Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1874-02-02
An Evening Reception at President
Mac3aahOn's
~ a. n n an n..ot4o


There are not many ladies among
them, for, apart from all considerations
of grand genre or chic, travelling by rail
in a ball dress, and scurrying for a cab
il the same costume, with the additional
risk of having to spend the night at a
Versailles hotel if the last train back to
Paris be missed, are heavy drawbacks
on feminine loyalty. The Legislature
have patriotically grappled with this
state Of things, and voted 9l2,0OO for
the holding of fetes at the Elysee; but
the Versailles reception will be kept up
all the same, and continue as now to be
haunted chiefly by men, with here and
there a minister or deputy wife hutterlng
amid the throng like a butterfly among
black beetles. The black beetles are
very fine ones though and possibly no
official gatherings so select as Nine
MacMahon's have been seen in France
since 1880. French society has GER
tainly changed much in the course
of three years, not superficlally,
perhaps, but at bottom. Morals
may not be purer (yet let us hope they
are), but they walk on stills; converse
ton may not be less frivolous, but it is
couched in sterling French, no longer in
that pinchbeck alloy of slang and porsi-
flage which ruled under the Second EN-
pire. Then the present leaders of that
great world are men who know how to
tread a drawing room carpet, having de-
voted all their minds to this pursuit from
their youth up. At the Tuileries, during
Napoleon III. time, it always occurred
to one that to alllde in any way to social
events ten years ago would be calculated
to promote uneasiness, seeing that few
of the big personages of the time cared
to remember what they we're doing ten
years back; they all looked as If they
had skeletons in cupboard, and feared
to drop the cupboard key, in an un-
guarded moment. Under M. Theirs ac'
ademio manners and language began to
prevail, but then the Presidents Feeep-
lions. being attended by Deputies Of the
Right and Left, were very salads. Not
ali the witty blufness OF the President,
who hustled about from sofa to chair;
not all the grave comeliness OF NJ.
Barthelemay st. Hilaire, not all the
tact of Nine. Theirs and her sister,
Mile Desne, could bring the Duke de
la Rochefoucauld to look with compos.
ure upon M. Pory-Papy, the Radical
and mulatto member for the Martinique,
or funing Colonel Langlois to brook the
presence Of the Dug de Brogle. Marshal
MacMahon does not hustle. He stands
on the hearth.rug in the smaller OF the
two reception-rooms, and waits there
for such guests as may come and talk to
him after making their bow to the
Duchess de Magenta In the larger room,
A smileless man, who would look a trltie
dull were it not for the keenness OF his
blue eyes, the Marshal appears to be
stricken with q clffonic surprise at the sin
cularity of his new position. Members
come and sound him disereetly as to his
political views, and he does not seem to
like it, unless he has his Premier by his
side to answer foT him, then he plays
chorus, and says Just so " with stolid
emphasis-the implication being that
these political views of his are all in the
drill book, and summed up in the form
ular, Attentienl" Eyes 'front.'
Quick march," On the other hand,
the Marshal will commit. himself unre-
servedly as to the amount of law that
should be allowed to hare, stag, or a
partridge, and in this manner he is an
ardent Liberal. The gradual extermina,
ton of game in France is a question of
hourly solicitude to him, and he is un-
derstood to favor a-bill which should
prohibit shooting altogether for one or
two seasons. Why cannot the Reds
get themselves included in the bill