PARIS.

Bruce Herald, Volume XI, Issue 1062, 28 January 1879, Page 7

PARIS.

December 5. General Chanzy, the Governor-General of Algeria, was a popular favorite at the conclusion of the Franco-German war. He and Fairdherbe were the only two officers that displayed serious ability dur-* ing the campaign V tbey were Vthe .only commanders that the Get mans felt to be worthy of their steel. Fairdherbeis-para-lysed in the limbs, but his intellect is as vigorous as ever, and is employed, cham-ber-lawyer like, by his country.professed at one time to be a Republican, but, as we fall on the side to which we lean, he, perhaps, belongs to the " nc* name " politicians, neither fish, nor flesh,| nor good red herring — the mostvcontemtible of factors in all political organisations. He is a Senator, and like the great ones ofthe earth, moves' to and fro-between Algiers and Paris. But a note was taken, that when the Republic was hard pressed = in the Senate for a vote, the Geheralever^ found the moment pressing to return^to 1 Algeria, and to visit France, when whip-! ping time in the Senate was oyer. He at one time possessed very favourable chances of being chosen for the next President of the Republic, but has never been the same since since the public choice has indicated M. Grevy. As France for the future will have no soldier as President, so the road is being cleared to nominate a civilian next [spring Governor of Algeria The liberal press of the colony is very severe on the General's high-handed sys-i tern of administration, and as he cannot re-demand the state of siege, he has ap-plied-to the Home Government to send him out a cargo of editors tb belabor the independent press. The Republic is asked to supply funds to establish official journals to combat the Republic ! The governmental organ, it seems, is not equal to the task, though possessing ea> officio all the virtues under Heaven. This demand confirms somewhat the proposal to found a professorship of polemics. The General is very irritable ; big-wigs as a rule are : a republican paper stung him recently, so one of his staff called out the editor and they exchanged shots. Chanzy has been reminded of the case of Gsneral Yusuf, who, when cut by a writer, did not delegate an aide-de-camp to seek ointment for the inward bruise, bufc called the offender out himself. There appears to be an endemic of duels just now in France ; it is one of the attributes of the moral revolution this country is passing thi-ough — shaking of saviours of society and their partizans, for the sovereignty of the nation, based on parliamentary government no longer a sham, and an universal suffrage which is neither packed nor violated, bufc an impartial reality. The agitation for a free trade with America, in the sense of reciprocal reductions in tariff is making way, and deserves to be encouraged, if only for the cause of agitation — that is, of public discussion at mass meetings, an instru ment of Government almost unknown to fche French, and needed to take the relinquished place of barricades. The Fran co- American commercial " ticket/ is dest : ned to drill the Gauls into habits of discipline, and above all, of patience, and to demonstrate to tbem, that while in this vale of tears, subjects may be logically true, they ai*e controlled by prejudices and interests, that must be respected and even humoured, not taken by assault and battery. What the Ameri cans desired to learn afc the meeting on Sunday last was, not the comradeship ol Washington and Lafayette — the latfcer's grandson appears to be rickety on free trade and kept away, bub whether Ameri- I can interests are better served by locking out the foreigner, and flooding his home markets with Yankee notions, and something more serious than wooden nutmegs. The French have evei* blamed England for pursuing thafc foreign policy of shutting herself up like a mouse in a Dutch cheese ; hence, why Lord Beaconsfield has all their approbation, and his predecessor all their disapproval. Ifc is only by acting h9i* parfc in the European family that Continental peace can be secured, and Russia kept in her place. Lord Beaconsfield is eulogised for his British courage, ancl in boldly grappling with the Ameer,jhe is considered as merely repairing previous faults It is why by thus making a stand, and showing that she will ever do so, as the necessities of Europe require, that England can count upon the sympathies of the French. It is incumbent; on civilised nations to be full of fight, to have an eye constantly fixed on fche war path, and quite a cornucopia of feathers and paint. England has her tea-fights, and Germany her kaffees ; the latter mighfc be borrowed by Parisians, now that chicory ia free to enter the coffee-pot. What a triumph for Good Templars, as real Moka, and that the inclemency ofthe season exacts coddling beverages, from tisane saloons, up to cocoa palaces. There was a time when simple souls trusted to a relic to preserve them asrainst the world, the flesh, and the devil, but nowadays to be health-proof, one musfcnofc have so much a medicine chest afc his elbow, as a complete apothecary's I shop. It frightens .one to read the list of remedies advertised, and though contradictory, it seems necessary to patronize, if we wish to cheat death by afew years. Formerly simples boasted of Latin names, now they are nothing without Greek prefixes and affixes. Note the impoitance tar has taken for bronchial affections ; however, Bishop. Berkely ; was a great authority for Jthe fvirtues;of *ar -Cosmetics too. have increased like tadpoles. Saint Catherine limits to 25 year* the maiden's extreme chances of matrimony. Balzac i fixed thirty^ .asnvthe YSenith j* of feminine beauty— when "angels are ripe "j well by ; a curious coincidence, all the cosmetics are ; dedicated to ladies aged 30 and partial to •low body dresses.

