PARIS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 848, 9 September 1864, Page 6

PARIS.

(From the Nelson Examiner's own Correspondent.) Paeis,' 3rd May.

The French, who always begin by quizzing English customs, and 'end by adopting them, and who have successively lH.ueb.ed at, and adopted, tea, sandwiches, beer, horse-racing, dojr-shows, rough cloth, easy coats, crinoline, pork-pie hats, jet necklaces, and nets for feminine back bair, are just now getting up a general desire for those entire houses which, up to a recent period, they have stigmatised 33 the causs and effect of British pride and exelusiveness. Small single houses, with rooms that, in England, would he regarded as light closets, let for prices varying irom a thousand to fifteen hundred francs a year; s> hile anything like a goodsized comfortable house, lets at from two to ten thousand ! All the villages about Paris, on all the railway lines, are increasing with mushroom speed; slightly built tenements, with a bit of garden, being set up with marvellous rapidity: and letting at fabulous prices. Old estates are being cut up into building lots, new roads being laid out through them, wagon-bads of building materials are traversing tha land in every direction, and you tnig-'it fanny yourself rather in some new settlement of the New Worlds of America and Ansti.ilia, than in the immediate vicinity of the city which holds itself to be "the metropo'is of Europe."

The whole country is thus becoming dotted over with habitations, a few of which1, built by rich people for their own uss, are large, wellbuilt, and agreeable, but Dy far the greater number have been run-up by speculators in the slightest manner, are deficient in evei'y element of comfort, and are often as ugly as possible, but which will, nevertheless .be tat at prices which will enable the speculator to clear off the amount of his investment in a very short time- The genius of the French people for packing themselves into the smallest possible space, sufficiently conspicuous in Paris, shows itself still more conspicuously ia the country, where the small honses seldom boast more than one tolerable room, the re«t b-ing ingeniously cut up into scraps of rooms just long enough and broad enough to put a bed and a small table into them: the general dry ne^s of a French summer restricting the absolute necessities of iodooivJife in the country to the business of eating and sleeping. There are no drains to these houses; no cupboard*, nothing like a storeroom, or even a back-kitshen. Provisions are brousrht iri daily, by the h mdfiil as needed, and the talent of the people for roerhol and order enables them to stow all unsightly objects out of the range of vision, and get through their six months of compression very much to their own satisfaction. •

The new portions of the villages now most in vogue, from their proximity to the capital, such 33 Asnieres, Argenteuil, Surcnes, <fee, are composed of these ridiculously 5m.",1l houses, each in a speck of garden, bit a'l fitting one into the other *so closely that they look as though'a few push ps would suffice to cram the whole into one solid block; and aseichof the dwellings hasits own do?, and its own tiny poultry coop, the combined racket of barking and crowing, that fills these favourite summer resorts, is absolutely deafening. The first thing to which, when he has taken a box in the country, the Parisian directs his energies, is the finding of a dog that shall bark longer, and of a cock that can crow louder, than those of his neighbours; if his wife, as is so often the case, he a patroness of parrots, she will choose hpr gaudy pet for the shrillness of his voice- There is also sure to be in every cluster of houses, one or more youths addicted to the trumpet, and fond of adding'to the usual extra hubbub of Sunday evenings, by leaning out of an upper window, and blowing on this agreeable instrument, the peculiar monotonous flourish which summons the French, soldier to his nightly slumbers. When this trumpeting comes to an end, from the exhaustion of the trumpeter, a good deal of miscellaneous singing and shouting is performed by the public; subsiding only wh>n the rural colony betakes itself to its pillows. From which period, until.about midnight there is a subsidence of noise; but this respite of sensitive ears is soon brought to an end by the passage of market carts, wageons laden with stone, bricks, and other building materials, and droves of cattle and sheep, all of which are transported across the country in the dead of night; vehicles—heavy, lumbering, rattling, cre'akina machines-of a century ago, shakicg the gronnd as they go, their harness covered with janarlinav bells, their drivers cracking their great whips, and swearing continuously at the top of their voices ; and dogs barking as they drive the sheep or cattle; and all the" dogs in the vicinity waking up and barking back at the intruders; anrl the cocks, unwilling to be beaten ou their own ground, screeching in unison to the utmost possibilities of their gullets. The French, being accustomed to noise from their cradles, dislike ;quiet; they say that stillness is " dreadfully'oppressive," and would keep them awake. The incessant racket of the night is, therefore, in their opinion, a natural and agreeable sequence to the noise of the day; and

