May 21st, 1863.

SIR,—You ask me to give you the "impressions" of a late visit to Paris.

Owing to the peculiar circumstawes of my journey, I found

myself inhabiting a quarter of Paris which I had hardly ever passed through before, quite at the top of the Faubourg St. Jacques, close to the former "Boulevard Exterieur." It is a sort of Parisian Mount Athos, or Holy Mountain ; convents, male and female, on all aides; the interstices being filled up with schools and hospitals. You can scarcely go into the streets without meeting priests, monks, friars, nuns, sisters, on foot or in carriages. Low- browed, coarse-looking capuchins, with their cord-girdles, seem quite at home on the pavement; girls consecrated to the Virgin (vouies au blanc) do their best to dirty themselves or avoid dirtying themselves in the gutters ; the noise of bells and children's hymns (sung in loud rasping tones) scarcely ceases by day, nor that of bells by night ; in the still plentiful and often beautiful gardens the favourite clerical tree, the arbre de Jades (which Protestant England has so cruelly transmogrified into the Judas tree), is in full blossom. Indeed, notwithstanding the immediate neighbourhood of a railway terminus, there is a strange semi-rural look about the qusrter, and the very nightingale comes still to sing on the trees of the Boulevards ; I heard him once with my own incredulous ears.

Now, although an omnibus leads straight down from this clerical

stronghold through the Rue Montmartre and the busiest quarters of Paris, and up again to the Barriere Pigale on the other side of the town, thisis pretty nearly a terra incognita to half Paris at least, as it was to me ; and, indeed, so completely is it out of Paris morally, that the residents—the old folk, at least—speak still of going into Paris from thence. And as I had but little time for such journeys, it was not much that I could see with my own eyes. One or two points, however, struck me.

1st. The absolute popular indifference to all the display of sur- rounding Romanism. I never saw a single working man, and scarcely any one at all, notice or touch his hat to a priest, monk, or friar. So far from this, I happened one day to give a good look to a priest of rather remarkable physiognomy, and the poor man instantly touched his hat to me, as if he must know me, since I deigned to look at him. In a house with convents in front and rear, though the Friday fast appeared to be observed as a custom by the women, there was not the slightest pretence of doing so on the part of the men at the same table.

2nd. An evident, though still mild revival of political feeling, as compared with my recollections of eighteen months ago. One or two political " posters " were prominent on every wall amidst those of theatres, railways, and houses or lands to sell—M. Gueroult's "Etudes Politiques" (I think that is the title), and " Un Drame Electoral," by M. Gagnetv. When the ordinance n the date of the elections was in turn' posted up, you could dist

guish the place from a distance by the readers,, working inel. mostly, who were sure to be about it. More marvellOus still, pass-

ing through the Luxembourg one morning, I heard two working men, seated on a bench, talking politics aloud, and no spy in or out of uniform was listening to them., This observation was abundantly confirmed to me by the few intimate friends whom I saw, but who, belonging to different pro- fessions and shades of opinion, might, within certain limits, serve as representative men in their way. Some years ago, with the exception of Paris and a few large towns, people did not dare to put forward opposition candidates. Now, I heard on all sides of solicitations addressed to men of independent opinions, who had sat in Louis Philippe's chambers, in the republican assemblies, by their old constituents, urging them to come forward, and for the most part pledging success. M. de Persigny's forbiddance of elec- tion committee meetings, instead of rousing indignation, was rather hailed with pleasure as a confession of weakness. Still, although the invitation to stand had been addressed to some of the men who can be least expected to swear faithfulness to the Emperor, such as poor Greppo, so shamefully prosecuted without a tittle of evid- ence against him last year, the prevalent feeling was that the hour of the men of advanced opinions was not yet come,—that the oath imposed upon candidates as a condition precedent to their standing should exclude every man who may accept the empire as a fact, but not as a right. Hence there is a general acquiescence in the candidateship of the men of the "old parties," of the old "left centre" especially, with Thiers at their head,—that clever, experienced, eloquent, idealess "left centre," master of tongue-fence and Parliamentary use and wont, whose utter bar- renness was the real ruin of Louis Philippe, whose utter blind- ness and vanity were the making of Louis Napoleon. For the work of destruction of the next two or three years these men are amply sufficient ; it is but fair that they should undo their own mischief. There are, indeed, two or three upright and re- spected men among them, such as Dufaure, whose honesty may add weight to the adroitness of their chiefs.

I need hardly say how far more deeply than ever I was impressed with the utter rootlessness of the Empire. In vain does Napoleon

III. upset all Paris, as if he wished to leave nothing behind him but what proceeds from himself ; the absolutely universal feeling is that all this is simply provisional and cannot last. It is curious, indeed, how this provisional character stamps itself even on material improvements. You may see in some places quite new houses, scarcely three or four years old, pulled down for newly devised embellishments to the capital. At one entrance of the Luxembourg Gardens, near where the taking away of the pleasant old "Fontaine de Medicis" has caused, probably, more heart- burnings than any other single public work in Paris, the strange sight is seen of three different levels of street side by side,—each official and compulsory in its time,—but as ugly and inconvenient

as they might be dangerous in their present juxtaposition. One might almost say that an ironic fate compels this man, who pretends to have "closed the era of revolutions," to keep the material idea of revolution constantly before his people. Speak to a Parisian, man or woman, poor or well-to-do, of the alterations in Paris, and it is three to one that within five minutes you hear the expression, "Tout eat en revolution." The personal indifference towards his dynasty (let the newspapers say what they please) is

complete. I passed one morning in the 'Tuileries whilst the Prince Imperial, a tutor and a lackey, were alone on the terrace by the river side. Every one must have known him, yet no one stopped

for one instant to look at him ; no one gave him more than a single glance ; very many passed by, I believe designedly, without so much as looking up. Compare this with the way in which with us the public gaze follows any member of the Royal family as soon as recognized.

