ENGLISH VISITOES AND FRENCH SATIRISTS.

West Coast Times, Issue 586, 10 August 1867, Page 3

ENGLISH VISITOES AND FRENCH SATIRISTS.

(FHOM THE TIMES.) . M. John Leinoine takes a happy opportunity of satirizing his English neighbors. At the present time Paris is more than usually full of our islanders. All classes of them are crossing the channel to look upon the show to which they have been invited, and to the attractions of which they have so largely contributed. They are filling French hotels, they are contributing to the fortunes of French shopkeepers. But they are also exhibiting themselves while they study the Exhibition. They go in thousands, while the people of other countries, except, perhaps, America, only go in hundreds. And they go of all classes. To travel is for a Frenchman still an unfamiliar idea. You do meet a certain number of the great nation's citizens in the more beaten tracks of the European tourist — in the cities of Italy, in the valleys of the Alps, in the pleasure haunts of Germany ; but they are few for a nation of thirty-five millions, and they are taken from a limited class. In Paris this summer there will be what somebody has called a vertical section of English, society. The curiosity and the love of change which distinguish the Anglo-Saxon have taken possession of all sorts and conditions of people. All who can save the few pounds necessary for spending a week in Paris will be sure to go, and there is an organization for taking over working men at rates which will bring into the streets many subjects for the curiosity of the Parisians, and the descriptive powers of M. Lemoine. With the enterprise of the French literary man, and the readiness which a pen trained to the feuilleton possesses, the writer of the Debuts proposes to gratify the numberless strangers of all nations who will appear in Paris, by pointing out to them one of the most singular sights that the city will afford. They will everywhere be conscious of the presence of English people ; they will see them crowding in the buildings of the Champ de Mars, sauntering ulongthe Boulevards, staring into the shops, and losing their way in the new streets, each one of which is most confusingly like the others. They will desire to know something more about them than they can learn at home. The Swedish Baron and the Brazillian planter cannot judge of Englishmen in their own country, because very few specimens of the race visit such distant regions. But they will naturally be desirous to learn how so celebrated a personage as John Bull behaves when he makes way to the centre of civilisation. Hence in a new Paris Guide which has been brought out apropos of the Exhibition, M. Lemoine undertakes to paint La Colonie Anglaise, a term by which he appears to signify not only the permanent EJngHthwSwfein ?»n* tort ttw iw- 1

changing crowd of visitors in the capital. M. Lemoine's will hardly instruct his readers ; but it will, perhaps, amuse them, especially the subjects of it, who will probably compose the great majority of the strangers in Paris and the purchasers of the new " Guide." There never was a caricature that had not some likeness to the original, and this picture of an Englishman in the year 1867 is just such a one as a Frenchman with some genius and a good deal of ignorance would draw. We do not wonder at genius in a Frenchman, but we are a little surprised at ignorance in M. John Lemoine. He ought to be above imitating the style of small litterateurs, who know nothing of the subject, except what they have learnt from novels or vaudevilles. He says in one place that "a Parisian may travel for years round the outskirts of English society, as he would round the sea-coast of China, and he would see neither a door nor a window open." By this the writer means, it would seem, not that no Englishman would ever receive the Parisian into his house, but that the latter would, if invited, find himself kept at such a distance from the inmates by the want of sympathy between them, that, figuratively, their doors and windows would be shut to him. Whether M. Lemoine speaks of real or moral impulse, he describes a thing which has no existence save in the imagination of untravelled Parisians, who take the traditional views respecting Englishmen, as they do of all earthly things beyond the Department of the Seine. If there be a difference between English and French families, it is that strangers are more easily admitted to intimacy and friendship in the former. There is a certain limit of superficial acquaintance which it is more difficult to pass in France than perhaps in any other country in the world. As for foreigners being repelled by the narrowness of our social, political, and religious ideas, it is an antipathy which numbers of excellent Frenchmen have never experienced, and we have seldom heard it talked about, except by people who have never known anything of England at all. Of course, among the characteristics of an Englishman is that " when the interests or the passions of his country are concerned, he has not the slightest scruple about conspiring and intriguing." This is the style of the old " National and " Siecle," Avhich M. Lemoine adopts in his traditionary estimate of our character. We should be glad, however, to learn in what countries British residents do conspire and intrigue to advance the interests or to gratify the passions of their country. Happily, in most cases, we have "no interest in the policy of the country" we visit, and consequently we keep ourselves quiet, and are ciyiLat all times to the Powers that be. This is eminently the case in France, and we cannot but fancy that this-equanimity of Englishmen towards successive French Governments is one of the causes ot that dash of bitterness which is to be found in Mr Lemoine's description. M. Lemoine is an Orleanist of the Orleanists. He was one of the vanquished of February: his cause was crushed anew on the 2nd of December. The facility with which England has accepted an Imperialist as well as a Eoyal alliance is evidently no recommendation to us in his eyes. "In Paris,' 7 he says, the English look on as unconcerned spectators at its revolutions ; all they want is to have the most convenient place to see them." " They used to go to the Tuileries when the king was there ; they now go to the Emperor." To this " political atheism" as he calls it, he attributes no very worthy motives. It has its origin,-'he thinks, in two distinct sentiments — one the (respect for the liberty of others, which makes Englishmen say, "It pleases you to be slaves — you 'are at liberty to be so ; every man for himself, and God for us all ;" the other is, the lofty contempt for other nations which is felt by the English, and makes them say that any institutions are good enough for their neighbors. Thus we drink the health of the reigning French Sovereign, whoever he may be, and have no idea that the French swallow with difficulty certain toasts," It would thus seem that the respect which we have paid to the decisions of France with regard to her successive Rulers, and the courtesy which, both publicly and privately, we pay to her existing institutions, have no better origin , than godless indifference to moral light, bigoted selfesteem, an unmannerly contempt for all around us.

When such i 3 M. Lemoine's moral estimate of us we are not much concerned with his opinions on our manners. Whether Englishmen or English women eat more or less than Frenchmen or Frenchwomen is a matter of little importance, though we believe a scientific enquiry would prove that the power of consumption is not at all larger in this island. Again, it may be that ready-made paletots and the products of the Belle Jardiniere are to be seen on the Boulevards ; but we will venture to say that they are not worn by Englishmen ; for there is no country in the world where the gentlemen are less accustomed than in ours to dress themselves at the slopsellers'. But we shall not recriminate ; we shall neither speak of what is least pleasing in Paris, nor shall we attempt to describe the Frenchman of London as he appears to the British inhabitant. We only ask to be allowed to wear what we please in Paris, to go to what church or chapel we please, and to drink whose health we please ; and when M. Lemoine, or any other Frenchman, comes to this country he shall have the same advantages, and have no ill-natured remarks to fear.

A wit being told that an old acquaintance was married, exclaimed, " I am glad to. hear it." But, reflecting a moment, he addedj in a tone of compassion and forgctfulness, "and yet I don't know why I should bo ; he never did me any harm." "'

Oorksorpwa have sunk mow peoplo |4mn mln-fafttf* will <wy typn up,

Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarise or refine us by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breath in. — Burke. A friend who has been a severe sufferer by joint-stork operations (limited), says that the " circulars" of many companies are nothing | more nor less than a " round robbin." " What does a man think of when he thinks of nothing ?" said a youag lady to a gentleman with whom she had broken an Jengagement. "He thinks, miss, of a woman's promise."