OUR PARIS LETTER.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3662, 21 September 1880, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER.

(FROM OtTB OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Paris, August 12.

The voyage to Cherbourg must be regarded as the compliment of the presidential ceremony of the distribution of the flags to the army on the 14th July. The. Boys in Blue must also have their cakes and ale The Portsmouth of France is very republican, so the three presidents naturally found themselves all at home. It is not often the navy is honored as it has just been, as the pet service is the army. M. Grevy conducted himself as a Spartan, in point of simplicity, and M. Gambetta recommended the crowd to cheer not himself, but the President of the Republic, the incarnation of public virtue, national rights, and inflexible legality. Only one incident took place, where the Bishop of Bayeux headed a deputation of his clergy^ to pay their respects to the President, when the latter in reply to the congratulatory address, asserted, " Love for the church, was not incompatible with love for France" Volumes might be written on the parallel between the voyages of Marshal MacMahon three years ago to Cherbourg, and that just made by M. Grevy. The former had arrived at the zenith of re actionary politics, and the country was in the throes of a preparation for that general election, which has decided the fate of France. It was at that moment Gambetta made his famous speech at Lille, where he laid down, that when universal suffrage would have spoken, the Marshall must either submit or resign. Then the Government of the day was, as de Girardin said, " manufacturing fear, which meant fabricating revolution." On the Marshal quitting Cherbourg, 30,000 persons pursued him to the railway station with cries of " Vive Thiers,-vive la Republic," and singing the Marseillaise. To day M. GreVy is received as the honored chief of the nation, in whose hands legality runs no risk, and whose dominant carejs, respect for the national will. He represents France in full political repose, work, and commercial prosperity, when dynastic parties reduced to debris, and each successive expression of universal suffrage an unequivocal approbation of the constitution which France has chosen for hercelf.

As was to be expected, the knot of noisy people who called themselves Socialists, and that relied on muskets, barricades, and dynamite to ensure a second edition of the rights of man, have nearly exhausted themselves. At one of their recent frugal banquets, they de^ nounced not only Beauqui, but Rochefort as being too aristocratic. The Republic has nothing to fear in such a quarter; it can crush insurrections as terribly as it did in 1878. Every man has now a vote, and to effect fundamental, reforms, to execute new programmes, agitators must first commence by converting the electors.

Baron Harden Hickey is aged 2p, and reported to be wealthy; some say he is an Irishman, others an American, or a combination of both nationalities. For the Minister of the Interior he is a foreigner. He married three years ago an Italian lady, whose family, Sam pier i, trace their origin up to St. Peter, as the DeCourcy do theirs to Noah. The Baron had au itch for writing, and under the name of " Saint Patrice " not only composed a few novelettes descriptire of man upon town life, but founded a weekly periodical called Triboulet, an imitation of Punch, less the latterY genial fun, wit, aud hearty satire. It was, deroted to

scurrilous abuse of the republican institutions ; and above all offensive personalities towards the authoiities ; it never of late conformed to the law of submitting its skits and senseless cartoons to the censors before publication, consequently it was always in Court, and - " Saint Patrice," when not in prison, was occupied paying fines for violations of the law. To end the matter, (he chronic and wilful delinquent has been expelled France, a step tlie opposition journals lament like Jeremiah, though they uttered no protest when Hartmann was requested to try change of air. Tlie,, Republic has no more than any other free (iovernment ever professed the doctrine of unlimited liberties, and has a weakness for upholding the respect of the law. Nothing hindered Baron Hiekey, of the Fifth Avenue, New York, to criticise in a manly aud rational form, the acts of the French Government, but to descend into the arena of personal politics ayd scurrility, to become the partisan and exponent of the hates of the defeated dynastic mamelukes, was not the role of a stranger, still less the manner of thanking Frauce for her hospitality.