The prefect of Valladolid has displayed too much zeal, in prohibiting the entry in-* to Spain of the Peliie Oirande a republican journal at one sous, simply because it was republican, and so unfit for Spanish monarchial society. After all Hhe Pyrenees do exist. Now the French are very much in earnest about their Republic, and while perfectly satisfied, after costly and bloody experiments, that it is the form of Government which best suits their wants and temperament, they do not claim to impose it on other peoples', still less to be want, ing in respect towards the form of Government any nation may please to adopt. France will have neither Bourbon nor Bonapartist ; the first, as Count de Cham- j bord's late manifesto shows, takes God in- J *to his play to subordinate tbe evil to thei clerical element. Louis XIV. did not to identify the state with himself. Now of all the harmless follies of the age, the least inoflensive is surely that which j persuades a man that he is the moiety j of God. The Bonapartiso see in the sacer- 1 dotal power only a lever, a means ; just as it •takes up universal' suffrage, if allowed to manipulate it. Here neither Royalty nor Empire can like the Republic, face a free 'vote and an imparl ial code. The Re-| public' of late is accused of being godless ;; the State professes no doctrine; it has only a neutral role, but an important one tbat of defending the liberty of conscience of the citizens from all encroachment — '■ whether Protestant, Ultramontane, Mate-. rialist, or Jew. It has neither the right to persecute nor protect any religious ■ideas; it is essentially laic — which is the great conquest of the Revoluion. The worst- of Atheisms is the pretention, as founded by the Counte de Chambord, to make God reign by the sword of a king — whether divine or constitutional. The Theatre Francais has scored a great success in reviving Le Fils Naturel, acomedy in five acts, by Alexandre Dumas, Uils. Tbe house was crowded by celebrities from all the worlds ; Gambetta was close to the ex-King of Spain, and Orleanist princes beside their oncedespoilers the Bonapartisls. The piece was , written in 1 853. One evening Dumas left Paris with some gay friends, a realm of paper, and a bundle of quills for Havre. To avoid his noisy companions, he bribed the care-taker of Alphonse Kar's cottage at Sainte-Adresse, to allow him to alight there ; the cottage had not a stick of furniture, but it was smothered in flowers. Dumas borrowed a chafr, and wrote the first three acts on his knee, inside the house when it rained, and in the garden when the weather was fine. The finished play remained till 1858 in a drawer, where he retouched it, and, gave it to the public in the January of that year. Its success made a sensation, above all, the famous third act. I may observe that Dumas avows, " all the ridicules, the passions, and the weaknesses I have placed to the credit of my characters, I have evoked them from my own part," Dumas is not so sceptical as many believe, he cries in preseuce of this play ; he states it is his work of predilection, the commencement of that series of comedies which he calls " useful," became compelling the spectator "to think " on leaving the theatre. The plot treats of the po}itiou society makes towards an illegitimate child. . Charles Sternay is a fast n - .an, has had a natural son by a country girl, whom he pensions off, as he is about man y ing. The boy (Jacques) is talented, grows up ! robust, and has the good fortune to inherit, a legacy from a consumptive gentleman, • who took a fancy to him aud provided with | means. Jacques becomes educated ; SterI nay has no family, ancl his bachelor uncle, a Marquis, inclines to adopt Jacques as his heir. Sternay resolves to then recognise his sou. " You cannot !" says tbe notary. " What ?" continues Sternay, " a father cannot recognise his own son — strange law indeed !" "Yes," replies the lawyer, " bub you should have done so at the moment of his birth." This is the sensational scene in the famous third act. Another hit is that where Jacques retorts to Sternay : " For twenty^five years you ! never condescended to call me son ; and I have never mentioned to anyone you were my father." This recalls the reply of the renounced d'Alembert, nlso au illegitimate child, whom his proud beautiful mother, Madame de Fencin, abandoned on the door steps 'of the church of St. Jean le Rond, and who was found and brought up by a] poor glazier. When d'Alembert became celebrated his mother wished to make herself known to him, but he re*** pelled her with the reply, " I am the son of Vitiere, the glazier's wife." The notoriously bad feeding— in point of meat diet particularly — to wbich the French soldiers are subjected, owing to dishonest contractors, is raising the question, " Why ought the regiments not buy their own cattle on foot, and since there are butchers in the ranks, slaughter them?" Similarly, it is suggested, that each barrack have a regimental kitchengarden in the vicinity of cities, and to be cultivated by the men. This arrangement succeeds so well at Caen, that the soldier-gardeners have won a silver medal afc the Exhibition's Horticultural Show of Fruits and Vegetables. Respecting the poor Exhibition, ifc has no longer even the honor of being named. Paris is worth living in now, as you can walk the streets hands in pocket, without >«ver being elbowed into the kennel, Cabmen have no more the rich harvests of September" and October, and 'so edtnplain that"the citizens are on strike towards ! them. - ■ We are already organising several little exhibitions, officious if not official, and destined apparently to keep the ad***; ministrat ors of the . great . affair a little^ while longer before the public; The lottery drags its slow length along j it A. will likely be New Year's Day bef >re the j drawings commence. The delay has had j

