From a Correspondent of The Spectator.
A FEW NOTES ON A RECENT VISIT TO

PARIS.

May 21st, 1863.

of doing so on the part of the men at the same table.

2d. An evident, though still mild revival of political feeling, as compared with my recollections of eighteen months ago. One or

SIR,-You ask me to give you the "im-two political" posters" were prominent on pressions" of a late visit to Paris.

every wall amidst those of theatres, railways, and houses or lands to sell-M. GuérouÏt's "Etudes Politiques (I think that is the title), and "Un Drame Electoral," by M. Gagneur. When the ordinance fixing the date of the elections was in turn posted up, you could distinguish the place from a distance by the readers, working men mostly, who were sure to be about it. More marvellous still, passing through the Luxembourg one morning, I heard two working men, seated on a bench, talking politics aloud, and no spy in or out of uniform was listening to them.

Owing to the peculiar circumstances of my journey, I found myself inhabiting a quarter of Paris which I had hardly ever passed through before, quite at the top of the Faubourg St. Jacques, close to the former "Boulevard Extérieur," It is a sort of Parisian Mount Athos, or Holy Mountain; convents, male and female, on all sides; the interstices being filled up with schools and hospitals. You can scarcely go into the street without meeting priests, monks, friars, nuns, sisters, on foot or in carriages. Low-browed, coarse-looking capuchins, with their cordgirdles, seem quite at home on the pavement; This observation was abundantly confirmed girls consecrated to the Virgin (vouées au to me by the few intimate friends whom I blanc) do their best to dirty themselves or saw, but who, belonging to different profesavoid dirtying themselves in the gutters; sions and shades of opinion, might, within the noise of bells and children's hymns (sung certain limits, serve as representative men in in loud rasping tones) scarcely ceases by day, their way. Some years ago, with the excepnor that of bells by night; in the still plenti- tion of Paris and a few large towns, people ful and often beautiful gardens the favorite did not dare to put forward opposition canclerical tree, the arbre de Judée (which Prot- didates. Now, I heard on all sides of solicestant England has so cruelly transmogrified itations addressed to men of independent into the Judas tree), is in full blossom. In- opinions, who had sat in Louis Philippe's deed, notwithstanding the immediate neigh-chambers, in the republican assemblies, by borhood of a railway terminus, there is a strange semi-rural look about the quarter, and the very nightingale comes still to sing on the trees of the Boulevards; I heard him once with my own incredulous ears.

their old constituents, urging them to come forward, and for the most part pledging success. M. de Persigny's forbiddance of election committee meetings, instead of rousing indignation, was rather hailed with pleasure Now, although an omnibus leads straight as a confession of weakness. Still, although down from this clerical stronghold through the invitation to stand had been addressed to the Rue Montmartre and the busiest quarters some of the men who can be least expected of Paris, and up again to the Barrière Pigale to swear faithfulness to the emperor, such as on the other side of the town, this is pretty poor Greppo, so shamefully prosecuted withnearly a terra incognita to half Paris at least, out a tittle of evidence against him last year, as it was to me and, indeed, so completely the prevalent feeling was that the hour of the is it out of Paris morally, that the residents men of advanced opinions was not yet come, -the old folk, at least-speak still of going-that the oath imposed upon candidates as into Paris from thence. And as I had but little time for such journeys, it was not much that I could see with my own eyes. One or two points, however, struck me.

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1st. The absolute popular indifference to all the display of surrounding Romanism. I never saw a single working man, and scarcely any one at all, notice or touch his hat to a priest, monk, or friar. So far from this, happened one day to give a good look to a priest of rather remarkable physiognomy, and the poor man instantly touched his hat to me, as if he must know me, since I deigned to look at him. In a house with convents in front and rear, though the Friday fast appeared to be observed as a custom by the women, there was not the slightest pretence

a condition precedent to their standing should exclude every man who may accept the empire as a fact, but not as a right. Hence there is a general acquiescence in the candidateship of the men of the "old parties," of the old left centre" especially, with Thiers at their head,-that clever, experienced, eloquent, idealess "left centre," master of tongue-fence and parliamentary use and wont, whose utter barrenness was the real ruin of Louis Philippe, whose utter blindness and vanity were the making of Louis Napoleon. For the work of destruction of the next two or three years these men are amply sufficient; it is but fair that they should undo their own mischief. There are, indeed, two or three upright and respected men among them, such

as Dufaure, whose honesty may add weight | very different tempers of mind. to the adroitness of their chiefs.

