Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-07-01
THE BARK SIDE OF PARIS.
Neral and social Corruptfou--Sa
tan supreme--What an Amerioar
Woman Saw and Heard. 10 aadl

dlitBOTy WHICH tOlu VI iOFciyt cuCudutcu
garden, where fruits and flowers, mighty
trees, sparkling fountains and verdant
lawns where combined in supernatural
perfection, and where, to the sojourner
therein, the eyes glided onward in an
unbroken dream Of bliss. But, some
times, under the dim radiance of the
twilight hour, or the silver loveliness of
summer night, sudden fissure would
yawn in the green sward before the trav-
eler's feet, and reveal within the intense
and horrible luster of sea Of liquid fire,
for the fair garden had been fashioned
by demons, and it noated ON the awful
waves of the central lake Of hell And
so the observant traveller may sometimes,
amid the brightness, the gaiety, the
charms of Paris, descry some tiny open
ing which reveals to him the unspeak-
able horrors of the hideous depths
hidden below the brilliant surface. g
The subject may seem TO be one un-
fitted for discussion by woman's pen,
and certainly no modest woman could
ever venture TO enter into the CHASTITY
details, the hiaeous statistics by which
she might prove her point and illustrate
her theme. / only wish to contemplate
the subject from the commonplace
standpoint Of an American woman trav-
cling in Europe and sojourning in Paris
for a limited space of time; | desire
merely to take superficial view Of the
question, and to ask what manner of
sights are likely to surround the path
of modest American matron who may
happen to speak and understand French,
and who wishes to show her young
daughter the wonders of that city which
claims to be the metropolis of the civil
lied world. The pair may promenade
Broadway and Chestnut streets for years
and never meet with anything calcula.
ted to disgust or annoy them, provided
only that they choose the hours of day
light for their rambles. Miss Anonyma
might, it is true, brush past them and
astonish them with the splendor OF her
rouge and the grandness of her attire,
and Mr.. Duceace might possibly stare
at the pretty face Of the younger lady;
but there all annoyance would end. But
in Paris it is not so. An atmosphere of
evil hovers over all things, and under its
influence there spring to light horrors
from, which modesty and innocence
can neither veil their faces nor avert
their eyes. Let the careful mother, if she
will, eon6ne her daily walks to such ele-
CANT and frequented places of resort as
the Boulevards, the Rue de la Paix, the
Rue de Rivoli, or the Palais Royal, yet
shall she not escape from the vileness
which surrounds her like a sea. Acts of
the grossest indecency, perpetrated by
the well-dressed strollers on the asphalt,
or by the elegantly dressed children that
frequent the garden of the Tuileries and
the Palais Royal, will assail her gaze.
Let her strive to take refuge from such
sights by turning to the windows OF a
fashionable print shop, and her eyes will
rest on pictures of indescribable indeli-
cacy, daintily engraved and colored pic
torial double entendres, and many where
the entendres is not double at all, but
where the purport Of the pictured scene
is perfectly unquestionable. She flies
for escape to the photographers, next
door, and portraits of shameless women
in attire befitting their characters are
the leading attractions of the window.
The image shop across the way looks in
nocent enough, and she turns to that
only to behold the immodesty of print
and photograph surpassed in the mar
velously executed little groups of clay
figures which stand side by side with
statuettes of the Virgin and our Savior.
She enters bookstore and purchases
some of the works Of the leading novel
writers of France, and sees upon the
title page the names of such large and
welLknown publishing houses as Hatch
ette or Michel Levy; but on opening
the pages she finds herself seeking |
for amusement and instruction by |
perusing minute descriptions of scenes
Of atrocious vice, if, indeed, the story |
does not turn upon the perpetration of
some crime too horrible Cor her even to |
have imagined its existence. She goes
to the theater, and from her box at the |
Gymnase or Comede Francaise she be-
holds unfolded before her scenes Of un-
bridled and unpunished prohigacy from
which is to be learned the moral lesson
that to be virtuous is to be stupid and
uninteresting, and that to be vicious is
to be brilliant, charming and successful
in society. She takes up newspaper,
dotes which crowd its columns will bring
seorching bushes to her already burning
cheeks. The trail of the serpent is over
everything. The vice, which In other
large cities is like an uloersus sore on
an otherwise healthy body, is here, like
a scrofulous taint, pervading the entire
syetem. Woe to the careful mother if
she suffers her fair young daughter to
walk the distance of half o block in
in the most fashionable quarter
of Paris, for French politeness will be
at hand to insult her youth and inno-
cenee by foul words and looks and in.
sulting touch. Such is Paris; such,
doubt not, was Sodom. 50 aeAtE
During those early summer days of
1870, while peace and prosperity and
gaiety were as yet the portion of France,
the theater-loving populace of Paris we're
stirred 10 excitement by the debut at
the Grand Opera House of young
danseuse, whose wonderful gifts were
said TO be destined to revive the waning
glories of the ballet in France. The
young dehute more than realized the
high-wrought expectations which had
been formed respecting her. rfs Ia.
Josephine Bozacchi was not yet seven
teen years of age, but her dancing was
the very perfection of artistic and poetic
grace a refined msthetie style which
fed from the boards of the Grand Opera
when Taglioni retired from the stage.
Beautiful, graceful and elegant, perfectly |
modest in looks aud gesture, such was
the youthful dancer about whom all
Paris raved when the Parisians had
nothing more to drive them insane than
q poem, a play, a new color, or a new
actress. a few weeks after Nile Bozae-