CORRESPONDENCE.
ECHOES FROM AUVERGNE.
La Bowrboule, July 17th.
AN Englishman can scarcely avoid the danger of having his national vanity fed in this La Bourbonle. A new hotel is being built on a fine site above the Dordogne, just beyond the new Casino, and I hear on the best authority that the pro- prietor means to have it furnished from top to bottom by Messrs. Maple. As this will involve paying a duty of from 30 to 50 per cent, on the articles imported, it is not easy to see where the profit can come in, as the most prejudiced John Ball will scarcely deny that native French furniture is about as good, and not very much dearer, than English. I can only account for it by the desire of all purveyors here—from the chief hotel-keepers to the dealers in the pretty Auvergne jewellery, and the donkey-women—to get us as customers, —not, perhaps, so much from love or admiration for us, as because we have so much less power of remonstrance or resistance to their charges. Unless he sees some flagrant overcharge in his hotel bill, the Briton does not care to air his colloquial French in discussint items with the former, who only meet him with polite shrugs; and as for the others, they at once fall back upon an Auvergnese patois, at least as different from ordinary French as a Durham miner's ver- nacular is from a West-Countryman's. What satisfaction can come of remonstratijig about 2 fr., even in faultless gramma- tical French, when it only brings on you a torrent of explana- tion of which you cannot understand one word in ten ?
But the desire to make us feel at home has another—I may almost say a pathetic—side. Thus, the Comite des Ides spares no effort to meet our supposed necessities, and has not only provided tennis-grounds and other conveniences for le sport, but for the last ten days has been preparing for a grand chasse au renard, as a special compliment, I am told, to the English visitors. The grand feature of the hunt is a recherche luncheon in an attractive spot in the forest, at the end of the run, at which the Mayor presides, and to which the other civic dignitaries go in full costume, accompanied by a dud huntsman and two Masseurs with tridents,—of all strange equipments for a fox-hunt ! For this luncheon the charge is 5 fr. ; but, so far as I can learn, you may join the chase without partaking. The question naturally occurs : "How, if Renard will not run that way, or consent to die within easy distance of the luncheon ?" and the answer of the Mayor would, I suppose, be Dogberry's : "Let him go, and thank God you are rid of a knave." But, in any case, the Conate des files are prepared for such a mishap, for they have had four foxes ready for some days, in a large oven,—of all places in the world ! and one of these will surely be induced to take the proper course, which is carefully marked out. As two of them have come from Switzerland, and there cannot be much to occupy or amuse Swiss foxes in an oven, except quarrelling with their French cousins, I should doubt as to the condition of the lot on the day of the hunt, even if all survive to that date. This, I am sorry to say, cannot be fixed as yet, for it seems that no English visitor has been found who will take a ticket; so I fear my "course" may be over before the chasse comes off. In that case I shall always bear a grudge against your lively contemporary, the Daily Graphic, who, it seems, printed an illustrated account of the chasse of last summer, to which the present abstinence of the British sportsman to-day is generally attributed. Can we wonder at the want of understanding between the two peoples when one comes across such strange pieces of farce as this, meant, I believe, for a genuine compliment and advance towards good-fellow- ship P I wish I could speak hopefully upon more serious things than the chasse au renard ; but in more than one direction things seem to me to be drifting, or going back, under the Republic. E.g., a friend of mine, who prefers smoking the cigars he is used to, ordered a box from his tobacconist in Manchester, who entrusted them to the Continental Parcels Delivery Company on June 15th. Next day, though notice had been given of payment of all charges on delivery, they were stopped at the Game du Nord, at Paris, where the station- master refused to forward them until he got an undertaking in writing from my friend to pay all charges. This was sent at once, but produced no effect for three days, when another letter arrived—not now from the station-master, but from a person signing himself "Contributions Agent "—saying that undertaking No. 1 was not in proper form. Thereupon, undertaking No. 2 is sent ; but still nothing happens, and my friend had almost given up hope of getting his cigars when he bethought him of advising with a Deputy, who was luckily staying here in the same hotel. That gentleman seemed not at all surprised, but offered to write to his secretary in Paris to go to the Gare du Nord and look after the box. The offer was, of course, thankfully accepted, with the result that the cigars were sent on at once, with the following bill :—" Droit d'entree, 38 fr. 77 0.; timbre d'acquit it caution, 7 c. ; toile d'embal- lage—consignation, 40 fr. 27 c. : total, 79 fr. 11 c.,"—which about doubled the original cost. This instance of the sloven- liness (if not worse) of a railway company and the Customs has been quite eclipsed, however, by the Post Office. Another friend posted a letter here to his sister in England, but unluckily in the forenoon, when the next departure was for Bordeaux. To that town, accordingly, his letter went, and thence to America, whence in due course—i.e., at the end of three weeks—it reached its destination in Eng- land. Again, a lady here received several dividends more than a week ago, which she forwarded to her husband in England in a registered letter. This has never reached him ; and the Post-Office officials here are making inquiries (very leisurely ones) as to what has become of it. Then the clergyman of the Church here, baying a payment to make in his parish in England, sent the money, and got the official receipt several posts before he received a reminder from the same official (dated a week earlier than the receipt) that the payment was due ; and lastly, pour comble, as they say here, a county J.P. has never received at all the formal summons from his High Sheriff, sent some weeks since, to serve on the grand jury at the coming Assizes! Whatever the consequences may be of utterly ignoring such summons, he has thus incurred them, which, for all I know, may be equal to the penalties of prwmunire. But seriously, I fear the incubus of the Republican superstition, as you have defined it, is spreading fast and far in this splendid land. The cen- tralisation fostered by the Second Empire, and favoured by the Republic for the last twenty years, seems to have demoralised the national nerve-centre at Paris under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, which,— " Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies," —and to be spreading its baleful influence through the Depart- ments. At any rate, that is the only explanation I can sug- gest for the marked deterioration and present flabbiness of all Government departments with which the foreign visitor comes in contact. I am glad to be able, however, to record, before closing this, that the registered letter containing dividend warrants mentioned above has reached its destina- tion in England. • VA.CUUS VIATOR.
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