The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1901-07-19
FROM FLASH FICTION.
France and Paris owe Their SAD Rep
utatiOn Here to yellow Novel
Writers.


1t appears that Paris has a shock
ing reputation in America Such is
the discovery made by NJ. CASTOR
Deschamps, the literary critic of the
temps, while touring through the
states, where he had been invited to
lecture at number of universities.
says the Pail Mall Gazette. NJ. Des.
champs gives an amusing illustration
of the sad repute in which our capital
is held in The land of Tammany and
express divorces. When he reached
New York he was at once the prey, as
became his celebrity, OF the inter-
viewer. Thinking to be polite, he
worked off a neat reference to the
many persons he had met on landing
whose acquaintance he had previously
made in Paris. He remarked that it
was impossible not to feel at home
among so many old friends, and as
supreme compliment he affirmed that
he had scarcely left the steamer be-
fore he enjoyed the pleasure of gen
timely Partisan conversation. To his
surprise, a friend at his elbow who
was plotting him through the ordeal
OF his first encounter with the Amer
lean reporter started off in evident
alarm on a food of eXplana tions tend
ing to set forth the exceeding iuno-
cence OF the delights involved in a
genuinely Partisan conversation" NJ.
Deschamps was naturally astonished
al the necessity of this precaution, but
it was explained to him that in Amer
'can parlance, Partisan conversa-
ton is elphemism for small talk of
the order to which hardened ears are
alleged to listen in the smoling-room.
indications abound, NJ. Deschamps
found, of the low idea which prevails
in the states of Partisan and more
generally of French morality. The
preachers are never tired of inveigh-
ing from their pulpits against the in
iquity of the modern Babylon, which
is denounced as sink of untold cor
ruption. Good Americans may go to
Paris when they die, but if they visit
the city in their lifetime it is in spite
of the most urgent warnings. Nor are
the gentlemen of the cloth alone in
their belief in the shameless frivolity
of the French capital. The critic OF
the Temps was assured that to confess
you have returned from the gay
Paris"--as he quotes--is to provoke
the leers of your listeners, and to ex-
pose yourself to being treated as no
end of gay dog. People dig you in
the ribs, grin, and are persuaded that
you have been in the widest mischief.
NJ. Deschamps ascribes the de plorable
reputation of Paris in America to the
French novel. AS depicted by the
writers of boulevard ction. French
men and French women would seem to
have no other occupation than the
breaking of certain commandment,
Americans accept these pictures as
representing the truth. They fancy
every Frenchman to be "a professional
Don Juan, and they put the women
down as incorrigible baggages. They
are unaware that the French novel has
presented of late years, with rare eX-
ceptions, the most grotesque carica-
ture of the national life. 1t may be
added that the novehsts are paying
the penafty OF their misguided pred
Election for the unsavory. At home
nobody reads them. Every publisher
will substantiate that the novel in
France is in as bad way d IS possible;
there is no sale for the indigenous
production, and the public is falling
back on translations. As TO the more
limited point of the reputation of
Paris, it is the curious fate of our
capital to be symbolzed for the aver
age tourist by a photographic estab-
lishment. As there was ample oppor-
tunity of observing during the expo
sition, Paris for the international
multitude is the city of the Moulin
Rouge. 1t would have been as just
that London in days gone by should
have been known to the universe by
the Cremorne gardens.