The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1889-04-19
STATESMEN IN PALACES
How the French Cabinet Minister

IA = o3OkAON
and Their Wives Live.
I often wonder whether it is, after all,
an evil fo- French ministers to be short
lived-unless for the ministers and their
wives. If they were not often over
thrown the number of persons to taste
the sweets Of office would be so much
less. The constant shutting of the cards
and new deals have also the advantage of
preventing the formation of a govern
mental caste, which would be the most
unendurably conservative one that ever
existed, and l doubt not the most i~nsolent
and pulled up. You have no idea Of the
m~agnifcence in which members of the
French cabinets live. They are housed
IN palaces, at once handsome, luxurious,
and snug-a rare combination. Admira'
bly, trained footmen are thrown in with
the palaces. Lords chamberlain and
masters of the ceremonies might take les
sons in department from the reserved,
respectful, and self respecting ushers in
black, with steel chains around their
necks, who show visitors into the pres
ence of the minister on the ground floor
or of the mistress on the first floor.
The furniture of a ministry, says the
Paris correspondent of London Truth, is
all very handsome and imposing IN the
ground floor rooms. All this splendor
takes away the breath of an En-
glishman fresh to Paris, who has been
been used to the dinginess of the Irish
Office and the plain brick house at White
hall at which the G. o. NJ. resided when
in office. At a French ministry the foot
sinks in winterin the deep pile of the
carpets. In summer the oak parauet
floors are beautifully polished, giving a
charming sense of GOODNESS and dustless-
ness. Immense windows of the folding
door model, thrown wide open If the
weather be sunny, afford prospects, OF
velvety turf, old trees, strawberries and
flower beds in bright bloom. There is
not a ministerial residence that has not q
garden spacious enough to deserve the
name of a park, and the atmosphere o.
Paris is free from smoke black.
The ministries lives generally on the
first floor of the official residence which
IS just as spacious and handsome, but
more eloquently coquettish than thu
ground floor rooms. The sitting room!
of the out -going prime ministress-th
incest one we have had for an age-wert
done up for the duchess de Persigny wheI
she was running her curious rig under thu
empire. For her pleasure the Gard
Meuble, which is an infinite wealth of it
beautiful furniture, was rifed of some o
most lovely eighteenth century treasures
The duchess was on her fathers side thu
granddaughter of Ney, the cooper's son
On her mothers side she stood in thu
same relation to Jacques Latitte, o
financial celebrity, who came to Pari
with WORKOUT shoes and an empty poke
but who won the heart of a miserl,
banker by STOPPING TO pick up a pin in hi
court yard and so was able to make hi
way to fortune. Yet the duchess wae a
dainty as if her ancestors for centurie
had been Of the dues class. A crumple'
rose petal on her couch would have mad
her cry out. She afterward had to slav
. in the house of her second husband il
Egypt CLemoyne, an Orleans attorney
like her great grandmother. The sittin!
: rooms, the use of which Nine. FleQue
has enjoyed for the last ten months, al
, done up with rare old brocades and ole
pink SeYres and Dresden porcelaiDs
The bed Don are Just as nice an
the dining is a bijou. All the yea
round ministresses can have what flower
, they please from the state green house:
{ How, then, could they help regardin
themselves as sovereign ladies were thei
husbands tenure of office long.