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Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day. Volume 2

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2018
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Careful precautions are taken against the Mont-de-Piété being made a receptacle for stolen goods. The applicant for a loan must be known and have a permanent residence, or be vouched for by some one fulfilling these requirements; a married woman must bring the authorization of her husband, and no loans are made to minors. If the employés have any reason to suspect the integrity of the applicant, his loan is refused until he furnishes more satisfactory guarantees. In one year the number of watches recognized as stolen was two hundred and fifty, out of a total of three hundred and fifty thousand received. Loans are made for a year, at the longest, but in practice two months of grace are added; if at the end of this period the object is not redeemed, it is sold at public auction. Some of these pledges have been in the establishment for forty, forty-five, and fifty years, and very many for twenty,—constantly renewed and never redeemed. When sold, the surplus or boni remaining after deducting all charges is held at the disposal of the owner of the pledge for three years, and then turned over to the administration of the Assistance Publique.

By the law of July 25, 1891, this establishment is permitted to advance money, at its usual rates, on French Rentes and other bonds and securities authorized by an ordinance of the Préfet of the Seine. These loans are not to exceed five hundred francs each, nor to be less than three francs, and the duration of the loan is for six months, unless renewed. The capital on which the Mont-de-Piété does business is borrowed from stockholders or subscribers, to whom it pays interest; one of the principal of these is the Comédie-Française, which, by the famous decree of Moscow, is required to place two millions of its surplus in this official benevolent institution.

MUCH the most important public service of Paris is the Bureau of Postes et Télégraphes, the administration of which is confided to a Sous-Secrétaire d'État, and which employs, altogether, nearly thirteen thousand fonctionnaires, male and female. Of the efficiency of the postal service, the Parisians are justly proud; the telephone service, on the contrary, since it has passed under the management of the government, is a source of more earnest and heated complaint on the part of the unfortunate subscribers than even is usual in other lands before this aggravating mouthpiece and tube. The earliest postal service in France, according to the historians, was maintained by the Université for the benefit of its students, who were enabled to correspond with their relatives by means of messengers; this exclusive privilege, long preserved, was finally combined with the service which Louis XI established to serve the ends of his crooked policy. The modern postal service may be said to date from the reign of Louis XIII; and, in its gradual development, has passed through much the same phases as in other countries. During the seventeenth century, the central office was located in some contracted quarters established in front of the colonnade of the Louvre, and was eventually transferred to the old hôtel in the Rue Jean-Jacques-Rousseau, constructed on the site of the ancient Hôtel de Flandres. Although enlarged by successive additions, this building never afforded sufficient facilities, and proposals to abandon it and construct another and more ample central office elsewhere were seriously debated from 1793 to 1811, but the Corps Législatif was unwilling to incur so great an expense. On the night of the 7th-8th of August, 1880, the central office for Paris and the department of the Seine was established in temporary quarters in the Place Carrousel, and the demolition of the ancient building, preparatory to the construction on its site of a much larger and more efficient one, was commenced. The new Hôtel des Postes et Télégraphes was completed four years later.

An ordinance of 1692 gives the details of the commencement of the Petite Poste, or daily collection of letters: "there will be established six boxes from which the letters will be gathered every day at noon precisely and at eight o'clock in the evening in winter, and nine o'clock in summer, so exactly that after these hours in the evening the letters which may arrive will remain for the mail offices following, to wit:"—and the six localities of these offices are given. In 1759, a royal ordinance decreed the establishment in the city of different bureaux to effect the transportation from one quarter to another of letters and small packages; and on the 1st of August this service commenced,—there were nine distributions a day, by means of a hundred and seventeen facteurs, or carriers, and the postage was required to be paid in advance. The departure of the mail-coaches from the old post-office in the Rue Jean-Jacques-Rousseau, at six o'clock each morning, was a daily event of importance,—the diligence drivers prided themselves on issuing from the cour du Meridien into the cour de l'Horloge and from that into the street at the full gallop of their four horses; unfortunately, the street was very narrow, and so was the gateway of exit; it is recorded that the proprietor, named Florent, of the shop immediately opposite this exit, which was, and still is, a hair-dressing establishment, was enabled to retire with a fortune as the result of the numerous reimbursements he received for his broken shop-windows, dashed in by the mail coaches unable to make quickly enough the sharp turn to the right or the left in the narrow street.

The arrangements for mailing and receiving letters in Paris are, in general, very satisfactory,—the branch post-offices are over a hundred in number, and they will receive not only letters and mailable packages, but telegrams. They do a very large business, and are generally thronged all day in the popular quarters,—the registry department being greatly in favor. At night, they are recognizable by their blue lanterns, and there are also, since 1894, auxiliary offices in certain shops designated by blue signs. The letter-boxes, set in the wall of the building, so that letters and packages may be mailed from the street, are usually four in number, one each for Paris, the departments, foreign mail, and for printed matter. Stamps may be bought and letters mailed also in very many of the small tobacco-shops, in public buildings, and in the dépôts of the railways and the tramways of the suburbs. There are eight collections and distributions a day, on work-days, and five on Sundays and fête-days; the facteur, or carrier, has discharged his duty when he has left the mail with the concierge of the building, and its final delivery rests entirely with the latter functionary. These facteurs, who are generally intelligent and conscientious, wear the inevitable uniform of all French officials, and carry their mail in an absurd stiff little leathern box, suspended in front of their stomachs by a strap around their necks. Their distributing matter never seems to exceed the capacity of this box,—ranging in quantity from a third to a tenth of the ordinary burden of a New York letter-carrier.