"It seems

we are to be guarded by Arabs whilst our own men are sent to perish in Mexico," said one, "You see how little trust he is beginning to have in our soldiers," said another, since he actually requires Arabs to garrison Paris.".

towns and of Paris, was confirmed to me from a wholly different quarter, as respects the professional classes. Still, I could see that Orleanist feelings were yet very strong among the middle-aged and older men and women. The marriage of the Duke de Chartres to his cousin is especially rejoiced in by these, as preserving the purity and nationality of the Orleans blood.

my

On the whole, I am strongly confirmed in the conviction impressed upon me in last visit, that the second empire is decidedly in its period of decline. It is rapidly losing its prestige of terror, and is felt more and more as a nuisance rather than as a bugbear.

I need hardly say how far more deeply than ever I was impressed with the utter rootlessness of the empire. In vain does Napoleon III. upset all Paris, as if he wished to leave nothing behind him but what proceeds from himself; the absolutely universal feeling The fact of the rapid spread of republican is that this is simply provisional and cannot principles, which I had already heard asserted last. It is curious, indeed, how this provi-eighteen months ago on the best authority as sional character stamps itself even on mate- to the working classes, both of the provincial rial improvements. You may see in some places quite new houses, scarcely three or four years old, pulled down for newly devised embellishments to the capital. At one entrance of the Luxembourg Gardens, near where the taking away of the pleasant old "Fontaine de Médicis" has caused, probably, more heart-burnings than any other single public work in Paris, the strange sight is seen of three different levels of street side by side,each official and compulsory in its time, but as ugly and inconvenient as they might be dangerous in their present juxtaposition. One might also say that an ironic fate compels this man, who pretends to have "closed the era of revolutions," to keep the material idea of revolution constantly before his people. Speak to a Parisian, man or woman, poor or well-to-do, of the alterations in Paris, and it is three to one that within five minutes you hear the expression," Tout est en révolution." The personal indifference towards his dynasty (let the newspapers say what they please) is complete. I passed one morning in the Tuileries whilst the prince imperial, a tutor and a lackey, were alone on the terrace by the river side. Every one must have known him, yet no one stopped for one instant to look at him; no one gave him more than a single glance; very many passed by, I believe designedly, without so much as looking up. Compare this with the way in which with us the public gaze follows any member of the royal family as soon as recognized.

Of the deepening hatred towards the present rule indeed, I saw one striking witness in men's feelings as respects the Mexican war. Not only is this universally condemned, as being alike senseless and iniquitous, but for the first time I heard Frenchmen actually wish for disaster to the French arms. The general policy of these distant wars is, indeed, disliked by all; whilst another event, quite trifling as yet in its proportions, seems to have aroused very bitter feelings, the bringing over of a company of Arabs to do garrison duty in Paris. Although this measure had been prepared and announced long beforehand, and perhaps was taken with no specially evil intentions, it was quite singular to see what effect it had produced on men wholly unacquainted with each other, and of

The old Association movement, so many a time pronounced extinct ex cathedra by Frenchmen and foreigners, is not yet stopped. A new working tailors' association is preparing to start next winter. The working builders, who were in a bad way last year, seem to have got well afloat again. A body destined to act as a bank of association is all but constituted, and amongst other distinguished men who take an interest in it, and are likely, in some way or other, to be connected with it, I heard the name of M. Elisée Reclus, who has written many admirable articles for the Deux Mondes, and, indeed, I hear, lately contributed two papers on our English cooperative bodies to the Revue Germanique. The great drawback to the work is the want of education among the working men. amount of absolute illiterateness in France is something still enormous, and would be shameful to the nation were it under any but a despotic rule. I had a practical instance of this in the fact that I literally, from the house I lived in, had to walk for a quarter of an hour down the Rue St. Jacques before I came to a stationer's shop, and one-half of this was devoted to umbrella-mending;-this, mind you, in a characteristically educational quarter. I do not believe there is any part of London where I should have had to go half the distance.

