PARIS EN AMERIQUE.* THE severely repressive regime applied by the

second French Empire to the newspaper press has had one noteworthy result.

• Paris en Amirkue Par is Dr. Rend 1 efebvre. TLird Editiun. CID.rp3u- Dan 18.8.

It has compelled most French writers whose pens were likely to give umbrage to the Government to concentrate in the shape of pamphlets or of bookssmuch of that wit and talent which would otherwise have been scattered broad-cast to the winds in news- paper articles. Hence this singular consequence, that whilst the newspaper press has been eulogistic or.compalsorily mild in its political criticisms, all weightier forms of political literature, with the exception of a certain number of pamphlets, and a very few works written to order (like Bazancourt's "Crimean War "), have been monopolized by the Opposition. It may safely be said that h rdly one French workin anywise bearing on political questions in the past or in the present will pass even to the next generation, to say nothing of those beyond, which will not bear with it, directly or indirectly, some adverse criticism on the policy of the day. Nor can one fail to be surprised at the freedom of much of this book ciiticism as compared with newspaper slavery. A newspaper article of M. Pelletan's on "Liberty as it is in Austria" drew down the usual consequences on the journal and the journalist, avertissement, trial, conviction, sentence. M. Labou- laye's (for "Dr. Lefebvre ' is well known to be but a pseudonym) Paris en Anie'rique,"—thongh the idea is just the same, the satire even more searching,—has reached untnolested a third or fourth edition.

The purpose of the book is to bring out by a vivid juxta- position the contrast between the social and political systems of France and the United S:ates. This is attained by means of some- mesmeric thaumaturgy which transforms Paris into a city of the same name in Massachusetts, and all its inhabitants, with one exception, into Americans of corresponding names and positions, but with characters such as might have been modelled in the New World. The only exception is Dr. Lefebvre himself, who simply becomes Dr. Smith, without having lost any of his Old- World notions.

The transmogrified doctor sees his daughter find a husband without consulting him, is carried in spite of himself, as a

volunteer fireman, to a fire, distinguishes himself by saving a

child, is made famous by the Paris Telegraph, has the proprietor- ship of the paper offered to him, is elected surveyor of roads on the strength of his late act of heroism, and through the eloquence of his own son ; has to pay out of his own pocket for the bad state of repair of a street, acts as Crown prosecutor in a criminal case by virtue of a diploma of Doctor of Laws from a Russian university, and ends by starting as surgeon with a volunteer corps; after which he is suddenly shifted back to France by the thaumaturge, and once restored to his own proper person and surroundings, is shut up as a madman for his wild tales of Ameri- can experiences.

There are no doubt some heavy chapters, and, as it often happens, the writer by degrees falls into realizing too heartily his imaginary heroes, so that when the purely ridiculous Dr. Smith of the beginning ends by volunteering for the war, one begins to feel quite anxious about him. It is indeed a fact that, when he is finally decoyed into a mad-house—evidently the only con- ceivable termination to such eccentric experiences—an English reader (a lady of course) threw the book aside without concluding

it, because it was really too bad to shut the poor man up I" But

a work which starts from the impossible to attain such hold on a reader's sympathies can be one of no ordinary worth, and it is not too much to say that since the days of Gulliver Paris en Ame'rique has had no equal in its way. It has not indeed the breadth, any more than it has the bitterness, of Swift's satire ; the shaft is aimed at France, not at mankind, and it requires some little knowledge of France, and especially of imperial France, to feel the sharpness of its point. Moreover, the writer being no misanthrope, but simply an honest partizan on the side of freedom and self-government, it must probably be admitted by almost all his readers that he takes too exclusively favourable a view of the social state of America. His running panegyric on the honesty of American newspapers seems pecu• liarly ill-deserved, and one is surprised at his visible ignorance of the meaning of the characteristic Anglo-Saxon term " humbug," to which he evidently applies no idea of deceit, but simply that of noise, which its composition suggests.

When the worst fault has been found with it, however, Paris en Andrique is a perfectly charming book, uniting the richest

comic power to the keenest sympathies with freedom, with righteousness, and with truth. The reader may often disagree with the writer's opinions (e.g., in favour of pure voluntaryism in religion), but it is impossible net to value as -well as relish his compaay. The volume is one fortimately so sparkling with esprit en every page that it is impossible to deflower it ay extracts, which might be multiplied ad infinittun. Take the first glance out of an American window (the reader recollecting always that it is a Parisian of the Chaussee d'Autin who speaks :— "In front of me a series of small houses, arranged like card-houses, three printing-offices, six newspapers, porters' everywhere, water running to waste in the gutters. In the street, busy silent people, run- ning with their hands *in their pockets, no doubt to hide their revolvers; no noise, no cries, no fkineurs, no cigars, no cafés, and as far as my glance could view, not a sergent de yule, not a gendarme. It was done ! I was in America, unknown, alone, in a country without a Government, with- out laws without armies, without police, amidst a wild, violent, grasp- ing people. I was lost !"