Of the deepening hatred towards the present rule indeed, I saw one striking witness in men's feelings as respects the Mexican war. Not only is this universally condemned, as being alike senseless and iniquitous, but for the first time I heard Frenchmen actually wish for disaster to the French arms. The general policy of these dis- tant wars is, indeed, disliked by all ; whilst another event, quite trifling as yet in its proportions, seems to have aroused very bitter feelings,—the bringing over of a company of Arabs to do garrison duty in Paris. Although this measure had been prepared and announced long beforehand, and perhaps was taken with no specially evil intentions, it was quite singular to see what effect it had produced on men wholly unacquainted with each other, and of different tempers of mind. "It seems we are to be guarded Arabs whilst our own men arc sent to perish in Mexico," said Jne. "You see how little trust he is beginning to have in our soldiers," said another, "since he actually requires Arabs to garrison Paris."

The fact of the rapid spread of republican principles, which I had already heard asserted eighteen months ago on the best authority as to the working classes, both of the provincial towns and of Paris, was confirmed to me from a wholly different quarter, as respects the professional classes. Still, I could see that Orleanist feelings were yet very strong among the middle-aged and older men and women. The marriage of the Duke de Chartres to his cousin is especially rejoiced in by these, as preserving the purity and nationality of the Orleans blood.

On the whole, I am strongly confirmed in the conviction impressed upon me in my last visit, that the second empire is decidedly in its period of decline. It is rapidly losing its prestige of terror, and is felt more and more as a nuisance rather than as a bugbear.

The old Association movement, so many a time pronounced extinct ex cathedra by Frenchmen and foreigners, is not yet stopped. A new working tailors' association is preparing to start next winter. The working builders, who were in a bad way last year, seem to have got well afloat again. A body destined to act as a bank of association is all but constituted, and amongst other distinguished men who take an interest in it, and are likely, in some way or other, to be connected with it, I heard the name of M. Elisee Reclus, who has written many admirable articles for the Dews Illondes, and, indeed, I hear, lately contributed two papers on our English co-operative bodies to the Itevue Germanique.

The great drawback to the work is the want of education among the working men. The amount of absolute illiterateness in France is something still enormous, and would be shameful to the nation were it under any but a despotic rule. I had a practical instance of this in the fact that I literally, from the house I lived in, had to walk for a quarter of an hour down the Rue St. Jacques before I came to a stationer's shop, and one-half of this was devoted to umbrella-mending ;—this, mind you, in a characteristically educa- tional quarter. I do not believe there is any part of London where I should have had to go half the distance.

I have been speaking of the Parisian working men. I believe I can answer for it that, notwithstanding all the efforts made by the Second Empire to occupy them, feed them, coax them, they are just as far as ever from being favourable to it. Of course it is far worse with the provincial ones. The 40,000 Norman cotton- weavers out of employ know well that public subscriptions for the relief of their distress have been damped as much as possible by official policy. Those of Alsace know that it is only owing to the public spirit of their masters, as well as to the more favourable econo- mical conditions of the trade in that quarter (finer numbers spun, finer stuffs woven), that they are still at work. St. Etienne knows as well that the comparative ruin of its trade (from 15,000 to 20,000 of the best workmen are reckoned to have left the place within the last few years) is owing to the amalgamation of the coal companies, effected, it is said, only through unsparing bribery in high quarters, and the result of which has been to raise the price of coal from five to thirty francs a load as the sole means of paying dividend on a grossly exaggerated capital.

Let me conclude by an anecdote of '48, told me from personal ex- perience by a friend of nearly thirty years' standing; one who, though an advanced Liberal in feeling, has no sympathy with the special

social tendencies of that revolution. He was president of a club-- as who was not in Paris in those days ? - and a workman came to

him :—" Sir, I want to have your opinion. I have a quarrel with an old friend. He came to me some while ago : 'What good wind brings you ? ' said I have no work, and I have no more bread.'—' So much the better,' said I; 'I have.' So I gave him half what I had. Not long after I found myself in the same case, and I went to see him : 'What good wind brings you?' said he Well," said I, have no work and no bread now.'--' All right,; said he, 'just now I have some.' And he brought out a hunch, and was about to cut it in two. That won't do,' said I, your hunch is twice as big as mine was ; cut it here." No,' said he, you gave me half yours, you must take half mine.' We disputed for some time, and I would not take his big half, and he would not give me less, and since then we do not speak to one another ; for I say he does not practise equality, and he says I do not."

Perhaps those days of feverish social enthusiasm, when two half- starved friends could quarrel as to the practical meaning of equality in sharing one's all, are past, never to return. But the class from which such examples can proceed is, depend upon it, the very marrow of the French nation. Ile who imagines any per- manent political future for France, in which the ouvrier element should not have its due place, is building in the air.