Year: 1875

A PARIS correspondent of the Boston
Journal says: e have been most i'm
pressed for these few days with the French
facility of mending. 1t is wonderful. 1t
so chanced that in the year 1871 | passed
few hours in Paris, returning hOmeward
from hurried trip to Switzerland. 1t
was just after the city had been delivered
from the desolating sovereignty Of the
Commune. The saddest of sad sights
was Paris then. On every side were evil
dences of the destruction which French
men had dealt out to their own chief
city. The Tuileries were ghastly and
almost still smoking ruin. The Hotel
de Vile, which had been perhaps the
most sumptuous building in the world
was scattered and smashed into distorted
heaps of blackened stones. The proud
column Of Vendome, wreathed aboutwith
the long record of the victories of the
First Napoleon, was broken into indis-
tinguishable bits, its pedestal alone re-
naming. Many other public buildings
stood with staring windows and halls de-
spoiled by fire and blackened walls. Pri-
vate houses in every street were swaying
and tottering in various wreck. The
fronts of those still standing were pitted
from top to bottom with the scars of shells
and bullets. The magnificent statues in
the garden of the Tuileries, in the won
derful Place de la Concorde, and in the
public parks were here headless, there
armless, yonder legless. At the city
gates, where the fighting had been most
severe, the scene of confusion was inde-
scribable. There was not church
which did not bear in broken windows
and shattered columns and peeled and
fractured walls the traces of the ter
rife fratricidal conflict. The ruin which
the Prussians spared Paris out of pity
for it and out of reverence for its
huge treasures of architecture and
art Frenchmen themselves had set
rioting through all its pleasant places.
No description can do justice to the i'm
mense destruction which French vandal-
is m and French fury had wrought in
their own beautiful capital. But what
was Paris then you would scarcely recog-
nize as Paris now. l have been astonished
beyond measure at the change. There is
scarcely a trace of the ruin which had
captured almost the entire city. True, the
Hotel de Vile has noty yet completely risen
from its ashes, but it is rising. Certainly,
YOU can see the remnants of the storm
which smote the Tuileries, bat these
blackened footprints are being rapidly
effaced. The Column Vendome towers
again, with no trace of destruction left
upon it, save only that the summit, on
which stood the statue of the First
Napoleon, is empty just now these queer
French people are in large doubt whom to
place there. You would never know
there had ever been a conflict in the streets
by the look of them. The houses have
been rebuilt The wounded walls have
been healed with skillful plaster and skill
full stone. The statues have been so deftly
| patched YOU would never know they had
been ever touched by bullet. The old
gayety flashes and resounds along the
streets. That singular recuperative energy
of the French, rising above the mightiest
misfortune, seizing the future immediate
", however bad and disheartening has
been the past, concentrating the forces OF
the nation to the payment of the enormous
war indemnity almost in moment-that
quick and indestructible and heroic spirit
which no disaster can ever capture--has
received no better expression and illustra-


ton than in this sudden rebuilding OF this


marvellous city, almost as desolate little


time apo as was Jerusalem when the


Romans smote it and gave its temple to
the f1ameS"