A more rapid method of distribution, for which a higher rate is charged, is by means of the pneumatic tubes which traverse the city, mostly through the égouts, and which have their termini in the branch post-offices. Envelopes or enclosures sent by this medium must contain neither valuable objects nor hard and resisting bodies. The service of colis postaux, so called although there is no necessary connection with the post, and which corresponds nearly with the American express system, is, for Paris, in the hands of a director to whom it is a concession by the Administration des Postes, and for the departments and the colonies in those of the railway companies and the subsidized maritime companies. The inevitable conflict with the workings of the octroi interferes very seriously with the promptness and efficacy of this service, and in the summer of 1898 the complaints of the despoiled patrons were unusually loud and deep. In their search for contraband articles, the octroi inspectors open a large number of these packages received from the departments and containing in very many cases consignments of wine, game, patés, and other delicacies,—the closing up of these numerous cases is left to the employés of the railways, and the result has been a perfect pillage. In vain do the consignees protest,—the Compagnies interpose the interminable delays of corporations, and justice is not to be had.

The annual receipts of the Paris post-office—population in 1896, 2,543,000—are given as 178,000,000 francs; of the telegraph, 37,000,000; of the telephone, 9,000,000; a total of 224,000,000 francs. The expenses, borne by the post-office alone, are 178,000,000, so that the annual profits are 46,000,000 francs, or about $9,200,000. For New York City, the figures, as given by the postmaster for the year 1898, are, total receipts, $8,564,247.03; expenditures, $3,398,071.38; net revenue, $5,166,175.65. The postage rate in France, for the city or the departments, is fifteen centimes for fifteen grammes.

In 1879, the telephone service was introduced in Paris, and was divided among three companies,—the société Edison, the société Gower, and the société Goulevin et Compagnie. The following year, these united in one, the Société générale des Téléphones, and in 1889 the State took possession. The wires were at first carried on poles through the streets, but the municipality soon ordered them underground. As the invention was introduced from abroad, it brought with it the English "Hello!" necessary to open communication with the distant correspondent, and the French subscriber consequently begins with "Allô! Allô!"—which is as near as he can come to it. It may be added, that he usually introduces a great many more interjections as he proceeds.

THE recent tragic and very sudden transfer of the Executive power of the French Republic exemplified in a most striking manner the advantages—at least, for an inflammable nation—of the constitutional method of electing a President. Instead of a heated and disturbing political campaign, extending over six months of every fourth year, and frequently carefully planned long in advance by the actual incumbent, the chief Executive of France is elected promptly by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies reunited in Assemblée Nationale and sitting at Versailles. One of these bodies, at least, the Chambre, enjoys no more of the public confidence than do the national legislators of the great American Republic; but the Presidents of the Third Republic, so far, at least, may be said to have made quite as dignified and worthy representatives of popular suffrage as those who have occupied the White House at Washington during the same period. Instead of the two great parties into which Anglo-Saxon suffrages are usually divided, the parliaments of European nations generally represent a great number of small political divisions, differing fiercely on minor points of political doctrine, and thus, possibly, presenting a fairer average representation of the whole people at any one given time than the others in which Conservatives or Republicans may be enjoying an accidental or temporary majority.

In case of the death of the Président de la République, the Chambre and the Sénat are immediately convoked, as in February, 1899; should he live to fill out his legal term of seven years, the two bodies are summoned to elect his successor at least a month before the expiration of his term. He is eligible for re-election. His carefully limited powers are much like those of a constitutional sovereign; he has power to originate laws, in conjunction with the two Chambers; he has the pardoning power, the direction of the army and navy, he presides at all the national solemnities; the envoys and ambassadors of all foreign powers are accredited to him. He negotiates and ratifies treaties, and communicates them to the two Chambers as soon as, in his judgment, the interests and the safety of the State will permit; he cannot declare war without the assent of the Chambers; with the consent of the Senate, he may dissolve the Chamber of Deputies. He is responsible only in case of high treason, cannot be impeached but by the Chamber of Deputies, and cannot be tried except by the Senate sitting as a High Court of Justice. He receives from the State an annual allowance of a million two hundred thousand francs.

The legislative power is divided between the two assemblies,—the Chamber, elected by universal suffrage, and the Senate, by a restricted suffrage. The financial budget must originate in the Chamber, and the two bodies, beginning their sessions on the second Tuesday of January, must sit at least five months every year. Their adjournment, which must be on the same day, is pronounced by the President, who communicates with them through the ministers of his cabinet, and the frequent crises ministérielles, which have done so much to discredit the Third Republic, have been caused by the responsibility of these ministers to the Chambers for the general politics of the government. If they are defeated by ever so small a minority on any question which they have made a "vote of confidence," they place their resignations in the hands of the President, who accepts them, and sends for one of the leaders of the victorious opposition to form a new cabinet. This cabinet, in its turn, can only hold power so long as it can command the support of a certain combination of parties, and, as these combinations shift, so do the ministries.

So well recognized is the material impossibility of arriving at any permanent grouping of political parties, and, consequently, at any permanent and coherent ministerial policy, that various amendments to the Constitution of the State are being proposed. One of the methods suggested is to suppress the ministerial responsibility, and to cause the Parlement to elect the President of the Conseil d'État each year. As to the Senate, it is to be reduced in power and privileges, and condemned to a rôle subordinate to that of the Chamber of Deputies.

At the palace of the Élysée, which is his official residence, the President holds his audiences on Mondays and Thursdays, from nine o'clock to noon. To be received by him, it is necessary to write to the Secrétariat de la Présidence, requesting this honor, and to receive a reply stating the day and hour. The Deputies and Senators are received, without any letters of audience, on Wednesdays, from five to seven. The President gives each year two State balls, for which some twelve thousand invitations are issued, and also a garden-party in the grounds of the Élysée in June. The two legislative bodies hold their sessions on the other side of the river,—the Chamber, in the old Palais-Bourbon, opposite the end of the Pont de la Concorde, and the Senate, in the Luxembourg palace.

