The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1873-08-21
PARIS.
Wicked Watterson, Wine, and Women
of the World.

~
morning. There are pretty bare-headed
shop-girls fitting hither and yon, and
looking for all the world like the figures
which appear on china vases.
The woman who has the best turned
ankle in England, and you might go
even higher still without impairing the
perspective, assured me only n fort
night ago that the French girls are
singularly wanting in statuesque attrac-
tions, and pointed with pride to a clump
of British vestals, each one of whom
she assured me realized Hogarth's line
of beauty so perfectly that the tape that
measured Powers Greek Slave or the
Medici Venus would serve them all as
well. 1t may be SO. The English girls
are strapping set, beginning with the
pink lady and going down to the
yellow-haired harlot. But when it
comes down to the matter of counte-
nance their claims upon ones admira-
tion are exceedingly indirect. The girls
of Paris, on the other hand, conceal
whatever deficiencies of figure they may
have inherited by costumes the most
tasteful and naive, looking out at you
in sweet, bewitching way as if they
meant to have you believe that il Paris
is heaven they are its angels. The En-
lish girls, high or low, remind You Of
the bayfield, and the cow-lot. There is
i'll them and about them an offensive
materialism redolent of the mould above
the rose. The French girls are ethere-
allied. They call up visions of dance
and Provincinal song, of moonlight and
banks of violets, and are redolept of the
rose above the mould. An English girl
will smirk before II looking glass until
the very quicksilver giggles and grows
dim, and come away drab for all her
iinery. A French girl has only to clap
on fig leaf and bit of ribbon to ap-
pear dressed in the hight of the fashion.
Forgive hesefamiliarities. 1t is Paris,
and one must needs feel little sinful.
If it be the wickedest city in christen-
dom, which | take leave to deny, it is in
every respect the least disgusting in its
wickedness. If it be the most artificial,
it is the most brilliant and delightful.
The most beautiful woman that / ever
saw, and the woman who dressed most
exquisitcly, was cen little careless of
herself; perhaps she paid 80 much at
tention to her clothes that she had no
time left for her person; at all events,
beneath the array of silks and laces and
linens, she was dirty baggage. That
is Paris. IT is clean and gay to look up
on but it now and then smells, and is
the worse for the lack of n little more
cold water. A city of fountains, it is
not city of mops and brooms. Yetone
| grows used to it's dirt and its odors,
which, it must be owned, are chiefly hui
man. Indeed, in spite of their frivolity
and their filth, the French are more hon
est and pleasing than the English, in
whose very bluntness and brusquerie
there are the elements of duplicity. The
French are too transparent to deceive.
Their swindlos are small and comical.
There is something fantasticin their lar
cenies and their lying, which ono is dis
posed to discount in favor of the next
bottle of claret.
This claret tastes nowhere so well as
in Paris. Drink it as you will, if is not
the same huidyou made wry faces at just
across the channel. But it goes best with
the fiets and the truflles, Of which,
thanks to tho pigs of Perrigord, there
are still abundance.
They say the gaiety of the empire is
gone. They say that Paris is somber in
its republican dress. | confess | don't
see it. The last time was here the en-.
pire was in its prime. Money was plen.
tiful. Tho court disported itself in q
palace, which is indeed in ruins now.
The column Vendome stood where at
present you see only an inclOsure OF rude
planks. The Bois dc Boulogne had lost
none of its trees. With these excep.
tions, however, Paris seems to me as gilt
tering and us reckless rs ever it was. 1t
may be little easier to cross the street
in front of the Grand hotel. But it is
summer, the dull season, and hundreds
of thousands of people are out of town.
As it is, coming here from London, the
place dazzles one with its splendor, and
you are not moved to shed any tears over
the dead empire. That Paris owes it
many of its fineries is true. But Paris
was Paris before Napoleon, aud Paris is
Paris still. In the daytime, in the
nighttime, it is the same the same
fondness for light and noise, the same
fondness for shade and flowers, the same
fondness for the open air. In the
Champs Elysees, along the boulevards
there is nothing but eating and drink
ing. The empire is gone. =" Vive Ia
republique p Yesterday it was Thiers,
to-day it is McMahon, tomorrow it may
be Gambetta. A little while ago, the
waters of the Seine were tinged with
blood. There are only wine-stains now.
The German is away. The debt is nearly
paid. Houp-la A man must live, and,
in order to live, he must not repine. So