The Florida agriculturist., 1889-07-31
FRENCH LUXURY.
Rich Surroundings of Cabinet Ministers
and Their Wives.

L
an evil for French ministries to be short
1ived-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 shufaing 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, doubt not, the most inso-
lent and puffed up. You have no idea in
England of the magnifcence in which
members of French cabinets live. They
are housed in palaces, at once handsome,
luxurious and snug-a rare combination.
Admirably trained footmen are thrown
in with the palaces. Lords chamberlain
and masters of the ceremonies might
take lessons in department from the re-
served, respectful and self respecting
ushers in black, with steel chains round
their necks, who show visitors into the
presence of the minister on the ground
floor or of the ministries on the first floor.
The furniture of ministry is all very
handsome and imposing in the ground
floor rooms. All this splendor takes
away the breath Of an Englishman fresh
to Paris, who has been used to the dingi-
ness of the Irish office, and the plain
brick house at Whitehall in which the
G. o. NJ resided when in office. At a
French ministry. the foot sinks in winter
in the deep pile of the carpets. In sum-
mer the oak parquet floors are beauti-
fully polished, giving charming sense
of GOODNESS and dustlessness. Immense
windows of the folding door model
thrown wide open, if the weather be
sunny, afford prospects of velvety turf,
old trees, shrubberies and fowerbeds in
bright bloom. There Is not ministerial
residence that has not garden spacious
enough to deserve the name of park,
and the atmosphere of Paris is free from
smoke blacks.
The ministries lives generally on the
first floor of the official residence, which
is just as spacious and handsome, but
more gay and elegantly coquettish, than
the ground floor rooms. The sitting
rooms of the outgoing prime Ministries
the incest one we have had for an age
were done up for the Duchess de Per-
signy when she was running her curious
rig under the empire. For her pleasure
the Garde Meuble, which is an infinite
wealth of beautiful furniture, was rifled
of some Of it's most lovely Eighteenth CEN
tury treasures. The duchess was, on her
fathers side. the granddaughter of Ney,
the cooper's son. On her mothers side
she stood in the same relation to Jacques
Laftte, of financial celebrity, who came
to Paris with worn out shoes and an
empty pocket, but who won the heart of
miserly banker by STOPPING to pick up
pin in his courtyard, and so was able
to make his way to fortune.
Yet the duchess was as dainty as if
her ancestors for centuries had been of the
dues class A crumpled rose petal on her
couch would have made her cry out.
She afterward had to slave in the house
of her second husband in Egypt lie
moyne. an Orleans attorney like her
great-grandmother The sitting rooms,
the use of which Mme Floquet enjoys,
are done up with rare old brocades and
old pink Sevres and Dresden porcelains.
The bedrooms are just as elegant, and
the dining room is bijou. All the year
round ministresses can havewhat flowers
they please from the state green houses.
How. then. could they help regarding