The

I have been speaking of the Parisian working men. I believe I can answer for it that, notwithstanding all the efforts made by the Second Empire to occupy them, feed them, coax them, they are just as far as ever from being favorable to it. Of course it is far

worse with the provincial ones. The 40,000 Norman cotton-weavers out of employ know well that public subscriptions for the relief of their distress have been damped as much as possible by official policy. Those of Alsace know that it is only owing to the public spirit of their masters, as well as to the more favorable economical conditions of the trade in that quarter (finer numbers spun, finer stuffs woven), that they are still at work. St. Etienne knows as well that the comparative ruin of its trade (from 15,000 to 20,000 of the best workmen are reckoned to have left the place within the last few years) is owing to the amalgamation of the coal companies, effected, it is said, only through unsparing bribery in high quarters, and the result of which has been to raise the price of coal from five to thirty francs a load as the sole means of paying dividend on a grossly exaggerated capital.

From The Spectator, 6 June.

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. PARIS has given the Moniteur its first warning; that seems, in brief, the result of the French elections. Throughout the provincial districts, wherever the electors could be influenced, or coerced, or isolated, the Administration has secured a complete and, possibly, not difficult victory. The Imperialist majority is still overwhelming, something like ten to one, and the determined effort made by the Opposition only makes their defeat more conspicuous and more galling. Even the minor cities have disappointed expectation, Bordeaux, for instance, having rejected Dufaure, whose massive oratory might have told even more heavily than Thiers's tinselly though effective displays, or Jules Simon's biting jests. She has sent a Liberal, but not the man the Administration feared. Casimir Perier, whose election seemed certain, was not returned after all, and M. de Montalembert's defeat was almost ignominious-a fact the more remarkable, because bitter Ultramontanes like Kolb-Bernard and Plichon have been restored to their seats in spite of official condemnation. Judged by the ordinary constitutional rules, the Government may fairly exult in a complete if not overwhelming triumph.

Let me conclude by an anecdote of '48, told me from personal experience by a friend of nearly thirty years' standing; one who, though an advanced Liberal in feeling, has no sympathy with the special social tendencies of that revolution. He was president of a club-as who was not in Paris in those days? --and a workman came to him, "Sir, I want to have your opinion. I have a quar- And yet France and Europe and M. de rel with an old friend. He came to me some Persigny all alike believe that the empire has while ago: What good wind brings you?' received a shock, and are right in so believ said I. I have no work, and I have no more ing, for Paris has not endorsed the decision bread.' So much the better,' said I; I of the departments. We are not about to rehave.' So I gave him half what I had. Not peat the stale epigram that Paris is France, long after I found myself in the same case, for, were it true, France would not to-day be and I went to see him: What good wind at the mercy of Napoleon, or French electors brings you?' said he. 'Well,' said I, I doubting whether it is "safe " to vote as they have no work and no bread now.' All will. Paris is not France, any more than the right,' said he, just now I have some.' And he brought out a hunch, and was about to cut it in two. That wont do,' said I, your hunch is twice as big as mine was; cut it here.' No,' said he, you gave me half yours, you must take half mine.' We disputed for some time, and I would not take his big half, and he would not give me less, and since then we do not speak to one another; for I say he does not practice equality, and he says I do not."

brain is the body; but then that which the brain wills to do, the body, unless paralyzed, sooner or later does, and for three hundred years Paris has always anticipated the final decision of France. It is the representative city, to which all that is most able, and ambitious, and intellectual, and noble, and vile between the Rhine and the Pyrenees gravitates as by a natural law. The Parisians do and their lead in these elections is in the dinot govern the French, but they lead them, rection the Government most strictly forbade. The nine divisions of Paris, separated by deep gulfs of circumstance and habit and conviction-for what is there in common but the

Perhaps those days of feverish social enthusiasm, when two half-starved friends could quarrel as to the practical meaning of equality in sharing one's all, are past, never to re-sky and the cemeteries between St. Germain turn. But the class from which such exam

ples can proceed is, depend upon it, the very marrow of the French nation. He who imagines any permanent political future for France, in which the ouvrier element should not have its due place, is building in the air.

and St. Antoine ?-have discovered a bond of Orleanist or Republican, Thiers or Picard, union in resistance to the existing régime. doubted like Havin or trusted like Favre, any candidate has been welcome, provided only he hated the creed professsed by the minister of the interior. So vast is the majority against Government, that if we deduct from