The Conseil d'État, which sits in the Palais-Royal under the presidency of the Garde des Sceaux, is at once a council of the government by its participation in the drawing up of laws, a council of administration, and the highest of administrative juridical bodies. It deliberates in two sections, in Assemblée Générale and in Assemblée du Contentieux. The Conseil Général de la Seine, which holds its sessions in its chamber at the Hôtel de Ville, is composed of eighty municipal councillors of Paris and twenty-one general councillors elected by the cantons of the banlieue. The Conseil Municipal, which also sits at the Hôtel de Ville, is elected from the twenty arrondissements of the city, one from each quarter, for four years, and corresponds to the Conseils of the Communes in the departments. The Préfet de la Seine and the Préfet de Police have the right of attendance at its sittings and of being heard whenever they wish. In the Palais du Tribunal de Commerce, the Conseil de Préfecture de la Seine holds its sittings and occupies itself with a great variety of municipal matters confided to its jurisdiction by law.

In the capital, the executive power, which in the other communes of France is confided to the Maires, is exercised by the two Préfets, of the Seine and of Police, who are thus invested with the triple character of representatives of the State, of the Administration of the Department of the Seine, and of superior officers of the State performing the duties of Maire of Paris. Those divisions of the municipal administration which depend directly upon the Préfecture of the Seine are located in various buildings,—in the Hôtel de Ville itself, in the Annexe Est, the old caserne Lobau, just across the Place Lobau, in the Annexe Nord, on the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville and the Avenue Victoria, and at numerous other localities throughout the city. The balls of the Hôtel de Ville—which are a portion of the municipal administration—have recently been replaced by more frequent receptions, at which there is always dancing and a concert.

The administration of the Préfecture de Police is divided into three Bureaux, the first of which is closely connected with the cabinet of the Préfet, and the two others constitute the first and the second divisions. The first Bureau is divided into four sections, and the second into two, each of these subdivisions having its special department. The Commissaires de Police are municipal officers appointed in Paris by a decree of the President of the Republic on the nomination of the Minister of the Interior, in the proportion of one for every ten thousand inhabitants. In cities and towns having a population of less than six thousand, these officers are appointed by the Préfet. They are charged with the duty of enforcing the laws and the regulations of the municipal police, the pursuit and arrest of criminals, and they have authority in all controversies and litigations brought before the Tribunals Civils, or those which never appear in court. The immediate chief of the police, or gardiens de la paix, of each arrondissement, is the Officier de Paix, who has his headquarters in the Mairie of that arrondissement, and who is the functionary to appeal to in all matters connected with the public highways. "(1) If you have cause to fear any scandal, if you have need of police protection, he will give orders to have a gardien posted at your door; (2) if you have any cause of complaint against individuals, cab-drivers, cartmen, street-vendors, who crowd the street, or who make a disturbance before your dwelling, he will draw up against them procès-verbaux de contravention [which is a very efficient remedy]; (3) he is obliged to assure, by the gardiens de la paix, the safety of children who have to cross wide streets when leaving school; (4) at night, it is he who sends to the hospitals the persons who may be found sick or wounded in the streets; (5) it is to him that notice must be given of the disappearance of old persons, children, sick, or those demented; he immediately notifies the municipal police headquarters, which, in turn, sends word to all the posts throughout Paris."

Gardiens de la Paix is now the official title of the efficient Paris policemen, who were formerly known as Sergents de Ville, under which title their corps was organized in 1829. Modified in their organization in 1848 and in 1859, they were disbanded on the memorable 4th of September, 1870. Like the firemen, they are all soldiers, and in case of war rejoin their respective corps. From the point of view of the police, Paris is divided into four great divisions, each including a certain number of arrondissements, and having at its head a Chef. Under the orders of the Commissaires are placed the twenty-five Officiers de Paix, and the Inspecteurs Principaux, their substitutes; next in rank come the Brigadiers, a hundred in number, then the eight hundred and eighty Sous-Brigadiers and the seven thousand one hundred agents.

A sufficiently high standard is set for the recruits to this force,—they must be in the enjoyment of all their civil rights, have their papers perfectly correct, have been a soldier, not be more than thirty years of age (thirty-five, if they have served ten years under the colors), and be at least a mètre, seventy centimètres, in height. They must have a knowledge of orthography, and an excellent physical condition. After twenty-five years of service, in which is included that in the army, they are entitled to be retired on a pension of half-pay, calculated on the average payment of their last three years of service. Rewards are provided for special acts of courage or devotion, arrest of a dangerous criminal, stopping a runaway horse, extinguishing a fire, etc.; after three such proofs of bravery, duly certified by procès-verbaux, they are proposed for one of the four medals of honor, of which two are in gold and two in silver. The State is by no means chary in the distribution of decorations and medals to those who serve it, and very many of these agents wear from one to four of these highly-prized tokens, military and other, on their breasts. On their capes and tunics are also embroidered in silver the number of their arrondissement in Roman letters and their own, in figures. In stormy weather, they pull the pointed hood of their capes over their heads, which gives them a very picturesque appearance; and in summer, they all appear in white trousers, as do the postmen. They have recently been furnished with white bâtons, much smaller than a New York policeman's club, which at first gave great amusement to the easily-amused loungers on the boulevards, but which are very efficient in arresting street traffic when held in the air.