for consequence to demolish thousands of j castles built in the air. ....... ; . r We continue to have some love and charcoal dramas. A young woman, aged 18,. was -told by her admirer, Albert, -that he was compelled to marry another, she replied, • " Ypu are free. When this arrives T will be dead." He rushed to her room, and found the. creature gasping. They have resolved to be man and wife. The Master of the Mint at Bordeaux has been arrested. 'V Rothschild sent him some bar-silver to coin, which. he did, but for himself. The political caricatures of the pretenders and their partizans continue to be !• more severe as the period for the Senatorial elections approaches. It is quite , evident that only real original fun— from the boy's stand-point with the frogs- can be evoked when poncils are free, as in the case of the Liberal prints, which have * uearly killed off -their- opponents, i There is a fierce competition raging ■ between the assurance companies. Since | the fall of the Empire no less than ten ' new establishments h%ve been founded, independent of foreign offices opening agencies. OneYOomprny has leased the I Italian Opera House f<ir an oifice. So i much for business — and art. Surgeon David has expounded before the Academy of Sciences his new system of dentistry. He extracts the diseased j tooth, cleanses it with chenv'cal**, replaces ifc is the gum, where, in 19 cases out of 20, it re roots Ifc is the same process employed now by surgeons for grafting bones and flesh. Depu*y de Caste ascended the Tribune to state, for the benefit of his consti vents and Frame, thafc he abstained from taking ptrt in an important division from a sudden natural necessity. Ke was called to order. When an adversary is more slender than his antagonist in a pis'ol duel, it is proposed to button a second along with him to secure tbe requisite volume. Beggar — " "What meanness, that man gave me his Exhibition medal for alms !"