury of twelve citizens. The dropping fire of ridicule which the journals kept up against him, owing to his not having observed his resolution to retire like Cincinnatus, has goaded him to undertake a second heroic folly in his action against the Figaro. He is an immensely unpopular man. and might have been less so bad be the common sense to remain quiet and modest, write fewer letters, and make fewer speeches about the decadence of France in consequence of ** English luxury and Italian corruption." One hundred per cent, of the charges made against him, however, results from his having failed to beat off the Germans. Tbe crowd never pardons their idol when it cannot perform miracles. General Trochu's private character bas not been called in question, so all tbe testimony and eloquence on this point are supererogatory. He is mainly accused of being dishonorable and disloyal towards the Empress-Regent, when several ex-Ministers affirm upon oath, he vowed to defend her and her dynasty with his life. As Governor of Paris, he has not shown what measures he took for her defence, nor established that he was prevented from doing so. On the morning of tbe revolution of the fourth of September, be re-affirmed his loyalty, saw the Empress "on her Calvary and left her there ;" in tbe afternoon he was President of the Government of " the gentlemen of the pavement," but never mentioned before taking office that be promised to be faithful to her ex-Majesty. He wished to go to the Hotel de Ville to play the r6le of Lamartine in 1848. Unhappily it is very difficult to act that part, even when one is L amartine. His two chief witnesses, Marshal Macmahon and General Changamier, the one from his hesitation, and the other from his refusal to reply directly, did him more harm than good. The charge of inconsistency to never capitulate, and retiring to allow bis successor, General Vinoy, to do so, is a true bill. Odd tbat he should accept the command to resist the siege, whilst having no faith in resistance ; above all, that he countenanced the sortie at Buzenval to calm the effervesence of the populace by a huge and useless massacre, when the remainder biscuit in the capital had been reached, and as he well knew, not a link in the Prussian ring encircling Paris was either wanting or weak. Thanks to tbo CnrnmumetelmTiiignearly burned down the Palace of Justice, the present temporary Court-house is very small, and the public are as comfortably packed as sardines in a box. It was only after the speech of Trochu's counsel, M. Allou, that " sides" were distinctly declared in the trial. That gentleman is not composed of flesh and blood, but of parchment, and his food must consist of the statutes at large. He was cool, caHStic, and scathing at once. He hinted this was a Bonapartist defence, and since then, tbe impartial Judge has winked at the expressions of political disfavor or approbation as uttered by the audience. It must, however, be remembered, the Figaro is, if anything at all, a Legitimist journal — tbat it was Trochu who demanded the trial, and thus bas compelled himself to defend his public character — involved because he dabbled in politics and speculated on rising to the zenith of power, a common failing with French generals since the success of tbe First Napoleon, and partly owing to an adoration for the doctrine of imperial chances as in ancient Rome. M. Grandperret is defendant's counsel, a man of skin and bone, with a voice mild and mellifluent. He smiles apparently with tbe corners of his mouth. He was the terrible Public Prosecutor under the Empire, and the accused uniformly shuddered after his summing up. He is at once simple and emphatic, moderate, ardent, and provocative, and winds up a telling argument by casting a malicious grin at his adversaries. His speech was : 1 too political, too Bonapartist, and if be I

did not convince he certainly stirred everybody. It was a great mistake to put General Trochu up to speak, because bis weakness is to be considered an orator. It would have been better had he remained in his seat, sobbing, crying, or throwing up his hands, as the spirit moved him. Well, there be is, with two piercing eyes and a Cromwell nose ; a protruding forehead and a bushy black moustache ; the general expression of his features hard and unsympathetic. He spoke for three hours, in a voice grave, snappish, and grating, recalling a coffee-mill at work. His two arms move faster than his tongue, sometimes one arm is lifted above his head, occasionally both. He addresses the audience, speaks to the gallery — to posterity ; completely forgets the jurythough reminded by the Judge ofltbeir presence and utility. He advances to the middle of the court, speaking ; talks, when marching backwards, like the clergy in the Italian churches. He is passionate, transpires a good deal, mi stakes the papers in his hands for his pocket-handkerchief; reads, screeches occasionally, and strikes his hands ; he runs over the bistory'of his career, mixes up the Italian campaign with that of 1870, and the Coup d'Etat with tbe fourf.li nf Spptombo» j . oil .it* 2k. gigantic medley, where every subject is touched upon and every person alluded to ; no fact is elucidated, no recital' completed ; it is an immense fatras full of recrimination more or less well-founded-Silence, General, is gold ! He accused the Empress of Btating the thing which is not, and displaying an economy of truth ; he blundered into something very like a charge of treason against Palikaos,and the old General at once stepped forward to call him to account. The Judge then allowed an equitable bombardment ; to take place between Trochu, the witnesses, and defendants. It was for M. Xachaud to put Homer in a nut-shell ; he literally clinched the nails in Trochu's coffin, and raised a storm of applause by charging him with ever being absent where he ought to have been present, with knowing nothing and yet knowing everything — and preferring to be a General of an insurrection rather than a General of France. The Judge's charge was. clear and impartial, and he placed the issues in ten questions, in a manner not to be misunderstood. The verdict justifies the defamation, but condemns its violence. Trochu has nothing gained, and history has still to pronounce. The defendants can pay costs and the fine of 3,000 frs. while meditating upon moderation daring their month's imprisonment. I There is an active effort being made to found working-men's clubs, on a basis to secure tbe members against the proselytism of tbe dreaded International-, and the influences of infidelity and socialism. The efforts do not promise to be successful, tbe programmes of the movement were distributed at the church doors, hence the radical press sounds the alarm, and advises the ouvriers to avoid the " Black International Society," as they describe the clergy.