As at present organized, the force is divided into twenty-six brigades, one for each arrondissement and six companies, known as the reserve, formerly the brigades centrales. There are four posts in each arrondissement, each of which is provided with a litter, mattress, and appliances for aid to the injured, and the men are all instructed in the first treatment of injuries, while waiting for the surgeon. All these posts are united by telegraph with the central offices in the Mairies, and these communicate directly with headquarters in the Rue de la Cité. There are also supplemental posts established in the kiosques of the carriage-stands; one agent looks after the cabs, and another is at the service of the public. In each arrondissement, a certain number patrol in civilian costume, to keep an eye on the street-vendors and to suppress prostitution. The evening service of theatres and concerts is furnished by the reserve companies and the carriage brigade; this is supplied without costs for the theatres, but the concerts pay one franc for each gardien de la paix, and a franc and a half for a brigadier. These payments are all turned into a common fund, which, every three months, is divided among the force. For those who have been killed while on duty, the city of Paris has erected in the Montmartre cemetery a monument, on which their names are engraved.

Although its functions, strictly speaking, are confined to the pursuit and punishment of misdemeanors and crimes, the Paris police occupies itself with a great number of other affairs that tend to enhance the comfort and security of the citizen. In the cabinet of the Préfet, a vast number of delicate affairs are treated with the utmost discrimination; the Commissaires render daily numerous services of this kind to the public. Very many disputes which would otherwise be brought before the Juge de Paix are settled before a Commissaire, without cost and with a great saving of time. A tenant summons before this officer his landlord who refuses to allow him to move out on the pretence that he has not paid his rent; the case is argued before the police magistrate, and a judgment rendered which is accepted as final. Two persons quarrel in the street and come to blows; instead of being arrested and brought before the tribunaux correctionnels, they are conducted before the Commissaire, where one of them admits his error and apologizes. A jeweler confides a quantity of precious stones to a trusted agent to dispose of, but afterward has reasons to believe that the salesman is meditating flight; if he carry his case to the Tribunal de Commerce, the delays will give the other ample time to abscond. But if he cause him to be brought to the Commissariat of police, the chances are that he will recover his property and that the culprit will depart admonished and repentant. A married couple are on the point of disagreeing, and applying for a divorce; this useful official summons them before him, listens to their explanations and accusations, delivers to them a moral lecture, and effects a reconciliation. The search for a missing spouse—whether he or she be really wanted by the abandoned partner, or whether the latter cherish secret hopes that the search be fruitless, so that the divorce may be obtained—is one of the most frequent charges of this confidential police. Those parents who cruelly treat their children, those dissipated sons of families who will not listen to parental admonition, are summoned before the Commissaire and speedily brought to reason.

Le Service de Sûreté is enabled by its organization to assure protection to persons menaced. "For example, you receive a letter threatening trouble at the ceremony of your marriage, at the church or the Mairie; carry that letter to the Chef de la Sûreté, Quai des Orfèvres. He will place on the watch inspectors to whom he will give a description of the author of the threat. This service is completely gratuitous. It is not so for that which consists, we will say, in watching over the display of wedding-presents. If you want some inspectors to mount guard in your salon, so that you may not be robbed, you must pay them. They have, in fact, under these circumstances, to meet the expenses of dress which are not provided for in their budget." La Sûreté will also place at your disposal, for any legitimate purpose, retired inspectors who have served their twenty-five years, and who will shadow any one whom you have cause to suspect, for ten francs a day and expenses, who will guard banks, or villas, or travellers with valuable luggage, or assume the duties of a concierge. All these official services rendered to individuals must be with the consent of the Procureur de la République and the Préfet de Police, the Sûreté acting only under the orders of these two officials.

Paris, in fact, may be said to be a very well-policed city,—the police regulations are intelligent, and cover all those points in which the safety, or comfort, or peace of mind of the majority of well-meaning citizens may be menaced or disturbed by the inconsiderate action of individuals, and yet these strict ordonnances, which might become harsh or tyrannical, are generally administered with discretion and—in the case, for example, of the peripatetic vendors of vegetables, the marchands and marchandes des quatre-saisons—with due consideration for the difficulties of the poor. Great care is taken to assure the free circulation in the streets, with one very important exception,—the householder must not deposit any garbage, or mud, or broken bottles on the sidewalk, he must wash his shop-windows only between certain hours in the morning, he must not beat nor shake carpets out the window nor in the streets, he must not put his flower-pots in the windows where there is any danger of their falling on the passer-by, he must not keep domestic animals in such numbers or of such a kind as to be disagreeable to his neighbor, he must not burn coffee, nor card the wool of his mattresses, on the public highway, and he must not set out chairs or tables on the sidewalk. This last regulation, however, is practically a dead letter, all the cafés, big and little, on the wide trottoirs of the boulevards and on the two-foot sidewalks of the narrow streets, monopolize from a half to three-fourths of the pavement for pedestrians. The latter file along cheerfully on the curb-stone, or turn out in the street altogether, and make no protest. In the poorer quarters, a great number of domestic occupations and maternal cares are transferred to the street in front of the dwelling; in fact, the fondness of the French for out-of-doors is one of their most striking characteristics. The women and young girls will sit sewing or knitting in the streets or the public parks, and the men at the open-air tables of the cafés, in the wettest and rawest of days, and the women of the lower orders, concierges, workwomen, small shopkeepers, etc., constantly go with their heads uncovered. This healthy hankering of all classes for the open air contrasts very strongly with their imbecile terror of fresh air, or courants d'air, in a closed vehicle or under a roof.

