Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1878-06-19

From our Regular Correspondent
Paris Letter.
We were TO start at in the morning 10
see the palaces and parks of the French
kings at Versailles. Our guide, an old
Polish polyglot of twenty-five years res
idence in Paris, seedy, threadbare, and
nervous, was promptly on hand, and We
stopped to take a cup of coffee at a little
cafe opposite the BOWrSe. Our cafe was
one of the many that depends on the
brokers who frequent the BourSe, for pat
ronage. There was no exchange that day,
and it was so long before we were served
that we missed the train, and had to wait
thirty minutes for the next. Soon, how
ever, we were on the roof of the unhand-
some little black French cars, running at
the rate of a mile in two minutes, and in
less than half hour we were in sight of
the palaces of Louis the fourteenth.
will not attempt to describe the edifces,
parks, statuary, and fountains, to which
the treasure, and blood, and genius of
Europe have SO lavishly contributed.
| Wood cuts and photographs would be I'M
satisfactory enough, how much more
pen sketch. We spent the day in a maze
of avenues, grottoes, fountains, lakes, pal.
aces and statuary-statuary neurological,
classical, medieval and modern. There
were statues in heroic size of Ney, Murat,
DessaiX, and Sault, the generals who led
the legions of the first Napoleon on hun
dred fields, and there also were Condo,
and Louis the fourteenth, the so called
great monarch, who Impoverished France
to build and beautfy Versailles; near by
were statues of Demosthenes, of Sophie
Giles, of Apollo, Minerva, the Venus of
Milo; in fact it seemed the entire Greek
Pantheon reproduced in these beautiful
grounds. What surprises IN American
most is not so much the excellence of these
works in bronze and marble. rs their pro-
fusion. We have in few galleries speci-
mems rs good as these since they are in
most instances copies, made by measure,
from the original, but here you come upon
works in bronze and marble at every turn,
and it is little cxaggeration to say that
works of art exist here in the profusion of
toys in the United States. We walked
and looked until our eyes and legs were
tired; no horses or carriages are permitted
on the grounds, pedestrians only are al
lowed TO traverse these magnificent dis
tances. 1t was now noon, and we sat
down in little cafe for refreshments, and
left, after our veteran little Pole had
pocketed the Jumps of sugar that remained
on the plate. This is n custom with Paris
ians who are scientifically and viciously
economical. After luncheon we went
through the picture galleries full of the
paintings of the SO called masters, who
prosttuted their genius in pictorial apothe-
oses of royal brigands, pimps, and court
esans. In the different palaces we saw
the chairs in which the kings and the en-
perors of France had sat, the desks at
which they had written, the beds on which
they slept, the chambers that had witness
ed the loves and humiliations of Madame
Mainlenon and Josephine. In densely
shaded park was the plain country resi-.
dence of Marie Antoinette. surrounded by
the picturesque cottages of The Swiss vii
lage she had built, and near by, amid
lakes, grottoes, trees, and fountains Of
paradlsiacal beauty, was the pavilion
where she delighted to meet the ladies' and
gentlemen of her court, all arrayed as
Swiss leasants, play the life of simple
pastoral people, trying to ignore the black
cloud surcharged with the vndictiveness
of years of oppression, that was already
approaching in the horizon of Paris.
| No matter how thoroughly informed the
foreign reader may be in French history
and literature, Il visit to France will be
scarcely less valuable as revelation than
rs an Interpretation. There is much tc
admire, but more 10 pity, in all that We
see of this ripe if not rotten civilization
whose inspiration has been military glory
and whose pose is not so much that o.
the dying gladiator prone in defence, MS
that of the brigand who chooses his life
and deserves his doom.
1t is not remarkable that the French
Lon Pathnp thn
artists, that they have attained an indies.
cribabIe exquisiteness in every variety Of
ornamentation, that they excel all other
peoples on canvas and in marble-in every
thing suggested by the comprehensive =" to
kalon of the Greeks. They have had
before them for generations the treasures
of the aesthetic world, their infant ewes
have opened upon, and their youthful
taste has been nurtured by the most spen.
did specimens in every department of the
fine arts; and, if the theories of new
school of science may be true, they have
had the advantage of hereditary impetus
or prenatal bias.
| 1t is quite common to hear our fellow
countrymen deplore our modest attain
menIs in art, and regret that We have no
promise of reaching the excellence of the
French. They do not know at what
price the distinction has been attained by
this peoples, and they forget that we are
commissioned by our antecedents, and by
the age, with subimer, sterner duties than
the enjoyment of even the most refined of
sensuous beauties. o.As
The Haw6eye says it takes drug clerk
of broad Indictment anil lihor,l ,,;o,,,z -,