Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-07-20

Sceaux feeds and houses the peaSant-pro-
prietors and agricultural laborers of all
the fields round about, bare fields of truck
patch cultivation for the Paris markets,
where no farm houses rise. The cult
vators Of these fields live in the town.
The farmers boys, if one may call them
nightly. The printers and photographers
sit with them, but there Is no gayety, no
song. They chat of politics. Along the
Struggling streets the children walk decor
ously in the long twilight after school
hours The women sit at home.
Young girls sit with their mothers.
strict consciousness keeps life subdued
and in its well-worn grooves; the very
cafes have their fine-marked grades of So
cial worthiness. In none of them are ever
seen the villa people, neither sons nor
fathers. In the shady, breezy park young
girls of high responsibility sit on the
benches of a morning with their mothers.
Young men of the same grade of respecta-
b.lity pass by and eye them furt.vely, but
do not stop to chat, even though they have
danced with the girls last evening. Tri-
fling Is discouraged, and girls are valued
by heir mothers.
Twice a week this rigor is relaxed. The
balls OF Sceaux, so celebrated thirty years
ago, exist STILL The great park is a relic
of the old chateau grounds, and it has a
fine pavilion, circus-tented. with con-
crete floor. Here twice a week the ball of
Sceadx takes place. People no longer
come from Paris, but to the town it is a
folks their one and only gayety. The
mothers sit around the circle of the circus
tent Each mother has chair beside her,
on which chat her daughter sits when she
is not engaged in dancing.
The orchestra strikes up the Quadrille,
the lanciers, the gavotte. the farandole, or,
now and then. waltz. The young men
approach the mothers. each in his social
sphere, whose c.rcumscription is too COM
plicated for foreigner to grasp.
Madame, permit me to dancer"
A graceful bow, with look of mingled
respect and admiration for the daughter
She lends her daughter to the young man
for dance and when the music stops he
brings the daughter back in the same good
repair in which he had received her
When the French revolution broke out
Sceaux was only small village, lying near
the great chateau of the same name. Here
the celebrated Duchesse de Maine, wife Of
son of Louis XIV. had held brilliant
literary court, of which the southern poet,
Florian, was a chief figure. Florian was
buried in the Sceaux churchyard, where he
sleeps peacefully.
On the road to ChatenayA the woods and
fields alternate. Up the sleepy main street
of the town Of Chatenay the traveller wan
ders seeking cafe. The cafe has a billiard
table, all the daily and the weekly papers,
a zinc bar to stand at or shaded terrace
outside where one may sit resting. The
traveller may ask for milk, or coffee, cider,
wine or absinthe. In any case, he will be
served with equal willingness The brave
workingmen and farmers: lads who curse
at foreigners are not now in the cafe, and
the proprietor is sympathetic.
Where is the birthplace Of Voltaire?"
The cafe proprietor will take you to It.
IT is a mean house, two stories and half
high, of yellow-washed stone, rambling,
irregular and bullying at the sides. 1t is on
a little open square and just behind the
parish church Across the square there is
a building which long years ago served as
a kind Of clerical high school. Voltaire at
tended 1t as a young boy. One day the
cure. who was the school teacher. was
hunting for a composition subject. He
could think Of nothing new or interesting
to assign the boys to write on. 1t was a
fine afternoon, and doors and windows all
were open. wandering donkey, the prop
erty of wandering tinker, strolled up to a
window, looked in on the school. and lifted
up his voice. He was chased away, with
shouts and laughter. Then the cure said:
Write on this visit-the coming of the idle
donkey and his hostile reception by the in
dustrious students" Some boys wrote
fifty lines, some two hundred. Voltaire only
wrote line, a mere quotation from the
Gospel of Saint John: "In propria VENT ct
sui cum non receperunt;" He came to his
own and his own received him not"
STERLING HELLO.