Paradox of the Emprie.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 175, 23 October 1886, Page 7 (Supplement)

Paradox of the Emprie.

It must make Paris feel that the empire is receding very far into history when she hears that Cora Pearl is no more. Not that it would be fair to identify the lady with the regime, except as a coincidence. Perhape, though, it is not too much to say that her reign would not have been possible without the other. Nobody thought much of what was in store. Life was a thing to take as it came, and one way of taking it was to make this daughter of an English livery etable keeper the Queen of the Bois. The moat severe moralist who shall undertake to draw a faithful picture of that epoch can never leave this figure out. On summer afternoons, when the Emperor passed in one carriage and Cora in another, one might have asked which was the equipage of the chief of the State. There was as much gold oh the liveries in one as the other, as much satin on the cushions, and quite as much dust. This went on for many years, Paris enjoying it. after its wont, because it was so excessively bizarre. Cora was ill-favoured, and she had the manners of the stable. If she had been fair and well-bred where would have been the paradox? Then there came a day when Cora was no longer a paradox, or was such an odd one that she did not count, and Paris turned its back upon her at readily and remorselessly aa it turns its back upon anything else that has ceaßed to amuse Her fall into utter poverty, neglect and contempt was unusually rapid, even for one of her class.