CHAMBER.—­AMERICAN AND FRENCH ORATORY.—­THE AFFAIR OF CRACOW.—­DULL SPEAKERS IN THE CHAMBER.—­FRENCH VIVACITY.—­AMUSING SCENE.—­GUIZOT SPEAKING.—­INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE OF BOOKS.—­THE EVENING SCHOOL OF THE FRERES CHRETIENS.—­THE GREAT GOOD ACCOMPLISHED BY THEM.—­SUGGESTIONS FOR THE LIKE IN AMERICA.—­THE INSTITUTION OF THE DEACONESSES.—­THE NEW YORK “HOME.”—­SCHOOL FOR IDIOTS NEAR PARIS.—­THE RECLAMATION OF IDIOTS.

I bade adieu to Paris on the 25th of February, just as we had had one fine day.  It was the only one of really delightful weather, from morning till night, that I had to enjoy all the while I was at Paris, from the 13th of November till the 25th of February.  Let no one abuse our climate; even in winter it is delightful, compared to the Parisian winter of mud and mist.

This one day brought out the Parisian world in its gayest colors.  I never saw anything more animated or prettier, of the kind, than the promenade that day in the Champs Elysees.  Such crowds of gay equipages, with cavaliers and their amazons flying through their midst on handsome and swift horses!  On the promenade, what groups of passably pretty ladies, with excessively pretty bonnets, announcing in their hues of light green, peach-blossom, and primrose the approach of spring, and charming children, for French children are charming!  I cannot speak with equal approbation of the files of men sauntering arm in arm.  One sees few fine-looking men in Paris:  the air, half-military, half-dandy, of self-esteem and savoir-faire, is not particularly interesting; nor are the glassy stare and fumes of bad cigars exactly what one most desires to encounter, when the heart is opened by the breath of spring zephyrs and the hope of buds and blossoms.

But a French crowd is always gay, full of quick turns and drolleries; most amusing when most petulant, it represents what is so agreeable in the character of the nation.  We have now seen it on two good occasions, the festivities of the new year, and just after we came was the procession of the Fat Ox, described, if I mistake not, by Eugene Sue.  An immense crowd thronged the streets this year to see it, but few figures and little invention followed the emblem of plenty; indeed, few among the people could have had the heart for such a sham, knowing how the poorer classes have suffered from hunger this winter.  All signs of this are kept out of sight in Paris.  A pamphlet, called “The Voice of Famine,” stating facts, though in the tone of vulgar and exaggerated declamation, unhappily common to productions on the radical side, was suppressed almost as soon as published; but the fact cannot be suppressed, that the people in the provinces have suffered most terribly amid the vaunted prosperity of France.