PARIS.

Southland Times, Issue 1634, 17 September 1872, Page 3

PARIS.

-«. (from our own courespoxdrxt.) June 20. There is no practical majority in the French Assembly, save when M. Thiers creates it according to his personal inclinations, for no one now disputes his will. It is the consciousness of this fact that ■justifies the censure pa-sod upon the royalist cieputic^ (<•(• cu}]'m<z upon M. Thiers to stand and deliver liis feelings and programme in their favor. 'Tis true, the monarchists could unite the majority of the Chamber to affirm the principle of royalty, but would be hopelessly divided the moment they proceeded to select a monarch. If the royalist majority really represented the nation, which it does not, it could proceed to action without asking M. Thiers to help them ; but it has lost its chance, it has no programme, no leader, and the nation being bourgeois and Voltnirien, has no respect for the principle of royalty — viewing monarchs bnt as ordinary mortals, with too often more than the commou share of human frailties. The monarchists may form new coalitions, become a " Grand Central " party, write pamphlets, found journals, publish manifestoes, but the people will not dance to their piping, and they dare not force a verdict by proposing a dissolution, or decreeing a king — which would be the signal for civil war. Instead of becoming royalist the nation is rapidly going over to republicanism. The elections prove it, the provincial journals corroborate it, and 3VL Thiers governs in deference to that fVelino, which he is well qualified to understand and to respect. He is far from possessing all the essentials of mortem statesmanship, but despite many foss;l views, he has the shrewdness and foresight, to think only of ! his country — of France, while others plot for dynasties or office. That is th« sterling virtue which covers the multitude of lii s political sins; so numerous according to the Bonnpartist organs and their allies in the Legitimist journals, that it only rests now with them to call M. Tliiers a communist tmd a pttroieur. In their eyes he has the thousand crimes without the one virtue.

1 1n's new attitude of parties will have an unfortunate influence ou the pending question of protection M. Thiers having reiterated his determination to find in the tax on raw materials (lie revenue required, I the republicans, though free-trader^, will support his whim, because Grand Monarch Thiers has avowed his resolution to consolidate the republic. They reason thus : the new army hill i.s not to our taste, still less the budget, but we can r.lter both when the republic is legally established, and a general election will dissipate the obstructive royalists. Of course they will then get rid of M. Thiers — if he does nt-t anticipate a Cincinnatus retirement. But the free-trade deputies are not blameless for (he high-handed manner in which the uoveinment treats them. Since the memorable 10th January last, they undertook to find other sources of taxation than a recourse to protection ; they have discovered, or at least presented, none ; they took the matter out of the hands of M. Thiers ; he now re takes it sumrrarily <>ut of theirs. Besides, that pseudo freetrade committee was not averse to recurring to a mild dose of protection — like the servant girl who excused her lost virtue on account of the smallness of her illegitimate little stranger. No, neither M. Thiers nor the Assembly are the fit and proper persons to execute the radical eh. -m. ires France has need of; their duty should be solely limited to paying the German indemnity. In this matter of protection, it is to le feared M. Thiers will as usual Uot influence but command the Chamber. His Minister of Finance —M. Goulard — merits a passing notice on account of his celebrated mediocrity. It was understood that the Assembly would, according to the constitution Kivet, have the ri^ht to the luxury of indicating, at least, to M. Thiers, what ministers to select — but the President quickly showed the 750 deputies he would choose the minister that most pleased his fancy; it is to this process of selection we owe M. Goulard, a gentleman aged fifty years of age, and looking to have had ever fifty summers and promising to maintain that atatu quo. lie is tall and thin, a stand -up collar gi yes him a very stiff look ; the fe v hairs on his head are mathematically distributed ou the broad-gauge principle, and kept in position by soap and water ; h'S nose is long and straight ; his eyes quick, but at the same time dead from studying official documents. He is the type of the government clerk ; wind him up at ten o'clock and he will stop punctually at four ; as a speaker he is nothing ; but in his office, in his easy chair, or with his back to the fire, he might become eloquent. He views M. Thiers as on employer, not as a chief ; full of admiration and devotion, with pen behind ear like an obedient clerk, he Would hold documents for the signature of his superior. What a successor to the burly but talented PouyerQuertier — what an escape Victor Emmanuel had from such a representative for France ! Yet M. Goulard did his best to rehearse all the protection platitudes of M. Thiers ; he only forgot to speak the speech as it was spoken very frequently, and consequently amused the Assembly ; he had a claque composed of two friends, whom M. Thiers had to reduce to silence by a wink. It was after this melancholy spectacle that M. Thiers ro^e and recited the discourse his Minister of Finance failed to deliver. Dombrowski's principal aide-de-camp is being tried for his desertion to the Commune. One of the documents handed in, is a copy of the treaty between Dombrowski and the authorities of Versailles, by which that general was to leave three of the gates of Paris undefended and so allow the troops to enter, for the bribe of one million of francs. One of these gates was exactly where the regulars did enter ; so, much of the romance of Duchate], tbe white handkerchief, and , lieuteuunk Treves, becomes a vulgar in- (

