M. THIERS. (Spectator.)

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 361, 5 September 1874, Page 2

M. THIERS. (Spectator.)

Hr would th iko appointments to meet deputies ond journalists at uu iiour in the morning when no intellectual Englishman ij mt of bed. He would chat gaily with political friends at l-mch, and then run at oneo to the Assembly, re»dy to 1p» off an explosive speech. An hour nfter tlio Assembly )i 1 1 arisen he wni entertaining a dozen or two of his politicnl mends to dinner, and talking more energetically than the youngest of the company. A reception would follow, ami (liming lightly from a discourse on fcbo only policy that would savo France, ho would plunge into a dissertation on the. art of (the Renaissance. Nor would ho rest oven when the Assembly took itself a holiday. He once run down to the seaside after a crisis, in which he himself hod been overthrown for a moment, and in which, it is said, orders were given to hold the troops in readiness to keep down any inconvenient expressions of revolutionary opinion ; but even then he was busy for half tho day in studying experiments in mnnno gunnery, and for the other half, 'said the satirists, in writing a book on the immortality of the soul. Next he would rush to Paris to develop trade l">v giving large but frugal receptions tit the Palace of llio Elyfee. Three thousand people would troop through tho historic rooms in a single evening, and M. Thiers would mtike threo thousand bows. At one hour ho would find himself shut in by a brilliant throng of princes, nobles, marshals, generals, statesmen, and ladies of fashion, and he would vigorously return compliments, exchange retorts, and give instruct ion all round. Strange ns tho fact may seem, he bore at such times a queer likeness to the Great Napoleon. His smnll llgure, his palo face, and his keen eyes, ns ho stood in the midst of tall princes and soldiers, and ns he looked up nt a boyish angle every time that he spoke to his bending companions, formed a carical ure of the Emperor among his marshals. At another period of the evening somo elderly dowager would gft hold of the President and pin him against a door and tell him, perhaps, how the Pere Monsabro bad denounced Badicahem hist Sunday in Notre Dnmo j how the eloquent Dominican had proved thnt the first duty of a Christian Government was to destroy root and branch ; and how lie had suggested that tho chief work of Radicalism — tho very irark of the benst — nns seen in the destruction of the Pope's Temporal Power. "\I. Thiers used to seem very much bored as the words of admonition came drip, drip, dripping; but he bore the infliction biavely, and he was so far Irom bemg exhausted that he usually went bark to Versailles tho some night by the last train. Cunning <*nemte« used (o insinuate thnt he was ovei tasking hiin«eli, nnfl thai he ought to tako more resN for the sake of France. The Orleanists were also eager to keep him out of tlio tribune altogether, in order, ns they said, to prewnt the lVsiclenfiiil dignity from being ruffled by th« rude collisions of debate fto they nvited 11. Tlners to stay at honw on tlin djris of groat dt'b.iic, but lie laughed merrily at tho transparent craft of all attempt* to mnije him, bold his tongue— the very instrument ot his power

— and he n-^ure 1 th^in that h'> wn not tire.l in tht> least. They then trie ) to p.vvent hid ton^'H" from producing tho magically instantaneous effort which it had so often had in divisions by decreeing nnfc only that he should form illy give notice when ho intended to s,xmU, but tlint th<3 Assembly should adjourn alter h» had finished. Still all theja devie«s wero only like the withes of DaHl.ih, and it wi\a not until the y imson of the Republic wi* shorn of Ins locks in the form of his mnjnntj that he fell into the hands of the Pliili-,tine4. But they were not able to put out his eyes, and his hair is growing p.gain with alarming spcori. Every new election is mldim; to its length, and if the proces^ba not stopped again by crop Ding all the Kepublican voters, it will «oon brmg bnck such strength tliat he will easily pull down the teuiplo of the Philistines.