they sleep through it all as soundly as so many tops. As Paris is becoming, more and more, the favorite playground of the rest of the world, and as this playground is becoming more and more addicted to noise, it would seem as though the rest of the world would find itself compelled eitner to change its playground, or to introduce a regime of racket into its nurseries and thoroughfares, as an indispensable preliminary to the possibility of sojourning in Paris and its vicinity. I have known foreign visitors, accustomed from childhood to the noise of London and other cities, compelled to cut sl.ort their stay in Paris, from incapacity to endure the combined noses of the people occupying; the apartments above and below them, and of the incessant rumbling and rattling of the heavy stone-waggons, which are only allowed to traverse the city between midnight and five in the morning. Nothing, ia its way, can be more perfect than the skill and taste with which the French lay out the new lands to which it is wished to attract the rusticating public of the capital. Take, for instance, among twenty similar attempts, the conversion of the old Park of Vesinetinto a summer colony, now going on under th'i auspices of the Government. The so-called " Park" is really an old forest that has belonged, since the Revolution, to the State, but has been allowed to lie idle and neglected up to this time. The present government, wanting money, and ako bent on enlarging the ideas of the people iv the matter, of localities, has had this beautiful forest (which lies at the foot of the hill on which stands St- Gertnaiu-en-Laye, with its unrivalled terrace looking over the basin in which Paris stands) carefully laid out, with winding roads, broad avenues, squares, and round-points, all ornamenral, and furnished with turf, plumps of ornamental shrubs, -seats, beds offlowers, statues, &c Water-works, established on the edge of the park, bring the water of the Seine to this sandy and thirsty spot; an artificial river meanders, like a riband, in and out, all through the region, forming four large and very pretty lakes, big enough for boating parties, and, at one point, encircling a large island. All this ertificial river-work is carried out with the utmost care ard neatness. The bed of what is, really, a winding, picturesque canal, is lined with cement, and the current is strong enough to keep the water constantly flowing, views of the beautiful slopes of St. Germain, Bougival, Marly, and Louveciennes have been most skilfully secured ; the broadest avenues all commanding exquisite glimpses of these charming wooded hills, dotted over with white houses, aud the brown spires of the village churches, and, just now, offering masses of white, lilac and pink bloom, showing deliriously amidst the light green of tha spring leaves, and the darker hues of pine and laurel The entire region, so neatly and tastefully laid out to tempt purchasers from Paris, is divided inio building lots, th« boundaries of which are indicated by stakes driven into the ground. The^e lots are left ia their original wildness; so that purchasers may clear away the trees, or leave them standing afc pleasure ; and otherwise turn to account, according to the dictates of their fancy, the various inequalities of the ground. Those who wish t"> have a large garden, can purchase as many contiguous lots as they please, throwing them into one- Those who wish fora smaller garden, can build their house in a single lot; surrounding their purchase with a ■wall, or a paling, as they please ; excepting only a few of the more beautiful sifes which, offering naturally, the aspect of a charmin* Park, can only.be buiU upon in consonance with a plan c irefully devised, by mfans of which their parklike aspect will be preserved, and the lovely views kept open and unimpaired by bri'.k and moitar impedimenta. The lots which command the fiaest viiws, or whose gardens come down to the edge of the river, or the banks of the lakes, fetch {jhe highest prices; the most aristocratic of j these chosen sites beinar those which stand on the large island aforesaid, filled exclusively with very elegant'and'costly villas, whose gardens run down to th-i edge of the water. It is impossible to imagine anything prettier in its way than this park of Vesinet, with its old forest trees, its young plantations of ornamental shrubbery, its beds of flowers, its smooth gravelled paths winding through expanses of soft turf, and clumps of pines; its shining ri>e- with it-< pretty rustic bridges, its patches of broom and heather, its gay houses public gardens, and exquisite views. It looks like a scene from some old fan painted by Watteau. But even there, with its balmy air, flowers, streams and greenery, the demoa of noise holds sway as elsewhe'c. Thirtyseven trains rush through it daily, shrieking and blowing as they go; and along the four great Departmental roads, by which in is tyaversed, pass incessant streams of vehicles of every kind, shoals of pedestrians, and countless droves of beef and mutton; night and day, the air is filled with an all pervading din of carts, wasrons, bells, and drivers' whips; dogs and cocks filing up every gap in the long stream of creiking and rumbling. Whenever a little lull occurs, you henr cuckoos, finches and blackbirds, singing as 'gaily in every direction, as though they bad the air to themselves; and at night, when a break oscurs in the stream of carts, and the cocks happen to take a nap, you hear the nightingales all through the forest. Speaking of birds, reminds me of a visit of a swallow, which has just been exciting public curiosicy. ft seems that a smdl landholder, near Vaknciennes, was entertaining some friends at i supper a few evenings a^o, when several light I taps were heard at the window. The master of the house, surprised at the familiarity and wondering whether the 'nocturnal visitor were a beggar, a soldier billeted on his farm, or some crony playing him a trick, at last got up from the table and opened the window, when a swallow darted into the room and fl-)w two or three tiroes round th* apartment, uttering crie* of joy, and then alighted on the ledge of a great open chimney, whsre it settled itself to rest, ns though perfectly familiar with the place and people. The guests gathered round the stranger, and tha mistress of the house 1 taking it gently in her hand, began to caress it, when she f^aw round its nepk a bit of pink note paper, neatly folded and tied with a narrow riband. The riband being cirefully cut, the bit of paper was found to contain the*e "vords: — " For nearly five years that I have taken care of her, she has lodged on the chimney-piece of the Albertini, near Mount Vesuvius, in Italy. I shall be your friend if you beff ienl her"Ernesto Alberini, Junior." ! The bit of paper was then replaced by another, containing these words: — "She has just arrived, tapping at our window, j and resting on our chimney-piece. . She shall be I welcome as long as she Hkes to stay, in the house lof Alexis and Laura Herbaux. Should she fly ' away again, we hope she will find other kind j friends, and at last go back to the young Ernesto i Albertini, near Vesuvius, in Italy. i " Her friends and yours, "Alexis Herbaux. Farmer, and "Laura Herbaux. his wife." For two or three days the swallow remained with her new friends, petted, well fed, and apparently quite at home, flying in and out as she pleased, but always roosting on the chimneypiece of the kitchen. She then disappeared, and has not since been heard of, pursuing her adventurous flight, xrobaMy, to oilier regions. It is to be hoped that should she, on the return of winter, nVI her way back to "Ernesto Albertini, near-Mount Vesuvius, in Italy," her plumpnrss may prove ta her Italian friend that his winged favorite has not failed to meet with kind protectors during her absence.