THE QUEEN IN PARIS.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 158, 28 June 1879, Page 3

THE QUEEN IN PARIS.

(By “ Alb.” in the £ World.’) In spite almost of the Queen’s ■wish, the French have shown a very lively interest in Her Majesty’s short visit to Paris. There wore large crowds in the street on Wednesday night to catch a glimpse of her as she drove to the Embassy from the station ; there were large crowds again on Thursday morning to catch another glimpse as she drove from the Embassy to the station again. And between those two appearances Her Majesty was not seen in public. True to her resolution, she passed her time at the Embassy in almost absolute sechision, allowance made for the inevitable in the shape of official visits. The truth is, that the personality of Queen Victoria strikes the French imagination in two different ways, and in each way very powerfully. For the “ ancient parties” and good society she represents the stability of a royal line, and the dignity, grace, and splendour of court life. They envy her on behalf of their otvn candidate or candidates a position that places her above attack, and insures her the respect of all parties.

It can never V so in France, they sorrowfully feel ; and the Queen’s hold

I on the-affections of the nation has for them aii the charm and fascination of an unattainable ideal. F.-.r tire parties that are urn ancient, and that are not monarchial at all, the Queen is none the loss a supremely interesting figure. She is supposed to represent the puritanical severity of English manners, and they feel inquisitive about her in proportion as they are convinced of her obsolute difference from themselves in opinion and tastes. She is la vicille Angleterre come to judgment, and they are never tired of speculating on the extent to which she must be scandalised by the social levity of France. They are firmly persuaded that Her Majesty has a holy horror of their nation ; that sire has heard of their junketings and follies ; and that she has formed an abiding dislike to them on the strength of the report. If they attribute this to the Queen, it is only because they attribute it to her people, and they pay her the compliment of taking her as the representative of English sentiment as well as of English power. Nothing will euro the French of a prejudice ; and the reigning prejudice of a third Republic is the same as the reigning prejudice of the first—that the English are cold ; that they have a superstitious terror and abhorrence of all the delights of life ; that they think it a duty to be miserable and their favourite word “ shocking” was expressly invented to check every expensive movement of the fancy or the heart. The few English people who are not like this, it is supposed, are obliged to pretend to be so out of respect for the majority. So, where we are not sour by nature and conviction, we arc sour by hypocrisy, and we are sour all the same. We cross the Channel to enjoy the fascination of horror at French ways, as children sometimes set up bogey for themselves to enjoy the luxury of fright. We cannot find, or rather we will not find, in our own country the proper contrast of light-hearted immorality to our own Chadbandian perfections, and so we come over here for the luxury of a deep-drawn sniff. This is the English people of popular conception in France. The Queen has always been credited with only too much nationality of sentiment in this respect. The very purity of her life thus becomes a count in the indictment against her. With her standard of manners, what must she think of us ? It is believed that in her Majesty’s judgment—l am now only stating opinions, not trying to excuse or defend them—the disasters of the warworn but a smiting of the Amalekites ; that wicked and seductive French nation was at last pulled up in its career of thoughtless filly ; and in every blow struck by the Germans a thousandoffences against domestic morality were avenged. Hence, of course, there was no English aid to suffering France. The English nation may have wavered for a moment towards compassion ; but its highest representative kept it true to its own iron-hound course of prejudice and aversion. It is all monstrously foolish, no doubt ; but what of that? Can any other people Ire said to think more wisely of its neighbours, when the few nations shared in common by millions are taken into account ?

The Queen therefore interests Frenchmen precisely because of the immeasurable difference of mental and moral constitution between her and them. Any story that illustrates this is sure to go the rounds ; and they are never tired of quoting a supposed command sent by Her Majesty' to the Prince of Wales not to go to the Exhibition on a Sunday. It was never sent, but that does not matter. In such a case intensity of belief may be taken as one if the philosophic tests of fact. The story is absolutely required du rcste to embody the popular conception of a coming divergence of view on these points between the England of yesterday and the England of to-day. The French are peculiarly gifted in the romance of manners, and they are now laying the scene of a very pretty little romance of that kind in England, with the title of“ Albert Edward, or the Now Generation.” The Prince of Wales is supposed to represent the reaction of the new England against the old. He is the- Cavalier who is coming-in- to put down the Puritan, to knock off the fetters from the naiional conscience, and and enable it to take life as it is. Ilis motto is “ Cakes and Ale.” Hence the very great popularity of His Royal Highness in Paris. He is believed to be bringing England into the comity of nations in social usage, to be givinghor courage to call a spade a spado. The “ old England ”of French "fancy is a perpetual menace to French consciences, a perpetual reproach. While she is watching them with that stony stare, there is no getting through the "revel of life with comfort. Her skinny finger writes “ And after” on the Avail. The most innocent amusements of the Prince in this capital arc therefore distorted in the view into signs of his growth in the grace of good fellow-shi p a la Francaise. If he visits a picture-gallery on a Sunday it is to show how much he would like to go to a ball. If be laughs at the play, it is against the sqnoaraishncss of the dramatic censorship at home. “ His Royal Highness likes us. Ho is half a Frenchman. Only wait till yon have him on the throne.” As for His Royal Highness’s Mother, the speculations as to what that august lady has been thinking of Paris during hex drive through the city in a closed carnage, have kept the salons working at full time ever since the day of her arrival. If she would but publish a supplementary edition of “ Our .Diary” to cover the last three days, it would take little more than that time to place it in the hands of every reader in France.