Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1870-09-01
The Pleasure Ground. of Paris.

The New York Euening Post says No surer
| indication could be given of the alarm that is
felt by the existing government at Paris for the
safety of that capital, than the order which has
| gone forth for leveling the Bois de Boulogne
| and the Bois dc Nincennes. Nothing less than
| lively apprehension that the siege guns Of the
Grown Prince of Prussia would soon be heard
| from the outer Notifications. would have brought
| the commander charged with the security Of the
| city to 30 extreme measure.
The Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincen-
mes situated at exactly opposite points of the
invirons of Paris. The former park is the pride
and glory of la belle uille, where the giddy Par-
sian population conjugates the verb s'dmuse,'
all round the year. There the lorette parades
her attractions, and there the irascibe editorial
fraternity fight their duels The Bois de Bou-
logne has an area of two thousand
| acres, with promenades and roadways of
more than forty miles circuit and has been
beautifed at the most lavish expense. Artificial
cascades, mmcking the wilderness of nature
fall over rocks transported from Fontainebleau,
the water flowing out of lakes constructed with
the strictest regard to the picturesque. Upon
the margin of these lakes rise Swiss chalets and
Chinese pavions. so disposed in relation to the
wooded shores and the newly-built hills behind
them, as to produce the most striking effect At
one end of the Bois there is the loyeliest little
windmill in the world, and at the other is the
race.course of Longchamps, with it's showy
booths and ample stands for the court and the
people, while in the very centre is the beautiful
Pre- Catelan, offering its restaurants and open-air
theatre for the qualification of the public. What
the Bois has lacked since 1915 is forest The
primitive trees that covered the sandy soil in the
days Of the first Revolution, were all cut down
when the allied armies bivouacked on the spot
after Waterloo.
For many years the sterile, ,unnteresting plain,
thus denuded of its timber, ran to waste, and
was covered over at last with stunted growth
of weak and unthrifty saplings In 1852 the
work of adornng the Bois de Boulogne was
begun with energy by the present Emperor, who
has spent enormous sums in transporting thither
magnificent forest trees and now, sad to relate,
just as it had begun to show fine clumpso Of wood
and, here and there, depths of shade, the advance
of the ruthless Prussan renders a total destruc-
ton of the Bois military necessity. Great will
be the distress in the Faubourg st. Honore the
Jockey Club will lament, Fifine will shed tears,
and the Emperor will see, with the bitterest re-
gret, the fairest flower with which he had decked
his capital, torn from her brow
The Bois de Yincennes upon the eastern boun-
Diary of Paris, differs in all respects from the
Bois de Boulogne 1t is a park of considerable
extent, covered in great part with noble woods,
which it seems almost crime to cut down.
Some years ago the Emperor began to lay it out
in walks and drives, and to adorn it, for the
benefit chiefly of the shopkeepers and their
wives, who dwell in the region of StAntoine and
Pele Ia Chdise. But the work was discontinued,
and the open spaces of the ground have since
been exclusively devoted to the heavy gun and
shell practice and artillery manguvres of that
grdnoe drn,ee which has proved SO Enthusiastically
reliance in the hour of danger.