AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 393, 15 September 1875, Page 3

AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

(From a correspondent of the Press ) Paris, July 27.

The feelings and opinions of those Frenchmen who place their country above the ambition of the Pretenders, unanimously condemn the conduct of the Assembly in according itself a prorogation, instead of voting a dissolution. Those Deputies who believethat France, and perhaps the universe, will never be great, glorious, and free, till she possesses] a Divine Right Monarch, or an arbitrary Emperor, are simply in their role, in endeavoring by all means to trip up the Republic, despite its being now the law of the land. Not so those Royalists who voted the Republican constitution, convinced opposition was useless, but who now lend themselves to every petty subterfuge to prevent that constitution being applied. These three classes of Deputies are after all but partrsans, not patriots ; and the great consolation the disappointed patience and good sense of the country possesses, is the consciousness that when the general elections do come, a clean sweep will be made of representatives who abuse their trusts by defying opinion. Very little importance is attached to either the programme or the promises of a Ministry, which possesses neither statesmanship nor courage. The Cabinet only drives the people deeper into Republicanism, in trying to give the cold shoulder to the Republic. Indeed, popular opinion accuses the chief of the Ministry of a desire to entrust the new constitution only to its enemies, and of being an Imperialist. A point less onen to doubt is that his political reputation is ruined. No one in France believes of course the general elections will take place this year, and those not altogether cynical entertain the same belief for 1876. The Deputies have non-dissolution in the brain, and sacrifice the peace and security of the country to the god Hazard, expecting to reap benefits from unknown eventualities. All this is intended to provoke the Republicans to commit, in their natural disgust at the situation, excesses, and then pitch the Constitution to the winds. But the Republicanism of the country, that is to say, its good sense and patriotism, will still continue to be patient, and not less vigilant. It is love’s labor lost intriguing to restore monarchy, which is as dead as a mummy in France. It had its opportunity, and lost it. The tide was not taken at the flood, or, like the book of the Sibyl, where each unsecured page was torn and vanished for ever. To judge of how statesmanship has fallen, the leader of the Cabinet advocates the puerility that candidates ought not to be allowed to present themselves before the electors, as he who had the sweetest and most honeyed tongue would obtain the majority. The same politician would prefer for Senators all the political maim, halt, and blind ; crutches and rheumatism,wigs and gout, false eyes and chronic constipation, of men more in want of nurses than of Curule chairs. This recalls the history of an operation performed by the celebrated Dupuytreu, who had so amputated the patient that the hospital assistants demanded of him which moiety of the unfortunate was to be carried back to bed. The revenue of the country is on the whole good for the first six months of this year ; at present the augmentation in receipts is not so satisfactory, and the cause may be largely traced to the unsettledness of the political condition of the country. Direct taxes are as punctually paid, as they are increasingly productive, and the savings of the country increase each year by one milliard. Stamps and registration are productive, the former markedly so. The indirect imposts yield well ; the custom import duties, which produced in 1869 only 79£ millions of francs, amounted to 144 millions in 1874. The tobacco tax seems to be as inexhaustible as a wizard’s hat. The post-office returns do not indicate a loss, but a more moderate scale of tariffs would bring more grist to the mill. France ought never to lose sight of a saying of one of her wise statesmen, “ Make me good politics and I will guarantee you flourishing finances.” The Geographical International Exhibition being now in ship-shape, is becoming appreciated. Perhaps it is the reigning favorite of the numerous exhibitions now open. It is an ethnographical gallery, a museum, and a picture salon, and is, above all, attractive by its variety. To traverse