trigue. Both to friends and neutrals, the conduct of Dombrowski, in leaving Autcuil gate undefended on the Sunday the troops entered, has ever been a subject of mystery. There lias been a wedding iv the Communist prison at Versailles. Francois is condemned to death for his participation in the murder of the hostages ; his mistress — (rrandel — was tried as a petrol e us?, but acquitted ; they have fhrpo fliildren, and it was to loifitimatiZ'- 1 their birlh Ihnt th« marriage wns cflVcted before the bridegroom is shot. The bride was dressed in black silk, and wore a blue velvet bonnet ; a friend — bridesmaid perhaps — carried the infant born during its mother's imprisonment; the Ke^is'rar ordered the prison gates to be opened — the formality required by law to prove no pressure bad been used — and declared ! the couple to be legally man and wife. Being Freethinkers, the services of a clergyman were dispensed with. After the ceremony, the bridegroom donned his manacle?, and was marched off to the condemned cell.

Marshal Forey's funeral was remarkable for the very few persons that attended it. He was a relic of imperialism. On his bier lay his hat, sword, and uni form of Field Marshal, which doubtless explained the anxiety of the relatives oncl friends of those butchered during the Cnup d'Etat to know if that was the uniform worn when lie commanded, on the fatal second of December. De mortuis nil nisi ionum is no longer remembered. There was something of the , contempt that the Parisians displayed at the Due de Morny's obsequies observable lat those of the Marshal's. The public seems to be forgetting Bazaine ; it takes no interest in his gout, and but little in the preparations of the indictment ; it is his sentence is looked forward to, not his ! tri 1. The French press bemoans and contemns by turns the alliance between Prussia and I'.aly. The latter believes that in ceding Savoy and Nice she has paid France for all her " disinterestedness" — the occupation of Rome included. It is likely the battle between Pio Nono, ;;nd Bismarck and Victor Emmanuel,

will be decided before Prance can put in a word. Then Austria is sending her Emperor to Berlin. The Russian Ambassador receives every marked attention here — he is the petted foreign representative. But Kussia will hardly become the j ally of France in the sense of knocking I her head nuninst any stone wall — ;ind such a sacrifice is what France expects from all future allies. President Grant is even not in favor ; he is accused, like Queen Victoria, of standing aloof during ;in hour of need, and being partial to Germans ; heaee, why Horace Greeley is covered with Lamourette kisses ; the same logic would hack up George Francis Train, did his modesty allow him to break the Decalogue by coveting the White House. More gratifying is the serious results attending the negotiations for the liberation of the territory. Prince Bismarck has taken a fancy to M. Thiers because the latter is becoming a chip of the same block ; hence, vhy no practical change will be, or can be attempted, in the position of M. Thiers. While he holds office, the republic will live. A journal announces that 31 railway waggons ladeu with gold have arrived from Ber.in consigned to Rothschild. "When it is remembered that there are 70 daily newspapers of every shape and size published in Paris, and that 40 of these — according to the authority of the late President of the Society of Authors? — deal knowingly in false news, there can by no difficulty about the existence of the nuggets. There is a warm discussion going on relative to the Pawnbroking establishments in France, located in the principal cities and towns, and managed by the government. The interest charged varies, from nothing, as at Grenoble and Montpelier, up to 9 per cent, at Paris, and 14 at Dunkirk. It is proposed to open a pawn office in every town and to cut out the village usurer ; many regard the innovation as demoralizing and promotive of extravagant manners among the rural?, who are believed to be in blissful ignorance of ma tante, as the friend in need is familiarly called. In any case, one reform is urged — that the borrower be free to insist on his pledge being sold, at the end of three months, instead of six or twelve at at present, and the difference between the loan and selling price handed over to him. There are brokers specially licensed to buy in pledge tickets, but always at a loss to the borrower. On the ticket is set forth the sworn value of Ihe article pledged- and the amount, generally two-thirds, leut thereon.