Or take, again, this covert satire of French official-press theories. Dr. Smith is expounding his notions on the subject to a brace of newspaper proprietors, like a Frenchman "who fancies he is reasoning, because he threads paradoxes and sews words one to another." He has supposed "an enlightened, moral, paternal government, thinking only of the good of its subjects," with "intelligent ministers," and" thousands of agents" under them :— " In the hands of this wise Government, which knows everything, sees everything, hears everything, without prejudice or passion, I place the truth as a deposit—not that I wish to give it a monopoly of the truth,—I am a friend to freedom—but freedom regulated, limited, moralized ! I would then reduce the number of printers, so as to make printing a prudent, discreet kind of censorship, a priesthood of con- servatism; then I would limit the number of papers, so as to consti- tute a small number of tribunes, true pulpits, whence only decency and moderation shall be allowed to speak. There shall be journalists, as there are priests, that is to say, ministers of truth, who will receive from Government their character and their confession of faith. If, in spite of the wise direction of the State, some insolent gazetteer, forgetting the gravity of his duties, should fail in the respect he owes to authority as the personification of justice and truth, I would not have recourse to the jury, always heavy-handed, and which lets slip between its fingers much doubtful innocence; to the administration, always paternal and protective, would I leave the holy mission of branding falsehood, and, ([need be, stopping it even yet unborn The papers will be an innocent food, a remedy and not a poison ; the press will be a light in the hand of Power, none will dread a fire. There will be tender dealing with useful prejudices, with salutary errors ; truth will be measured to the need of the State, to the strength of the populations ; if any new doctrine should appear abroad, one will wait to see whether it makes the fortune of its fatherland, before uselessly troubling quiet souls which only aspire to rest. This is my theory."

Not less delicious is a scene where he is pressed to go and vote at the election of municipal officers, and learns that an elective mayor names the police, that the ratepayers Tote the rates, that inhabitants are consulted before new streets are made, &c. At last he is convinced, and exclaims :— " If our affairs are really our affairs, if Paris belongs to us, and not to tho State, if we vote and spend our money ourselves (all which things are incredible, extravagant, contrary to experience and good sense), I yield to the common folly. A Parisian who is not a stranger in Paris, a Parisian who has a voice in the municipal council, a Parisian who speaks and is listened to, is a phcenix only to be seen in America. Let us go and vote, and vive Green, Mayor of Paris. . . in Massachusetts !"

The criminal trial, and the Doctor's Old-World prosecution speech, form another charming piece of satire, but too long to be more than referred to. It must not indeed be supposed that in spite of his Yankee leanings the writer shows us none but angels in Transatlantic society. Seth, the avaricious Quaker, and Fox, the lawyer, are the foils to his picture. The description of the former as a political economist is too good to be omitted :—

"He made me a sermon in three divisions to prove that to live cheaply and well was the misery of nations without trade and without industry, whilst high prices are the mark of the most advanced civilization, supply being reduced by population, demand raised by wealth. The day would come when the ltsst.of the Rothschilds would alone be in a position to pay for an egg; that day would mark the apogee of universal prosperity."

It should be added that all the fun of the book is far from being confined to its Transatlantic phantasmagoria. Some of the most racy passages occur after poor Dr. Lefebvre's restoration to his French home, one conversation in particular with a French Liberal neighbour, whose creed "has not varied by an iota for forty years:"— " 'Long live our immortal revolution and the Empire, which carried as far as Moscow the glorious principles of '891 Down with aristocrats and emigres! Down with Jesuits, the cause of all our miseries ! I am not an enemy to religion, the people wants one ; but I would have cures who are patriots and good fellows. I hate perfidious Albion; I carte the Russian autocrat; I wish to see France deliver all the oppressed,—Poles, Hungarians, Wallacks, Serbs, Greeks, Maronites, Italians, and Negroes. Otherwise, I love peace and the arts ; no one can do enough for our first national theatre, the " Comedic+ Francaise." . . . I want a strong and patriotic Government, which shall listen to honest men and make lawyers and talkers hold their tongues. I want in army capable of holding its own against Europe, a navy which shall defy England, canals everywhere, railroads everywhere. I want the Government to give work and food to every workman. With all this I want a small budget and few taxes. I don't understand a state which

fattens on the sweat of the people.' • "'And freedom ?' "'Did not I tell you that I wanted an energetic Government., an administration capable of crushing all individual resistance ? On the day when Power, enlightened as to its true interests, shall compel us to be

free, we shall have freedom' and we shall impose it on the universe.' "What do you understand by freedom ?' "'Neighbour, that is a question which shows how sound your head is . . . . I won't have those false liberties which are but the privileges of - wealth and superstition. A patriot, a friend of human enlightenment, I won't have a religious freedom which shall only be of advantage- to the priesthood. Priests must be muzzled that the people may be free. I won't have a freedom of association which should help the Capucins. . .

. I won't have a freedom of teaching which should hand over our children to the Jesuits. I won't have a departmental freedom which should re-constitute provincial federation. I won't have a communal freedom which should resuscitate the despotism of the lord and of the cure, and make of us serfs and villeins. Better the hand of the State than those anarchic rights which would be abused by agitators, aris- tocrats, fanatics, humbugs. I am for the people ; long live equality "