PARIS INVADED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 June 1938, Page 10

PARIS INVADED

RAID BY BRITISH SCHOOLBOYS. Every Easter sees an invasion of Paris by British schoolboys—and with the present very advantageous rate of exchange a record number is at present visiting Paris. The Boulevards, the Tuileries, the Champs-Elysees, everywhere they are to be seen, with their typical school caps and badges. Each group accompanied by a master, they wander through the long galleries of the Louvre, getting their first acquaintance with many masterpieces of art. They crowd the stairs of the towers of Notre Dame, and from the high stone galleries look down on the city and the bridges below. You find them everywhere, marching up the Boulevard Saint Michel, and getting as far out as the Bois de Boulogne, or east to the Chateau de Vincennes, where an English king, Henry V, passed his last days. And their sisters, grouping perhaps more closely together, more wary of the street traffic, keeping unfamiliarly to the right, also can be seen exploring this city of wonders. Nearly every girl carries a camera. Paris is pleased to see these young visitors. They give an added note of gaiety to the streets, and their enthusiasm is unbounded. They want to

see everything and learn everything, and Paris spoils them. Into the Town Hall they troop, where they are received by grave municipal councillors with as much ceremony as if they were official visitors. They are shown magnificent salons, with walls covered with scenes in the history of Paris, and allegories painted on the .ceilings, and wonderful gilded decorations everywhere, floors of marquetry work, monumental furniture, great council tables, and wonderful armchairs in the backs of which are worked the familiar city arms with the ship of Paris which though battered by the waves will never sink, the motto indicates. Many a brave attempt at photographing these extraordinary chairs is made by the boys and girls from England.

The visits of the British school children are not confined to Paris. You find the youngsters at Versailles wandering through the long Gallery of Battles or looking down from the edge of the terrace over the great lawn and park, and you find them at Malmaison crowding through the rooms where Bonaparte lived. (“We licked him, though,” one boy proudly whispers), and at Fontainebleau, where they stop awhile and turn from all the beauties of palace and park and forest to admire fat carp in the lake fighting for chunks of bread.

The day for returning to England comes all too soon, and the St Lazare railway station is filled with boys and girls returning home carrying all sorts of souvenirs. Goodbye, Paris!