Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-03-27
LUXURY IN FRANCE.
How the Cabinet Ministers and Their
Wives Live.

From the London Truth
/ often wonder whether it is, after all, an evil
for French ministers to be short-lived-unless
for the ministers and their wives If they were
not often overthrow 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 prevent
ing the formation of governmental caste,
which would be the most unendurably con-
servative one that ever existed, and, doubt
not, the most insolent and pulled 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, lux
urious and snug-a rare combination. Admir-
ably trained footmen are thrown in with the
palaces. Lords chamberlain and masters of
the ceremonies might take lessons in deport-
ment from the reserved 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 mistress on the first floor.
The furniture of a ministry is all very hand
some 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 dinginess of the Irish office and the plain
brick house at Whitehall at which the q. o. NJ.
resided when in Office. At French ministry
the foot sinks in winter in the deep pile of the
carpets. In summer the oak parquet floors are
beautifully polished, giving charming sense
OF GOODNESS and dustlessness. Immense win
dows 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 minister
ial 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 elo-
quently coquettish than the ground floor
rooms. The sitting rooms of the outgoing prime
ministress-the incest one We have had for an
age-were done up for the duchess de Persingy
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 rifed of some of its most lovely
eighteenth-century treasures. The duchess was.
Oh her fathers side the granddaughter of Ney,
the cooper's son. On her mothers side she
stood In the same relation to Jacques LATTE,
OF financial celebrity, who came to Paris with
worn-out shoes and an empty pocket, but who
won the heart of misery 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. crumpled rose petal Oh her couch
would have made her cry ont. She afterward
had to slave in the house of her second husband
IN Egypt Lemoyne, an Orleans attorney, like
her great grandmother. The sitting rooms, the
use of which Mme Floquet has enjoyed for the
last ten months, are done up with rare old bro
eades and old pink Sevres and Dresden porce-
lalns. The bed rooms are just as NICE and the
dining room is a bijOu. All the year round
mlnistresses can have what flowers they please
from the state greenhouses. How, then, could
ladies were their husbands tenure of Office
long?