One of the most complete departments of the Préfecture de Police is that of the sommiers judiciaires, in which are preserved the fiches or records of every person brought before the tribunals, giving his name, age, place of birth, etc., and the date, the cause, and the nature of his sentence. The récidivistes, the hardened offenders, have each a regular bulletin, sometimes a variety of fiches if they have various aliases. These archives of crime are contained in thousands of boxes, filling a number of rooms, and are constantly consulted; their inspection is strictly forbidden to private individuals. This bureau contains records, systematically arranged, of all the sentences pronounced by the courts and the civil and military tribunals of France; the number of ordinary bulletins exceeds eight millions. In addition to these judicial archives, the Préfecture de Police preserves a personal record of every prominent personage. Less closely connected with affairs of State, the bureau of lost articles is more appreciated by the public; it was opened in 1804, but became generally known only after 1848. The number of these objects found in the streets and public places and deposited here has exceeded twenty-six thousand, and every one of them is carefully numbered, catalogued, and ticketed. After remaining here till all attempts to find the rightful owner have failed, they may be restored to the inventeur, the finder, on his demand, after a period of three months for garments, furs, and woollen stuffs, of six months for other articles capable of deterioration, umbrellas, books, and opera-glasses, and of a year for all others.

THE first well-organized attempt to light the streets of Paris at night seems to have been made under Louis XIV. The Abbé de Caraffe had previously undertaken to establish a force of link-boys and torch-bearers, but the bureau which he opened in the Rue Saint-Honoré was soon closed, to the great regret of the honest bourgeois who scarcely dared to stir out of his house after dark without a lantern. Thieves abounded, and even the lackeys of good houses, sword in hand, made a practice of insulting and striking the unlucky commoner who fell in their way. The lieutenant of police, La Reynie, undertook to establish a regular system of illumination,—at the end of each street and in the middle, he hung an iron and glass lantern, some two feet in height, enclosing a candle weighing a hundred and twenty-five grammes, the whole suspended from a rope, and hoisted and lowered by means of a pulley. The malicious breaking of these lanterns was punished by the galleys. This illumination at first was given only from the 1st of November to the 1st of March, but later, an ordinance of May 23, 1671, extended the period from the 20th of October to the 1st of April, and, still later, it was lengthened to nine months, with the exception of the week in which the moon shone. For the period of six months, the cost was a million and a half of francs, it is said.

This innovation excited universal enthusiasm. The king was so well pleased with it, that he caused a medal to be struck bearing the inscription: "Urbis securitas et nitor [security and lighting of the city]." In a passage in Saint-Evremoniana, we find: "The invention of lighting Paris during the night by an infinity of lamps is worthy of attracting the most distant peoples to come and contemplate that which the Greeks and the Romans never imagined for the policing of their republics. The lights, enclosed in glass lanterns suspended in the air at an equal distance from each other, are arranged in an admirable order and give light all the night; this spectacle is so handsome and so well planned, that Archimedes himself, if he were still living, could add nothing more agreeable and more useful."

As late as the end of the eighteenth century, the vegetable and animal oils and fats furnished the only means of artificial illumination. The tallow-candle dates from the eleventh century, and was an humble partner for the much more aristocratic wax taper. In 1791, Philippe Lebon commenced a series of experiments upon the extraction from wood of a gas for illuminating purposes; and in the following year, Murdoch, in England, succeeded in extracting it from pit-coal. A manufactory of gas, constructed by the Comte de Chabrol, served to light the Hôpital Saint-Louis, in 1818; and, two years later, another furnished illumination for the Palais du Luxembourg and the Odéon. Chevreul's experiments in the saponification of fatty substances and the extraction of oleic, stearic, and margaric acids, undertaken in 1823, led to the manufacture and general use of stearic candles by 1831. In the previous year, the introduction of mineral oils and petroleums had begun; the very extensive importation of the coal-oil of Pennsylvania commenced in 1859, and has been supplemented of recent years by that of the produce of the oil-wells of the Caucasus. Both these are largely imported in the crude state, and are distilled and refined in France. The huile de colza, extracted from the colewort, is still very largely used, and is an excellent oil for lamps; and acetylene is beginning to take the place of coal-gas as an illuminator.

When the permanent street-lamps, burning oil, replaced the ancient lanterns and candles in the streets of Paris, they excited as much admiration as the latter had done. "The very great amount of light which they give," said the lieutenant of police, M. de Sartines, "forbids us to believe that anything better can ever be found." The introduction of gas excited much opposition, as late as 1830; the householders feared to be asphyxiated by sulphuretted hydrogen and adopted the new method with much hesitation. Philippe Lebon was assassinated on the Champs-Élysées on the evening of the coronation of Napoleon I, and his invention, "as is usually the case, made the tour of Europe before returning to benefit France,—the first companies that undertook to work his invention were managed by foreigners, Winsor, Pauwel, and Manley-Wilson." The five or six rival companies that furnished gas to the city, united in 1855 in one corporation, the Compagnie parisienne d'éclairage et de chauffage par le gaz. At present, the Compagnie du Gaz delivers it to private houses within the city at an average price of thirty centimes the cubic mètre, and at varying prices in the suburbs. It cannot refuse to furnish it to any subscriber, but it has the right of demanding that payments be made in advance.

Much apprehension was at first excited in the neighborhood of the companies' works by the enormous metal tanks, or reservoirs, until, as is related, an Englishman, named Clegg, one day went up to one of these huge gasometers, drove a hole through the side, and applied a lighted candle to the aperture. The escaping gas burned in a steady jet, as from a burner, but did not explode. At the opening of the siege of Paris, General Trochu was alarmed at the possibility of one of these gasometers in the suburbs being exploded by a German shell and destroying the ramparts in its vicinity; the Conseil de Défense, having communicated these apprehensions to the gas company, were assured by the latter that the reservoirs would not explode, even though pierced by a projectile. This statement was soon verified; at the works at Ivry, one of the enemy's shells fell through one of the iron cloches,—a long sheaf of fire rose in the air, and was extinguished within a few minutes. At La Villette, a shell burst inside the tank, but the gas escaped without any further damage. It was the latter usine that furnished the means of inflating the balloons that, for so long a time, constituted the city's only method of communication with the outside world.

