The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-01-23
PARIS.
MORALS, MANNER AND MIND.

PARIS.
MORALS, MANNER AND MIND.
A Startling Picture Of Life I'm tho French
Metropolis.
The following article was published in late
number Of the London Athenmum:
The French will not read their classics. The
tered q page Of Corneile. I find, for my own
part, that the Rabelais is more talked about in
English than in French society. The classic
dramatists are known only so far us they are
on the Boulevards who shrug their shoulders
at the Theatre Francois, and crack their little
Jokes when Racine is on the stage. They are
for offenbach and Schneider, and are more
of the Grand Duchesse than they would be to
hear that couple of new masterpieces by
Mollere had been discovered. Romance fills
the salon, the boudoir, and the bedroom. The
bridal chamber is the comic scene. The hus-
band is the buffoon. The children are, the
privileged and malignant observers of their
mothers peccadilloes.. These are the ingre-
dents which are served up in hundred forms,
and supply all the reading c. the mothers who
are pictured. or the husbands who are the
habitual subjects of dishonor, and Of the lover
who makes his friends wife his mistress. The
poisonous. pestiient stuff is presented to the
readers as pOrtraiture OF themselves and their
neighbers; and they are far from repudiating
it. Amateur and professional immortality are
Alexander Dumas fls is the Jules Gouffe of his
epoch-leading crowd of minor chefs.
Whatever may be said OF the political time
day will, it is fondly hoped, be ropudiated by
an indignant posterity as almost incredibly
coarse and pIohigate. 1t must, however, be
accepted as painting the living manners. Re-
garded as ho' ding the mirror up to living ma
ture, does it not explain why it is the learned
salons have passed away-wh audiences
laugh instead OF kissing when amusing forms
and whims Of adultery are set befor tlrem
why feminine cheeks do not fame when Mar
guerite Gauthier talks People suite Of
rooms with the creations OF your younger Du-
mas and would you expect to dad Montaigno,
Corneille, Rabeiais, Mollsre and Racine upon the
tables You might rather incline to search for
Faublas in cupboard
1t not in Paris-ssattered in odd hooks and
corners Of France; living on hermit fare in
or enduring the private tntlr RS life, or exile
there Is still goodly public Of French scholars
lovers OF the essay, the philosophical trea-
tise, the scientific speculator, the historian and
French soil. Without it society would have
the livid hues OF death. warrant that the
publisher of the Almanac Of the General Cs-
clopndia will not sell copy, along the Boule
ed Englishman who lives there; but over the
water, in very dingy professors apartments,
and among the few students who mean work, it
will command the expenditure of franc. It
Is written by serious men for serious men.
The attempt to produce such work in these
days Is most pralsewOrtby because most
adventurous one. It will gauge the intellectual
how many young men there are left in France
with ideas beyond the Bos, the Cafe Anglais.
the Jockey Club, and Mabile for th cir youth,
and the orts9aox ,progaoy Of polite society
Henry Fouquier, in his dialogue on the
Morality Of Yesterday and To-Day, says 90
"Moi:" "That which enrages me is to see that
where the vices Of the. world come to make
themselve comfortable" And again, contrast
ing the Mabile OF to-day with the Porcherons
OF Dderot's time, he remarks: "That which
bauchery. It is as regular as your streets and
barracks, with governors and subjects" The
peep into the picture shops is not without
reelection across the Channel, where, am
everybody's lips, and in the albums Of many
who pretend TO the homely virtues.
Let us look about us In the shop win
adore. Here they are, with dabs OF red upon
their hollow cheeks, as boys; legs in the air as
at the balls, to which they attract the foreign
hundred nude dgurantes, with shortest petit
coats, with false calves, ghich cheat the au-
dience as indicating beauties that the poor
girls do not possess. All this lives I cannot
tell how, and sleeps cannot tell where but
not AZ Fort pEveque, as IN our (Diderot's)
time" Further: SAT the rate we are going, we
shall have Justine read to onr children"
Henry Fouquier declares French society is
vers imagine it to be. Education has soread
i is true; but il is among the educated that
the stain is deepest. He says: '.Circumptan-
ces have compelled the mass OF the nation
which is sound, laboriors and moral-to give
the wall to few greedy and vain pleasure
seekers. These ara the folk to whom atten-
tion is exclusively given, and who fil the
newspapers; and by these we are all judged"
Cultivate the domestic virtues,n Charles
Lamb writes; .sthey viii bring you peace at the
last" And, pray, what crop will the cultiva-
tion OF the vices bring? This is the question
which gives. bad quarters-of-an- hour TO the
SOBER and lottered Frenchmsn at this moment.
-s------v-----
y MARROW EscAPE FROM SHnpwREcK The
steamship Columbia, Captain Carneigan. which
left New Yogk on November SO 22e. with a aargs
and valuable cargo and seventy-five passen-
gers (sixty.three steerage and twelve cabinj,
exclusive OF the crew, seems to have narrowly
escaped Youndering, fcom Cause similar To