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the minority the officials who voted under city which, like Paris, sends up at once compulsion, the old soldiers who voted be- Thiers and Jules Favre, or, like Marseilles, cause Napoleon is the heir of his uncle, the elects at once M. Marie and M. Berryer, is jobbers who thrive on corruption, the con- not thinking specially about dynasties. But, tractors enriched by improvements, the then, can the dynasty survive the system it bribed, the cowardly, and the class which has created, and the vote is most unquestionbreeds in the empire as vermin in stagnant ably directed against that? It is an anwater, unanimous Paris would seem to have nouncement that Paris, which always wishes voted against the Imperial system. So keenly to-day what France will agree to to-morrow, was this felt that the victors became calm is longing for a new system, for greater lib from the very intensity of their sense of tri-erty to intellect, a freer play for thought, umph. I went," writes an acute observer less restriction in action, a new relation beon the spot," through several sections at the tween the executive and the people. It is an time when the votes were being counted; assurance that Paris, and, therefore, by and there was a serenity in triumph which was by, France, will not bear such circulars as quite touching. In the evening, men gave a M. de Persigny directed against M. Thiers, franc for the second edition of a paper, and will not submit to elect mere nominees, will read aloud outside the figures of the majori- not give up its right, if not to dictate, then ties, which were really incredible in some to criticise, the action of ministers of state. sections; people spoke briskly, without dis- It is a gasp for more air, the expression of a guise or fear. Fifteen days more, and the passionate wish for that régime of healthy departments would have sent up thirty more conflict which we call constitutional life. deputies to the Opposition. Patience; he And this is what the great cities have taken laughs well who laughs the last." That vote means to secure. was the more decisive because there was no ground for local discontent. Whatever the empire may have neglected it has pampered Paris. M. Hausmann told but the truth when he talked of the gratitude which,-supposing man lived by bread alone,-Paris would owe to the emperor who found her brick, and may one day perhaps leave her marble. All that an absolute court, aided by genius like that of Visconti, and administrative ability like that of M. Hausmann, could do to beautify and enrich and amuse the beautiful city has been done, done with a heartiness, a cordial enjoyment in the doing, most unlike the grudging spirit which so often mars official beneficence. There are hundreds of tradesmen in Paris who can trace their fortunes directly to the decrees of Louis Napoleon, thousands of workmen to whom M. Hausmann's plans have brought work and wages and security. Parisians, too, love Paris as Athenians once loved Athens, and feel a just pride in every improvement which seems to justify her claim to be called the metropolis of civilization. It is from no local annoyance, therefore, no citizen soreness at neglect, no municipal spite, that Paris has returned all the men whom the emperor's servants proclaimed the enemies of his rule. Their vote is a political manifesto, signed by all the intellect of the country, a resolution carried by the representative population of France, that they are weary of a régime of repression, of rulers who avow their belief that the Frenchman is all stomach.

It is this which makes the elections seem so formidable to the entourage of the court. The Parisian vote may not be, and, we think, is not, directed against the dynasty. The

It is not because the Opposition is twentyeight instead of five that its vote has become of importance. Twenty-eight men cannot vote the emperor out of his throne, or refuse supplies, or punish a tyrannical minister, any more than five. It is because the twentyeight are of the class who can make Parliamentary conflicts real, can, even when outvoted, exercise political power. No president can silence M. Thiers by interruptions on points of form. No minister with a voice can argue down M. Pelletan, or make M. Berryer's ringing sentences other than influential. No official, however triply cased in impudence and dotations, can be indifferent to the mots which will drop from the lips of M. Jules Simon. Even animals with six stomachs cannot drink oil of vitriol and remain alive. It does not do in France to be hopelessly outmatched in talk, yet if the Government resort to argument, there is Parlia mentary life revived, and can the dynasty survive revived Parliamentary life? How is it to send expeditions to the ends of the world when its finance is proved to all men unsound, or war for ideas with M. Berryer telling the peasants that conscription eats up their sons, or send the suspect to Cayenne with M. Favre denouncing the "laws of public safety." If it be silent, and rely upon force, then all the argument will be on one side, and France is unfortunately logical, and thinks action should follow proof; if it speaks, it has entered the arena in which victory is to the wise and the eloquent, and therefore not to M. de Persigny or his. In either case, the elections have secured greater freedom and vividness to political life, and the Imperialists wisely doubt whether they

