The interior journal. [volume] (Stanford, Ky.) 1872-1881, 1875-10-15
Reswrrecfed Parts.

A Paris correspondent of the Boston
Journal says: ! have been impressed these
few days with the French facility OF
mending. 1t is wonderful. 1t so chanced
that in the year 1871 passed few hours
in Paris, on my way home from hurried
trip to Switzerland. 1t was after the
city had been delivered from the desc
lating sovereignty Of the Commune. The
saddest OF sad sights was Paris then. On
every side were evidences Of the destruc-
tion which Frenchmen had inflicted upon
their own chief city. The Tuileries were
a CHASTITY and almost still smoking ruin.
The Hotel de Vile, which had been per-
haps the most sumptuous building in the
world, was scattered and smashed into
distorted heaps of blackened stones. The
proud column of Vendome, wreathed
about with the long record Of the victo.
ries Of the First Napoleon, was broken
into indistiugui-iiable bits, its pedestal
alone remaining. Many other buildings
stood with staring windows and halls de-
spoiled by fire and blackened walls.
Private houses in every street were sway
ing and tottering in various wreck. The
fronts of those still standing were pitted
from top to bottom with the scars Of
shells and bullets. The magnificent
statues in the garden of the Tuileries, in
ie wonderful Place de la Concorde, and
n ,he public parks, were here headless,
here armless, yonder legless. At the
cit, gates, where the fighting had been
most severe, the scene Of confusion was
indescribable. There was not church
which did not bear, in broken windows,
and shattered columns and peeled anu
shattered walls, the traces of the terrific
fratricidal conflict. The ruin which the
Prussians spared Paris out of pity for it,
and out of reverence for its huge treasures
of architecture and art, 'Frenchmen
themselves had set rioting through all
its pleasant places. No description can
do justice to the immense destruction
which French vandalism and French
fury had wrought in their own beautiful
capital. But what was Paris then, you
would scarcely recognize as Paris now.
have been astonished at the change.
There is scarcely a trace Of the ruin
which had captured almost the entire
city. True, the Hotel de Vile has not
yet completely risen from its ashes, but
it is rising. Certainly, you can see the
remnant of the storm which smote the
Tuileries, but these blackened footprints
are being rapidly efaced. The Column
Vendome towers again, with no trace of
destruction left upon it, save only that
the summit, on which stood the statue of
the First Napoleon, is empty; just now
these queer French people are in large
doubt whom to place there. You would
never know there had been a conflict in
the streets by the look of them. The
houses have been rebuilt. The wounded
walls have been healed with skillful plas-
ter and skillful stone. The statues have
been so deftly patched you would never
know they had been ever touched by bull
lets. The old gayety flashes and resounds
along the streets. That singular recu-
perative energy of the French, rising
above the mightiest misfortune, seizing
the future Immediately, however bad and
disheartening has been the past, concen-
trating the forces of the nation toward
the payment of the enormous war in
dennity almost in moment-that
quick, indestructible and heroic spirit
which no disaster can ever capture-has
received no better expression and illus
tration than in this sudden rebuilding Of
this marvellous city, almost as desolate a
little time ago as was Jerusalem when
the Romans smote il and gave its tenn
i Al.