If the municipality was somewhat slow in adopting the use of gas for its streets, it claims to be the first to have introduced that of electricity. This new method of illumination appeared in 1876, and in the following year the Avenue de l'Opéra was lit up by the Jablochkoff system. In England, the use of electricity for lighting public streets and dwellings was inaugurated in the town of Godalming in 1881; and in America, in New York, in 1882. The Place du Carrousel followed the Avenue de l'Opéra, using sixteen Mersanne lights; experiments were made in the Parc Monceau with fourteen arc lights, and in the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont with fifty arc lights and seventy-nine incandescent. The tragic burning of the Opéra-Comique, in May, 1887, gave a great impulse to the adoption of the new method in preference to the use of gas, and the city north of the Seine was divided into five secteurs, each furnished by its own electrical company. This method still prevails, the number of secteurs having been increased to seven, one for the left bank of the river, and the different companies hold their concessions for the space of eighteen years. The unit of measurement is the hectowatt-heure, the price of which ranges from ten to fifteen centimes, whilst in other cities, according to statistics of November, 1897, it ranged from five to seven centimes in Brussels, from six to seven in London, and at about seven and a half in Berlin.

This excessive price has had the natural result of curtailing the use of electricity as an illuminator; and the usual thrifty habits of the French householder and municipality contribute to make the capital anything but a well-lighted city at night,—contrary to the general impression. The stranger who leaves the main boulevards and enters any of the minor streets, even such a wide and important one as the Boulevard Saint-Germain, is struck with the village darkness of these thoroughfares. Not only is there no other means of illumination generally but the street-lamps burning gas, which are sufficiently widely spaced,—and, in the case of the boulevard just mentioned, masked by trees,—but all the house-fronts are tightly closed and as black as night. One may cross the Place Vendôme, five minutes from the Opéra, in the middle of the evening in the middle of the season, and have barely light enough to avoid other pedestrians. All around the great circle the houses show no gleam of light in their windows, with two or three exceptions, and the effect is anything but cheerful. In this Place, as in so many localities in Paris, the pedestrians take to the middle of the streets,—in the wide thoroughfares, to cross them, or to avoid détours, and in the narrow ones, because of the insufficiency of sidewalks,—and good eyesight becomes of the utmost importance. Fortunately, the cabs and carriages all carry double lanterns, and even the bicyclers, those terrors to foot-passengers, are compelled to show a light of some kind and to sound some kind of warning. Of these, the neat and efficient little lantern and the bell fixed to the handle-bar are not yet in general use,—the French cycler mounts any kind of a lamp, even a paper Venetian lantern, on the front of his machine, and rings a tea-bell, or sounds a small horn, as he dashes along. If he display no consideration whatever for the pedestrian, he, in turn, perils his own neck with the utmost willingness, and the risks he takes in the narrow and crowded streets, and the coolness and skill with which he avoids the fate he so justly deserves, are equally remarkable.

In the summer of 1898, the discussion concerning the deficient éclairage électrique, periodically revived, took on new animation in view of the approaching Exposition of 1900 and the admitted inferiority of Paris in this respect to other cities. The question was brought up in the Conseil Municipal in the spring; the various companies made a proposition to modify their contracts with the city and to effect a considerable reduction in their price, as much as twenty-five or thirty-five per cent, to individual consumers, in return for a prolongation of their contracts to 1930,—the present ones expiring in 1907 and 1908. This prolongation, they said, would allow them to assume the heavy expense of establishing new plants, and extending their wires, while at the same time reducing the price,—the near approach of the end of the present contracts restraining them from doing either in view of the necessity of securing a speedy return upon the capital already invested. The municipal councillors replied with another proposition,—to maintain the status quo until the expiration of the present contracts, and then, in some ten or fifteen years, when the condition of the municipal finances would permit, to establish three great compagnies fermières, which should furnish both gas and electricity at a very moderate price, to be set by the Conseil itself. The objections to this plan were set forth very freely,—in the first place, it prolonged an intolerable situation, and just at the moment when the capital was inviting all the world to visit her. In the second place, nothing is more doubtful than the future,—it is quite possible that in the course of fifteen years electricity may be superseded by some other power, as the utilization of the solar heat; if the Municipal Council are so convinced of the excellence of their system, why not put it in practice at once, as they have the power? Moreover, it is very doubtful if the financial condition of the city will be better in 1907 or 1908 than it is at present; it will be necessary at that date, at the expiration of the concessions, to purchase the plants of the companies. The municipal debt, so far from diminishing, has, so far, steadily increased; it is estimated that the city will have to borrow, in these ten years, the sum of four hundred and seventy-five millions of francs,—twenty millions for the conversion of the loan of 1886, forty millions for the water-supply, a hundred and sixty-five millions for the Métropolitan railway, fifty millions for education, and two hundred millions for the opening and maintenance of highways. It is, therefore, highly probable that the municipal control of the electric lighting, so far from bringing any amelioration of the lot of the consumer, will only be considered as another source of municipal revenue, like the State monopoly of tobacco, powder, etc. It is recalled that these monopolies always incite the public administration to draw from them the greatest possible profit,—as in the case of the water-supply, the price of which has doubled since the city has assumed the management of it. One of the immediate results of this augmentation has been a great increase in the number of electric elevators.