are among the plants which can survive re- | flection, and there is a very visible tendency moval into fresh air. to deduce a great deal more from the result The effect, too, of the Parisian vote is not of the French elections than the facts will restricted to Paris or the Parisian members. bear out. They are sufficiently simple. By The declaration of the capital will embolden dint of immense exertions and a momentary every form of antagonism in the provinces. though imperfect union, the parties opposed Had it been known only three days before the to the emperor have succeeded in seating election, twenty cities would have sent up twenty-eight representatives of very varied members of the Opposition. The waverers opinions, ranging from M. Berryer, Legitiamong the members themselves feel that the mist advocate, to M. Marie, member of the Liberal may soon be also the stronger side, Provisional Government, but all more or less and every member whom the Administration opposed to the Napoleonic régime. Among may irritate sees a party to which he may these representatives are all the nine whom transfer his services with some hope of a fu- Paris has the right to return, and the repreture reward. Frenchmen always need hope sentatives of Marseilles. The Opposition, as a stimulus to energy. Eloquence, too, is therefore, may be said to have carried the not wholly lost within the Chamber itself, capital and the French Liverpool, and to have and inside and out the new members are men quintupled their strength in the agricultural who can evoke as well as lead publie opinion. districts, but they have, nevertheless, secured On all sides the apathy which was more fa- only one-tenth of the representation. tal than hostility, as a mud fort is harder to pierce than a stone bastion, is visibly giving way, the Orleanists look up with new hope, and even the Republicans begin to believe that they see the handwriting on the wall. Both may be mistaken as to the realization of their ultimate ends, for they are matched against an opponent of a rare class,-a man at once subtle and audacious, a despot who can give way, and who, so his dynasty may but endure, would accept any conceivable government France might agree to impose. There is a fund of power in reserve in the emperor's mind which his antagonists have no means of measuring, but the limits of which, are the first, if not the sole, conditions of the great game. But the realization of their immediate end, a relaxation of pressure, seems to us more than probable. They may not upset the dynasty, nor will Englishmen wish they should, but they may yet be able to offer it the alternative of reigning under conditions compatible with the orderly freedom of France, and, therefore, with the peace of the world.

From The Economist, 6 June.
THE FRENCH ELECTIONS.

THERE is some danger we think lest the importance of the incidents now occurring in France should be exaggerated. Any motion in a body presumed to be dead, affects the imagination with terror, and terror always magnifies facts. There is too, no doubt, in England, a secret ill will, not so much to the emperor as to the ministers whom he permits to misuse his name, and who are considered more repressive than the security of bis throne requires, which predisposes men to cxult in any blow inflicted on them. Neither fear nor exultation are favorable to re

It is evident, therefore, that it is not the number of the new Opposition which is supposed to be formidable. Twenty-eight votes cannot interfere with official designs any more than five, or indeed rather less, for as the number increases, so does the chance of internal differences or disputes. The five supplemented one another: the twenty-eight may, and probably will, on questions like the occupation of Rome, neutralize one another's strength. The cause of alarm must, therefore be sought either in the character and power of the new members, or in the state of opinion revealed by the mode of their election. That power is considerable, and that feeling is dangerous; but in politics there are degrees, and the degree of good or mischief to be expected is we believe, exagger- . ated.

It is thought that the members now elected will bring to the aid of the Opposition very formidable critical power. Some of them, like M. Thiers, are familiar with practical statesmanship,-some, like M. Berryer, capable of bursts of most moving eloquence,some, like M. Simon, full of those "sayings' which are so terribly effective in France. How, it is said, is the empire, which above all things fears scrutiny, to bear scrutiny like this? The simple reply is that it has borne it. It is not possible for men to utter more searching or eloquent criticism than Jules Favre has done, yet his speeches were published in the Moniteur, and still the empire stands. Indeed, on certain points the Orleanist chiefs did last year speak in Parliament, for rumor belies some of the debaters on Rome if they did not read speeches prepared by M. Thiers, M. Guizot, and M. Dufaure. There is no one of the Republican members who can say things more cutting than the Marquis St. Pierres said of the law of public safety, or who will dare to treat