The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1875-11-05
NEW PARIS.
The Wonderful ReeuPeratiVe Energies Oi
the French.

| The Wonderful ReeuperatiVe Energies OF
| the French.
| L have been most impressed for these
| few days with the French facility of
mending. 1t is wonderful 1t so CHANGED
that in the year 1871 l passed few
hours in Paris, returning h0meward from
hurried trip to Switzerland It was
just after the city had been delivered
from the deslolating sovereignty Of the
commune The saddest of the sights
was Paris then. On every side were
Frenchmen had dealt to their own chief
city. The Tuieleries were a CHASTITY and
almost still smoking ruin. The hotel de
sumptuous building in the world, was
scattered and smashed into distorted
heaps of blackened stones. The proud
column of VehdOme, wreathed about
with the long record of the victories of
the first Napoleon, was broken into I'M
distinguishable bits, its pedestal alone
remaining. Many other public build
ings stood with staring window and halls
despoiled 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, i'll
the wonderful Palace de la COncorde,
and in the public parks were here head
less, there armless, yOnder legless. AT
the gates, where the fighting had been
most severe, the scene of confusion was
indescribable. There was not q church
which did not bear in broken windows
and shattered columns and peeled and
fractured walls the traces of the ter
rife fraticidal 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, French
men themselves had set riOting through
all its pleasant places. No description
can do Justice to the immense destruc-
ton 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 beyond measure
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 remnants Of the storm which
smote the Tuileries, but these blackened
footprints are being rapidly effaced.
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 arc in large doubt whom TO place |
there You would never know there |
had ever been a conflict in the streets
by the look of them. The houses have
been rebuilt The wounded walls have
been healed with skillful plaster and !
skillful stone. The statues have been so |
deity patched you would never know |
they had ever been touched by bullet. |
The old gayety flashes and resounds along
the streets That singular recuperative |
energy of the French, Selling the future
however bad and disheart-
ening has been the past, concentrating
the forces of the nation to the payment
of the enormous war indemnity almost
in a moment-that quick and indestruc-
tible and heroic spirit which no disaster
can ever capture-has received no better
and illustration than in this
sudden rebuilding Of this marvellous city,
almost as desolate little time ago as
was Jerusalem, when the Romans smOte
it and gave its temples to the flames.