COPPING'S ASPECTS OF PARIS. *
Tars volume is the result of a long acquaintance with Paris, and treats of topics that only the resident is likely to observe. Ex- cept the Bois de Boulogne, it is probable that few transient visit- ors would be shown by their guides, and still less discover for themselves, the subjects of which Mr. Copping treats. A tourist pressed for time will not waste it in wandering about the squalid suburbs beyond the barriers, when he can hardly get through the recognized sights of Paris proper ; or make a pilgrimage to the Butte de Chaumont, called by the sketcher the Cliffs of Belleville —a hill which has been quarried to obtain the stone for making plaster of Paris ; or go forth to La Varenne in order to observe the growth of " a new colony " for retired shopkeepers of a much less genteel class than those in the neighbourhood of London. Other of Mr. Copping's subjects must have required a long and leisurely observation ; as the description of Paris penny-a-lining, Parisian cheap literature, and the characteristics of the plays of Paris, not merely at the leading theatres, to which visitors go, but at the thirty-three different houses that may be found within and beyond the barriers. A sketch of New Year's day, and a mar- riage fête at the colony of La Varenne, might be done well enough by the tourist of a day ; but for the uncertainty of one fete day, and the wintry weather of the other. Smart and slight is the character of Aspects of Paris, not that the smartness degenerates into phrase-painting or that the slight.; ness becomes emptiness, but that the outward forms of men and things are the objects of the writer, rather than the inward traits of society, except as they may be gathered from the external de- scription, or from dramatic or literary criticism. The volume is readable, lively, and informing to the extent of its scope ; though it would have been all the better had it possessed more sub- stance.
The most critical paper is that on Paris Plays ; Mr. Copping marking not so much the loose tone of French morality as its un- healthy and claptrap character, even when free from absolute licentiousness. There are also some curious particulars as to the great number of new French dramas produced to die off quickly or drop still-born, for foreigners only hear of the " hits." The paper with the most direct bearing for us is the Cheap Literature of Paris. As regards information and literary ability, the French halfpenny and penny papers would seem to be superior to the English, though the morality of some of them is not of the straightest, if we are to judge from the illustrations.
" I take up a number of the Journal pour Tons,' the father of this large literary family. On the first page a young lady is represented with long flowing tresses, and attired in a sort of military riding suit. Operatic re- miniscences rising up before your mind, you would say she was the daugh- ter of a cavalry regiment. In her right hand she holds a sword. With her left she points to a cottage from which she has just issued. "` You come too late,' says this maiden to two gentlemen, one ap- parently a parson and the other a poacher, approaching her, ' I have killed him.'
" And, in fact, through the open door of the cottage the figure of a hand- some young spark in a recumbent position is discernible. k or a dead man he has, however, a most comfortable look. He seems as though he had dropped off to sleep, after dining too luxuriously at some provincial Vefour's —not at all as though he had fallen under the steel of a revengeful woman. But we must not, perhaps, be too critical upon the backgrounds of wood-en- gravings.
' I take up one of the cheaper periodicals, Le Passe-Temps ' [one sous the number.] Flavia plunges a dagger into his bosom up to the very hilt,' says the legend beneath the first illustration. And if you cast your eyes above, there, sure enough, you will see Flavia in the midst of a crowded salon taking a murderous aim,—the second it would appear,—at tho shirt- front of a gaily-dressed gentleman who, with his left hand upon his breast, seems to be saying, Oh ! the vixen,' ere falling into the arms of a friend who is preparing to receive him. Further on in the same publication, a respectably-dressed middle-aged gentleman is depicted in the act of fal- ling backwards down the stone staircase of a cellar. On the steps just above him, a Clytemnestra-looking lady, very lightly clad, is standing ; a lamp in her left hand, a dagger in her right. By the exceedingly unpleasant look, which glares through her eye; you can see that it is she who has caused the middle-aged gentleman's rapid and unpleasant descent into the lower regions."
• Aspects of Paris. By Edward Copping, Author of " Alfieri and Goldoni: their Live, and Adventures... Published by Longmans and Co.
On that most important subject, the feelings of the Parisians towards their present government, and their sense of their own condition, Mr. Copping is designedly silent in the text. In the preface he gives his reasons for this reticence.
" When I commenced this little book some months ago, I determined to keep from its pages all observations of a political character. The grave events which shortly afterwards occurred, i
though investing Paris with gloomier aspects than she had previously displayed, did not induce use to change my resolution. I might, I think, have lifted a little corner of the dark veil which is still covering the fair face of the city ; I might have shown that the features beneath, though apparently reposing in a death-like calm, are working with hidden passions ; but the time did not appear to me opportune for acting thus ;—nor does it now. Any account of the present abject condition of political life in Paris, must necessarily seam like a reproach—a reproach directed not against an individual, or a party, but against an entire nation. Is this the moment for such a narrative When a rival is lying upon the bed of sickness, enfeebled by confinement, and worn down by suffering, do we then taunt him with allusions to former strength, or mocking comments upon departed energy ? Let us be as con- siderate towards our neighbours iu the day of their deep and bitter degrada- tion, as we should be in the case I have just supposed. They are passing through a period of sore trial and of profound humiliation ; but the change may even now be coming which will restore them to the position they once occupied in the eyes of the world. The tottering edifice that was raised in a night will, probably, fall in a night, and its ruins swept away, there will be nothing, to tell of the sullen pile which once threw its black shadow over the earth.'
This may be ; but it is questionable whether the inscrutable and unscrupulous man, who is now supreme over the French. people, would give up his power without a struggle, if he could possibly help it ; and whether he would quite so easily be caught off his guard as Charles the Tenth, Louis Philippe, or the Re- publican chiefs of 1851. This, however, is a French question. The question for other European countries is, how far their inte- rests may be jeopardized by his recklessness, and whether, having gained a throne by a home coup d'etat, he may not try to pre- serve it by a foreign exploit, that might avert his fall if not re- store his pularity. The more imminent the Imperial danger may seem at home, the greater the precautions that should be taken abroad, to guard against a stroke of despair.
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