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PARISIAN SILHOUETTES.

BY MADAME DE MONTALK.

"Le National s'amuse," says Monsieur de Balzac, in a very witty account of the ball given last week at the Presidence of the Assemblée Nationale. He ought to have added, however, that, although the dynasty which has sprung up from the printing-office of the National, it certainly does its utmost to emulate the ci-devant festivities of the Tuileries and of the Pavillon Marsan; never before, perhaps, did the endeavour to amuse cost so much anxiety to the givers as did the fête with which Monsieur and Madame Armand Marrast opened their salons to the Parisian world last week. A splendid range of apartments, Tolbecque's admirable band, and Chevet's cooks and larder, not to speak of every other facility and means to boot, that wealth or power could give, were at hand. But all such advantages threatened to prove unavailing, unless some means or other of conquering what seemed an almost insurmountable obstacle to the success of the entertainment, were discovered. The difficulty was simply this: not indeed how to avoid crowding, but how to fill the rooms at all. Everything was there excepting the guests! The political ups and dows that have so strangely substituted the exeditors of the National to the fallen royalty of France, did not at the same time extend their benefits to conferring the somewhat necessary appendage to exalted rank-a suitable circle of acquaintances. It came to pass, therefore, that when the government had decided that their duty it was, to replace royalty in more ways than one, and to lend a helping hand to the suffering trade of Paris, in the shape of balls and dinners, which would occasion the intended guests to unfasten their purse-strings in the purchase of gloves, shoes, and such like gear, wherewithal to appear decently, the poor President of the National Assembly found himself in a very unpleasant dilemma.

It was not the mere embarras du choix that puzzled him, for to speak the truth, he found it just as difficult to manage about the quantity as about the quality of the guests that were so very indispensable to abet the charitable intent of the ruling powers. Johnny Gilpin himself could not have been in a worse predicament, and it was only after much demur and many pros and cons that it was settled thus. The couple, "on hospitable thoughts intent," decided upon issuing nine hundred invitations, to the nine hundred representatives, their wives, and children, inclosing, moreover, to each representative sundry blank invitations, with a request that they would inscribe the names of such of their friends or relatives as might wish to be present at the republican housewarming.

Such an arrangement could scarcely fail to ensure a considerable, if not a select, assembly, and had caused me to anticipate a very considerable increase of din and confusion in the neighbourhood of the ci-devant Palais Bourbon on the night of the 7th instant. A friend of mine reduced, not by the fortune of war, but by the misfortune of the Republic; to put down his carriage and either go on foot or adopt some more democratic mode of conveyance, hap

pened on that particular night to get into a green caterpillar-looking omnibus that runs in the direction of his own residence, situated within a very small distance of the Assemblée Nationale.

The hour was between ten and eleven. En route, the conveyance stopped more than once to pick up divers black-coats and whitewaistcoats, regular piebalds. On approaching the Pont de la Concorde, over which the road lay, my friend was not a little astonished to find the vehicle diverge to the left, the bridge being guarded and forbidden by police on horseback. The passengers (of the magpie order) intent on brighter visions than the moon, did not perceive for some time that they were journeying smoothly along by the river side in the direction of the Tuileries, turning their backs consequently upon the Palace of the National Assembly. One of them at length, did find out his error, called impetuously to the conducteur, and having rated him most soundly for not putting him down at the very door of Madame la Presidente, out he jumped with all the other piebalds in his suite and hastened back as fast as he could. On inquiring into the matter it came out that this barring the passage of the bridge was a republican-royalty command to insure against all possible chance of confusion.

The idea of this order in behalf of order was not bad, but the farce of the thing was, that not a single coach, carriage, nor cart was to be seen either on the bridge, near the bridge, or on the Place leading to the bridge; the sentinels on horseback had it all to themselves, which did not however prevent the salons of Madame la Presidente from being gaily thronged. Madame Armand Marrast had on this occasion deputed the Italian "Joan of Arc," Christine Princess of Belgiojoso, to do the honours of the fête in her stead. Such a selection is in itself no bad instance of the strange jumble yclept society here at present, and the office, however gracefully filled by the highborn Italian, seemed little consistent with the dignity of her own station, or the feelings she ought to experience towards a government who limit their efforts in behalf of struggling Italy, to a few idle words, as unavailing in their effects as they are derogatory to the once chivalric honour of France.

We are now looking forward with no small degree of interest to the electioas that are to take place next week; it is generally feared that in Paris the result will be unfavourable to the cause of order, and that the representatives of the red Republic will, in this instance, carry the day, not indeed from any feeling of sympathy for them, but solely through the disconnected state of their opponents, who instead of bending all their efforts to one object, that of assuring a certain majority to men, known by the test of practical experience to be both willing and capable of fighting the cause of order against anarchy in the Chamber, disseminate their votes to the right and to the left, in behalf of some half score of Lilliputian Ambitions, only attracted into the parliamentary field by the tempting bait of twentyfive francs a-day, which rewards the labours, or rather the nonlabours of the Republican National Assembly.

In the meanwhile the walls of Paris are covered with endless appeals, of every possible colour (both positively and figuratively), from the candidates to their electors. Preeminent amongst others is the following incongruous trinity of names and principles,

Louis Bonaparte, Liberté du Vote,

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EN RAVED FROM A MINIATURE PAINTED BY HIMSELF BY JOS BROWN.

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Emile Thomas, Liberté Individuelle.

Emile de Girardin, Liberté de la Presse.

Paris gets daily sadder and more gloomy. Every house seems empty, half of the shops are closed, and in many of the streets the grass begins to grow.

However much the privileged few may talk of "notre jeune République," the sovereign people themselves seem to grow heartily sick of their unproductive and ruinous royalty, and to look forward with anticipated satisfaction to any change that may bring them work; the majority of the working classes are legitimists, and if their previsions be correct, this strange anomaly of a republic without republicans, is not destined to any very lengthened degree of existence, but will pave the way for the redintegration of Henri V. in the paláce of his forefathers. Whatever may be the secret hopes and wishes of the more thinking portion of the population, they do not appear for the moment to adhere in such an opinion, and according to them, it is not the least melancholy part of the present situation of France, that, odious as is the Republic to the majority of the nation, nobody seems to foresee by what possible form of government, or by what competent ruler, it could be superseded.

In the meanwhile, Monsieur Thiers is correcting the proofs of a small volume about to appear in reply to Proudhon's infamous work on, or rather against, property. All those who are familiar with the straightforward precision of style, and the unbending logic of the great historian of the day, anticipate the most favourable effects from the publication of the forthcoming pamphlet. There can scarcely, however, exist a stronger proof of how deeply rooted is the evil engendered by socialist principles in France, than the fact of such a man as Thiers feeling it to be an imperative duty for him to exert all his wonderful power of intellect to grapple with the doctrines of a Proudhon or a Lagrange!

CARICATURE AND CARICATURISTS.

BY CHARLES WHITEHEAD.

WITH A PORTRAIT OF

GILLRA Y.

THERE is no country in the world which has produced so many and such admirable caricaturists as Great Britain. The natives of these isles have no where their superiors in humour, and perhaps possess a greater relish for it than any people on the face of the globe; but this is not the sole cause of our pre-eminence in the department of caricature. In what other country would such productions be permitted, as have been constantly disseminated over the kingdom for the public diversion during the last hundred and fifty years? Monarchs have frequently been presented to the common gaze in these performances as objects of ridicule, nay, even of contempt; ministers have been held up to their countrymen as subjects of derision, of scorn, of execration; but we do not know, neither have we read of, any instance in which the venturous wight who

VOL. XXIV.

HH

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