PARIS DEGRADED.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 3264, 13 March 1885, Page 3

PARIS DEGRADED.

(From The World.) The trial of Madame Hugues was about as solemn and dignified an affair as (,he first performance of a sensational melodrama at some boulevard theatre; nay, it was even less dignified, inasmuch as at the theatre the entr'actes save the theatre floor from certain accidents which were only too frequent during the terribly long session of Thursday. Never before had such a scandalous scene been witnessed m a French court of justice. The room was invaded by a regular mob of ruffians, intermingled with yellow-haired cocottes and rastacoubres, who had bought from venal doorkeepers the privilege of occupying the seats reserved for the jury, the bar, and the press. Even the witness-box was occupied by spectators, and the judge presided m the attitude of one suffering from colic, for the reason that clusters of spectators hanging over the back of his chair prevented him from sitting up. The court was literally converted 'into a theatre, and the culprit and the witnesses were treated as actors : nor were they unequal to the situation. Madame Hugues, m the first place; kept up her role of the remorseless Roman matron, talking m a theatrical manner about her honor, and never betraying the slightest womanly feeling ; >M. Anatole de la Forge, a deputy, declared that he had known Madamo Hugues for twelve years, and that he " honored her all the more since she had killed Morin ;" a person who had been brought from St. Lazare prison to give her evidence, cynically replied to the usual question as to her profession: "Ci-devant fille publiq\ie, actuellement rentiere." The fact is that all the parties concerned, from Madame Hugues down to the outspoken harlot who prided horself on her shame, were actuated by the desire to produce an effect, to provoke the applause or astonishment of the audience, to raise a laugh or excite a thrill of emotion. In the old days this weakness of the French was called the besom de paraitre ; we now call it cabotinage or the imitation of thoso mediocre actors who. are always pushing themselves before the public, always seeking applause, and always mouthing and posturing. Paris is rich m actors of this description m all spheres of society ; but it has rarely been our privilege to see a cabotine of the calibre of Madame Hugues, unless, perhaps, it be her husband, tho Merovingian deputy. You might imagine that', after having been acquitted, Madame Hugues would seek privacy and ' retirement. No ; she immediately resumed' her five o'clock teas, and the numerous friends and busybodies, who have been to see the momentary rival of Sara Bernhardt, describe her drawing-room as a kind of oratory, at one end of which stands the bust of the heroine issuing from an avalanche of flowers, while before it, as before an altar, are silver salvers piled up with letters of congratulation and telegrams. For that matter, the house is open to all. " Entree libre !" as m the bazaars of the Palais Royal. "Walk up, walk up, and see the apotheosis of Madame Hugues !" Such is the fifth act of this disgusting melodrama. " Women," wrote Diderot, "are subject to an epidemic ferocity. The example of a single one draws along a multitude. The first alone ia criminal, the others are diseased. O women, you are very extraordinary creatures !" At the present moment not only the women but the men too seem . to be subject to an epidemic of ferocity. Madame Hugues kills her man m the very Palace of Justice, and so renders herself a fitting match for her husband, who has killed his man too ; then a lady of Tonnerre shoots a gentleman whose attentions troubled the tranquillity of her afternoon walks ; a few days ago an angry father, irritated by the pressing instances of a young man who wishes to marry his daughter, fires upon the suppliant couple and wouuds his own child ; filially, two police-officers, the brothers Ballerich, iuvade a newspaper office, arms m hand, with a view of assassinating Juleß Valle3, or some other man, who had bespattered them with his flippant ink. And this is the way France is showing the world tho path of progress !