In this connection, the experience of the city with the gas company is recalled. In 1888, the Compagnie parisienne du gaz offered to lower the price to twenty-five centimes the cubic mètre for lighting and to twenty for motive power, in return for certain considerations which involved no pecuniary cost to the city. The Conseil Municipal refused this offer. The result was somewhat as follows: in 1888, there were consumed in Paris and in the banlieue, in round numbers, two hundred and ninety-eight millions of cubic mètres of gas, and in 1897, three hundred and fifteen; the average consumption for the period 1888-1898 being thus something over three hundred millions. Consequently, if the terms of the company had been accepted, the consumers would have had to pay in these ten years a hundred and thirty-three million francs less,—and the municipal council had made a present of this sum to the shareholders of the Compagnie du gaz. In the present case, the acceptance of the offer of the electrical companies would involve a reduction in the cost to the consumers, and also to the city, of two or three million francs a year, that is to say, of thirty or forty-five millions for the fifteen years of waiting which are proposed,—supposing, which is not at all probable, that the consumption would not greatly increase with the lowering of the cost. So that, from every point of view, it is considered that the necessity is for immediate reform.

ALL these larger administrative municipal details, and the Third Republic itself, date from 1870, the most important year in the history of France, and it may be thought that no record, however brief, of the machinery of government, of the characteristics, the aspirations, and tendencies of this modern society, would be approximately correct without some allusion to its recent origin, to those tremendous political events which so transformed it, and which still remain for it an endless and hopelessly bitter source of speculation, of discussion, and of fierce recrimination. In this overthrow of a nation, it is the great figure of the Chancellor of the German Empire that fills the scene, moving apparently at his will kings, emperors, and ambassadors, and influencing, even at this late day, every measure of the government of the capital and the nation by an enduring Consternation,—by a fear that does but increase from year to year. The incompetence of the Emperor, the folly of the Empress, probably but served to aid or to accelerate the ruin which Bismarck thought necessary to secure his great building,—the Confederation of the North German states had been consolidated by the defeat of Austria at Sadowa, but France, he was convinced, would never consent to the re-establishment of the German Empire. Even the vanquished admit that he did not want war for the sake of war; but, by his own admission, in 1892, he was willing to secure this necessary result by any trick, even that of the forger.

Despite the recent assertions of the French minister, M. Ollivier, it is probable that the Empire of Louis Napoleon had lost all its allies. Austria, anxious to avenge Sadowa, was restrained by the threat of the intervention of Russia; that power still considered the dual empire its rival in the Balkans and still remembered the Crimea; an offensive and defensive alliance had been concluded by Prussia with the German states south of the Main. Thus prepared, the chancellor waited for an opportunity, and as none presented itself soon enough, he made one. The revolution in Spain in 1868 had driven Queen Isabella into exile and left her throne vacant; Marshal Prim, who retained the reins of power, was negotiating in the different courts of Europe to find an acceptable new sovereign. At the beginning of July, 1870, Paris was surprised to hear that the candidate chosen by him, and who would probably be proclaimed by the Cortès, was Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. This negotiation had been carried on secretly, the French ambassador at Madrid had been informed of nothing, and from Marshal Prim's documents it was afterward learned that Bismarck himself had suggested the prince for the crown. It was very certain that France would oppose this union of the dynasties of Berlin and Madrid, and, in fact, on the 6th of July the government sent a message to the Chamber protesting against this candidature and declaring that it would be compelled to oppose it, if necessary, to the last extremity.

Three days later, M. Benedetti, the French ambassador at Berlin, sought an interview with the King of Prussia at Ems, where he was taking the waters, and requested him, as head of the Hohenzollern family, not to give his consent to the candidature of Prince Leopold. The king replied that, in this affair, he had intervened not as King of Prussia but as head of the family, and the interview ended without any definite assurances on his part. However, Prince Anthony of Hohenzollern, the father of Leopold, officially announced that his son was no longer a candidate. Then the French diplomacy came to Bismarck's aid by committing a great blunder; M. Benedetti sought another interview with the king, who had not yet heard of this withdrawal, informed him of it, and requested him to give the French government formal assurance that Prince Leopold would abide by it. This promise the king refused to give, but he notified the ambassador that he would inform him when he had received a confirmation of the renunciation. When this was received, he sent word to M. Benedetti by an aide-de-camp, refusing him the third audience which he requested, stating that he approved of the prince's decision, but declining to bind himself with regard to any future negotiations.

An official statement of these interviews was drawn up under the eyes of the king by his private councillor Abeken, and telegraphed to Bismarck, with authority to publish it. This statement contained nothing that need inflame the national feeling in either Germany or France, but, as re-edited by the chancellor, it represented the French ambassador as unduly importunate, and as having received a flat refusal from the monarch. The patriotism on both sides took fire; and war was declared on the 19th of July. The Germans assert that it would have been inevitable in any case, without this falsification of the despatch of Ems, but the Iron Chancellor is convicted, on his own testimony, of having desired it and of having wrought to bring it about.

M. Émile Ollivier, Louis Napoleon's minister, president of the Conseil, whose "light heart" for the "great responsibility" of the war with Germany has earned him a special measure of obloquy, has within the last two or three years appeared again in public, in his own defence. In an interview granted an editor of the Gil Blas on the twenty-sixth anniversary of his fall, the ex-minister made a series of statements justifying the men and measures of that fatal period, and contributing some very important assertions to history. "We committed no faults," said M. Ollivier; "we were unfortunate, that was all, and I have nothing, nothing with which to reproach myself." France, he declares, was assured of the alliance of Austria and Italy, even after Reischoffen; the plan of campaign, which has been so much criticised, the scattering of the troops along the frontier, was imposed by the Austrian general staff. Sedan, however, chilled these allies, and delivered Germany, as Bismarck himself wrote, from all danger of a coalition against her. The inertia of the Emperor, who was ill with the stone, who could not command himself, and "would suffer no one to take the command in his place;" the errors of the generals, including Mac-Mahon; the treason of Bazaine, and the council of war held by the ministers and presided over by the Empress, at which the fatal march on Sedan was determined upon, all combined to ruin the national cause. The Empress would not comprehend, notwithstanding the instances of the Emperor, of Mac-Mahon, of Prince Napoleon, that "it was at Paris alone that the Empire could be defended, at Paris that France could be armed, at Paris that the allies, who had promised their aid, could be constrained to pronounce their adherence." Through a false conception of the interests of the dynasty, it was resolved to go to Sedan, notwithstanding the Emperor, who said to Mac-Mahon: "Since it is so, let us go and get our heads broken." The last volume of M. Ollivier's work, L'Empire libéral: études, récits et souvenirs, has appeared in this present year (1898), and completes an able and very interesting defence of a dynasty which has not found many apologists as yet.

