The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-05-22

n CALIFORNIAN
ABROAD.
By Thomas Fitch
PARIS
Thomas
copyright 1sO4.J
PARIS

- - - U.@
wall of Isis for her dead Osiris and
heard the invocations of the priests OF
! the sacred fire. The spears of dusky
| legions swept by me in long lines of
light, when this proud capital was a
collection of barbarian huts, and YER
sailles a swamp and the first Capet
a child. Against my adamantine armor
the babble of you modern glories beats
| like the froth on the breast of Father
/ Nile. The sands of my birthplace have
sifted over cities mightier than this,
and the multitude about me is as a
| lone shifting speck of sand, compared
with the myriads who have trodden
the dust of ancient Egypt
"A A
| From the Place de la Concorde we can
see the gilt dome of the Hotel des In
lvandes, and the Parliament House, and
the Exposition buildings. and the Tuil-
leries, and the somber front of the Mint,
and the solid arches of the bridges over
the Seine, and the Madeline church,
and many other public buildings, with
voluminous histories in each gray stone
or blistered wall. It is more than thir-
| ty years since this beautiful and popu-
lous city was besieged by the Prussians.
when cats were not safe from the cook,
1 and dog cheap" lost its significance as
a term. It is more than thirty years
since the Commune swept down these
broad boulevards like a hungry devas-
tating storm, and the subsequent thirty
years of life as a republic has impart-
ed no assurance that any moment, like
a cyclone out of a void, the mob may
not come again. After all these years
| the grisly phantom of their presence
/ and their power fingers in every street
and avenue, and capital and enterprise
| shrink away in apprehension still, and
one fourth of the city is ITO Let" but
Paris chatters and laughs all the same.
Whether under Bourbon or revolution
| list, under Bonaparte or Bergeret or the
present ruler of France, it is all the
same. On Monday the French subject
cries s'vive lie Fol" ON Tuesday he
shouts .vive PEmpereur,' on We'd
nesday the French citizen yells ..Vive
Ia Republique," and on Thursday he
howls sVive la Commune" but on
every day with a heart loyal to pleas
ure he shouts 'svive Ia Ragatelie.''
have my opinion of the builders OF
the Tower of Babel-the quarrelsome
rascals. Especially do I feel unkindly
toward that portion of them who, fer
their marked and continued iniquity
were doomed to compose the French
language It's ruleless, shore1ess.
shifting, sad, uncertain, rustling gram
mar is bad enough, but its idioms, or
as an Eng1ish-speaking Frenchnnan
not inaptly said, its 'idiotisms" are
worse. And after you have conquered
its vicious verbs and villainous parti-
ciples, and come to comprehend it's
profligate waste of consonants, and lose
all sympathy for its overworIxed VOW
els, then comes it's army of sexed nouns,
and no foreigner can live long enough
on this earth to place them rightly, or
be able to say definitely under what
circumstances a teapot is a gentleman,
or what condition of predicates is req
uisite to make it proper to address a
sugar-boWl as a lady.
4 n A
Soon after our arrival we came
across voiture driver who spoke
English He was a patriotic French
man, who could not bear to witness
the defeat and humiliation of his native
country, So eaely in the Franco-Prus
sian war-very early, In fact about the
time war was deciared--he betook him
self to Albion's shore, where during a
few years residence he acquired the
English tongue. Later he resumed his 4
residence and depredations in Paris.
He was communicative, he was polite,
he was clean, he was prompt but the
mathematical progression of his de-
mands for poor boy" i. e., pour
boire," to wit, drink money" would
have bankrupted Vanderbilt, and after |
a few days employment of him as
coachman, guide, philosopher and /
friend, was compelled to part with |
him. The hire of a voiture here is
two francs per hour, and you are ex- /
pected to add small gratuity for the /
driver. The amount of this is, or ought /
to be, regulated by your generosity. I
Ten centimes (two cents) is the usual /
sum, although some spendthrift' for /
eigners occasionally give half a franc. /
As my '.cochere" also acted as inter- /
prefer I gave him the first day two
francs, and the next day, in gratitude
for his efforts to beat down the
concierges who exhibited ape rtments
to US. I donated five francs. That
settled my status with him. must
either be Rothschild incognito or
lunaCIc- he asked 1Or SIX francs the
next day, and the subsequent evening
called for seven. stood the raise"
but the following evening, when. after
a day at Versailles, he indicated that
ten francs would not be out of the
way, resigned my cashiership of his
bank, and We parted forever.
Mabille is no more, but I shall count
It among my most cherished recollec-
viz 1 ~ re a 1
when conscious of our complete incog-