the various miles, is to make a tour of the world in eighty minutes or eighty hours as tin; ! i.ivt Her pleases. Each country has its own installation, thus being an exhibition within an exhibition. Russ ; a occupies a large space, the largest perhaps next to France. After visiting the thirty or forty rooms devoted to the exhibition, one is not inclined to ratify Goethe’s remark, “that which distinguishes the French in their ignorance of geography.” The vast military map of France covers the entire wall of the Gallery of Annals, and the ceded territory, poor Alsace, looks like a moral in an apartment destined to record all the glories of France. This map occupied thirty-three years to complete. It is curious to note that while all the chief European nations expose freely their military maps, Germany sends none. As a compensation, however, there are geological maps of Saxony, and statistical charts of Bavaria and Prussia ; there are, in addition, field-glasses and photo albums, and portable medicine chests. Germany is thus the least war-like nation in the world. There is a planisphere that Napoleon I had executed for the instruction of his son, the King of [Rome; the lad never used it. France in relief by Kleinhaus, is a work of extraordinary patience. He commenced the chain of the Pyrenees, no leas than seven times. Among the eccentric exhibits is a map, “ Creation corrected by the creature,” and which is appropriately signed “Asinus,” Xavier de Maistre made an agreeable voyage around his room, but an excursion through this exhibition will give the visitor more “ Knowledge of the world ” in a day, than he could obtain from books in years. According to true friendship’s laws, we “speed the parting guest.” The Sultan of Zanzibar must be inclined to answer his subjects as did the Doge of Genoa, after visiting Louis XIY. at Versailles, respecting what most surprised him, replied “to find myself there.” Few Sovereigns now-a-day but are familiar with railwys; some leave their dominions, and are relieved from the necessity of taking a “ return ticketfor crowned or to be crowned heads, there are now no “ extravagant countries,” as Don Caesar de Bazan would say. The Sultan is a vast [improvement on the Shah of bizarre memory, who only took pleasure in acrobats and wild beast tamers, and who esteemed the best qualification for an able Cabinet Minister, was the being able to jump like the circus rider, through twelve tissue papered hoops succession. The Seyyid was most attracted during his visit to the maritime, &c, exhibition, with a man repairing broken china with glue—a feat daily to be witnessed at any street corner in Paris. But when the present Czar visited the capital in 1867, was not his greatest amusement to witness the changing of the wheels of the tram cars, near the entrance to the Champs Elysees. Far dilierent was Peter the Great, who before tomb of Richelieu in the Sorbonne, exclaimed, “Great man, bad you been born in my states, I would have given you the half of ray empire to learn from you how to govern the other !” And the ruler of Zanzibar, thatmight be able to visit us, as the Queen of Sheba did Solomon, followed by cargoes of incense, myrrh, amber, &c, assumes no higher object than that of a commercial traveller selling coliee for planters. When he visited the Gobelins manufactory, the director presented a splendid arm-chair for him to rest in ; the visitor understood the word “ present ” in its literal sense, and the splendid article of furniture, destined as a gift for the Empress of Austria, becomes thus perhaps the throne for the Zanzibar dynasty. When the Sultan visited the National Printing office, he was not honored like other royal folks ; the director never put a press in motion to strike off a page of the Koran, in Arabic or Turkish before his eyes. When Pius VII visited the establishment, a copy of the Lord’s Prayer, in all the then known dialects of the world, was partly printed and completely bound, while he was making the tour of the building. The Shah even was presented with an address in Persian, quite dripping, only it was printed upside down.

It was Queen Victoria who 'in 1855 set the fashion for monarchs to make pilgrimages to Paris ; the saddest was that of Maximilian in 1864, and the most humorous that of the King of Spain in 1865. When in 1771 the future Gustavus 111, King of Sweden, came to Paris, he supped with la Dubarry, and presented her dog with a red morocco collar, garnished with a buckle and rings in precious stones, to which was attached a chain a yard long, and composed of rubies. In May, 1830, two months before the revolution, E’erdinand 11. arrived on a visit to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Orleans; a great ball was given in his honor at the Palais Royal, where originated the expressive and prophetic mot of M. de Salvandy, “ we dance upon a volcano.” Some gentlemen are imploring that a Brurarnel or Orsay would appear and restore green cloth coats and rae>al buttons. The blue coat and brass buttons is not yet as extinct as the dodo ; many old gentlemen wear it at evening parties, and during Spring many more patronize it as rigorously as would a bridge an orange wreath and tulle. This blue coat was ever the rule at the scrap parties at the Tuileries, and in many castles throughout France gentlemen’s dinner dress is blue cloth lined with white satin. In reference to the known rage of Frenchmen for decorations —the Sultan, during his short visit, was besieged with applications for such, although he is innocent of all orders —a good story is told of Dumas pere, who had as many decorations as Prince Esterhazy or Saldanho. Dumas confided the care of his decorations to his plate boy, and when the silver had to pass to everybody’s uncle, the decorations were thrown into a box. In this state they accompanied him to Naples, and invited to a count ball, he found the ribbons of the decorations faded, so he strung all the jewellery on his watch chain ; during the evening this chain became a burden, so he placed the lot in his coat tail pockets, and was only reminded of the fact when sitting down the decorations broke up like crystal. M. Oh ail 16 Long-Bey, a Frenchman and colonel in the Egyptian army, made a voyage at the request of the Khedive, as far as Niam Niam, in the interior of Africa. He was absent twenty-five months. The countries he passed through, he found to be peopled, sometimes with well-shaped niggers, and occasionally tribes of dwarfs, recalling the Aztecs of Mexico. One King received him, and decapitated thirty of his subjects in honor of the visitor, presenting him also with a dozen of his wives, which he declined with thanks. He accepted, however, the present of a boy and a girl, the latter agreeing to accompany him, on condition that he “ would not eat her.” . .