General Trochu, military commandant of Paris during the siege, has also, in his Mémoires, published in 1896, dwelt upon the all-important part which the capital might have played in the great drama of the national defence. "I dreamed," he says, "of a Parisian population forgetting before the grandeur of the common peril its animosity toward the Empire, in order to associate itself with us in the supreme effort which we were about to make in conjunction with it; of Paris, with its immense resources, put in a state of defence by the labor of a hundred thousand arms and, after a brief delay, rendered impregnable." This theory of the great importance of the capital is, however, by no means held by all the military critics of the war.

It is, perhaps, well to dwell, at some length, in any effort—however superficial—to appreciate the present condition and the promise for the future of this nation and this capital, on this period of the war with Germany, for the burden of contemporary testimony seems to be that there has been, practically, no recovery from the blow. Nothing is more interesting in contemporary sociology than the tone of depression, almost of humility, of lack of national elasticity and self-assertiveness, in the current French literature. There are still to be met with, of course, the familiar assertions that France is "the cradle of enlightened liberties," the "hope of struggling nationalities," and similar vague phrases, but always qualified with some allusion to the present depression and extinguishment. These admissions appear on every hand:—in Le Temps, of November 7, 1898, in its review of the second volume of M. Samuel Denis's Histoire contemporaine: La chute de L'Empire, we read: "The period comprised between the 15th of July, 1870, and the last months of the year 1875 is, perhaps, of all our national history, the most fruitful in dramatic events. It is, without any doubt, that which has for us all the keenest interest,—the most poignant. The history of these days of mourning, it is what our fathers did, with their tears and with their blood, and it is the history of events which still oppress with all their weight our national life. It is that which constitutes our malady; it is, that after twenty-eight years, we are still the vanquished." The Duc de Broglie, in an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, July 1, 1896, a review of the colonial policy of the Third Republic between the years 1871 and 1896, a period in which her ministers strove—with very doubtful success, he thinks—to recover in some degree the prestige lost in the war and in the subsequent check in Egypt, vis-à-vis with England, sums up: "We are not alone in bearing the heavy heritage of the war of 1870; all the world has its part in the sentiment of general uneasiness, from which no one escapes. It is the common condition, and even though France should be the only one to suffer from it, the other peoples, still, should not resign themselves to it without mortification.... Well! behold it revived, this sombre right of conquest, in all its nakedness, in all its rigor;—it has installed itself in the very centre, in the full light of civilization, and all, statesmen as well as doctors of philosophy, political and social, have bowed before it.... So long as this spectacle lasts, a brand is imprinted upon the front of modern society like a memento homo which recalls to it that the progress with which it flatters itself has purified only the surface and which notifies democracy, so proud of its puissance, that it is only a dust of men, a plaything, like all human things, of all the winds that blow of brute strength or of fortune."

Some interesting details have recently appeared concerning the official residence, the Tuileries, under the last of the French Empires. For the commonplace furniture which they found there, the Emperor and the Empress gradually substituted other, much more luxurious. His apartments were on the ground-floor, communicating by a small stairway with those of the Empress on the floor above. There, the first salon, in pale green and gold, reserved for the chamberlains and the ladies of honor, was furnished with a great mirror in which were reflected all the gardens, the Champs Élysées and the Arch of Triumph in the distance; this room gave access to the pink salon, of which the chimney-piece was in white marble, set off with lapis-lazuli and gold, and the ceiling represented the Arts rendering homage to her Majesty. From this salon the visitor entered the blue one, where she gave private audience, "always receiving her guests graciously and manifesting an unwillingness to part with them." Beyond the salon bleu was a little cabinet with a secretary, a little boudoir, the library with small ebony tables, the dressing-room, the oratory, entered through folding-doors, and finally the bedchamber of the Empress.

The Imperial couple breakfasted in their apartments tête-à-tête but the dinner was served in state and in full dress. On Sundays, after déjeuner, the court heard mass in the chapel, the voices of the singers were accompanied by harps, and the sermon was never to exceed a half-hour in length. The Emperor, wearing the uniform of a general, sat through the service in imperturbable gravity, his hands crossed. On Good Friday, the Stabat Mater was chanted by the best artists; the ladies were in black, with long black veils.

A species of military discipline was imposed upon all those who were lodged in the palace. All the doors were closed at midnight, and the officer of the guard reported next morning all the delinquents who came in later. No workman from outside was admitted into the palace, all alterations and repairs were under the charge of the officials of the Régie. In addition to the military guard, a brigade of special police exercised a constant surveillance over the neighborhood and all the entrances of the building. The agents, costumed en parfaits gentlemen, stood about in groups at all the doors, and, without interrupting their conversation, watched narrowly all those who presented themselves for admission. When the Emperor went out, in a phaeton or brake, driving himself, a small unpretentious coupé or brougham followed him everywhere, a short distance behind, and in it was the chief of police attached to his person. At the masked balls of the Tuileries, every gentleman was obliged to remove his mask on entering; police officials were stationed at all the doors, and several of them, wearing the Imperial livery, passed about among the guests, serving refreshments. The official balls of the Tuileries were splendid, but invitations to the balls of the Empress on "Mondays," were the most prized. For this information, we are indebted to an article in the Century Magazine.

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