Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-03-16
AT THE FRENCH CAPITAL.
HOWTHE CARNIVAL is ENJOYED
BY PARISIANS.

HI III Il hLNOl OA1 11ALa
HOW THE CARNIVALIS ENJOYED
BY PARISIANS.
shrOve Tuesday Becoming a Fete Day
for Children, and Matinee Masked
Balls the Rage-The Reputation of the
Carnival of VenIce-The Industrial
Crisis, in the Hands of the Forty -Four
Committee, Shows less Complaint
Prince KrapotI1ine Gradually Sinking.
Correspondence Of the Morning Neaos.
PARIS, March Lent has some way
dropped suddenly on this year. Occupied
with Egypt and Tonquin, industrial crises
and cheap housing for the poor, time flew
as swiftly by as if we all had promissOry
notes TO meet. However, people find the
opportunity to take their ill of recreation
''With fddling, feasting, dancing, drinking,
masking"
Formerly carnival-which interpret
ed implies farewell to fiesh"-ex-
tended from Christmas to Shrove Tues
day; now it is limited to three days,
like a revolution. An enterprising pro-
prietor of a restaurant, a man of the pc
Rod, and of ultra-cOnseryatiYe notions,
has aimed to maintain the olden time, as
he has advertised ''rasbif and the plum
pOuding" since the 25th December, and
now signifies a change in the bill, by SUI
pers eding the pudding by pancakes.
The weather has been wet dirty and
disagreeable, so the crowd, like the Eng
lish of Froissart's time, had to take its
pleasure sadly. Nothing is so sad as a
diluted popular pleasure. Not a few think
such fetes disagreeabe, because the
streets are oyercroWded and ones habits
and customs are crossed. But since the
professions of the fat beeyes are as dead
as the Second Empire under which they
ti0urished like a bay tree, the streets are
simply taken possession of by a gaping
crowd in search of masqueradeS. and in
stead, find but advertising vans for ink and
babies feeding bottle manufacturers, and
gO-ahead sentry boxes on wheels by out
fitting establishments. ShrOye Tuesday
IS becoming a tete for children; they have
everywhere their matinee masked balls,
while their elders, if no longer possessed
OF Trascati and Valentine, have TiVOli
NauXhall, Butler, Eden and the Opera,
to fall back upon. To amuse the olive
branches under shelter is justifabie, but
to promenade the saplings along the
streets in their tinsel and flimsy costumes,
is worse than cruelty, and raises the ques-
tion Are the parents interested in burial
societies. or are they playing into the
hands of Bismarck to keep down the pop
ulation of France?
THERE WAS A NOTED PHILOSOPHER
once who passed the day on his attic bal
cOny contemplating the moving, Eeaying
crowd below, and he found in his Budd-
hist contemplation the reward of thinking
that in the course Of fifty years they
would all be under the sod save those en-
dOwed with supernatural vital force, say,
like De Lesseps, who has just become a
double immortal. In Paris the carnival
only exists really in the almanac. 1t is
the appanage of butchers, laundresses
and putists. The climate has driven
away the troubadour, as instead Of catch
ing an heiress he catches a cold. The
savage, however, occasionally blows
crOckery-hOrn, and his blue-red Lapland
nose is quite in harmony with the frozen
Juno and the shiyering Galatea at his
side.
Turk, who was in Paris on a Shrove
Tuesday pending the carnival informed
the Sultan on his return that the ParIsians
went mad on that day, but that little
ashes put on their heads the next morning
made them all right again. We do not
know the origin of the carnival, save
that il descends in right line from human
folly. No people has been exempt from
the aDSufdlty OF DISCUSSES. masks and
licenses. IL is a remnant of paganism,
of bacchanals, and saturnalias, bequeath-
ed by Bacchus. Saturn and Pan. The0-
logians and clergy have denounced the
carnival, and at Rome, Clement X, help
less to suppress it, shut himself ever up
in the castle of st. Angelo pending its
duration.
The Court of Charles VI. made masked
balls fashionable, and it was at one Of
these His Majesty nearly lost his life
while disguised as a bear. Italy gave an
impulse to masquerades in France, and
Henri III. ran along the streets dis
guised, whacking his loving subjects and
exchanging most unroyal epithets with
traders and artisans. Louis XIII. was
too hypochondriaca for such fun, but with
his son, Louis XIV, the gods and god
desses Of Olvnapus, the heroes of fables.
shepherd and shepherdesses. had their
way, though the King rarely laughed.
me Regency was naturally .t.e frie5ad Of
carnIYals, and decree X :. = =, mi A. FED
MOE i,1N 20 dated tBee taste Of the French for
mockery, intrigue and easy pleasure.
The revolution swept the institution away.
but it returned in 1899 only more forth
fed.