t
read in the _Independance Belge_? Ah! poor Paris, the days of your glory
are past, your ancient fame is destroyed, the old nursery rhyme will
mock you, "_Vous n'irez plus au Bois, vos lauriers sont coupes._"[62]
This is what has happened; you are supplanted on the throne of fashion.
The world, uneasy about the form of bonnet to be worn this sorrowful
year, and seeing you occupied with your internal discords, anxiously
turned to London for help, and London henceforth dictates to all the
modistes of the universe. City of desolation, I pity you! No more will
you impose your sovereign laws, concerning _Suivez-moi-jeune-homme_[63]
and dog-skin gloves. No more will your boots and shirt-collars reach,
by the force of their reputation, the sparely-dressed inhabitants of the
Sandwich Islands. And, deepest of humiliations, it is your old rival, it
is your tall and angular sister, it is the black city of London, who
takes your glittering sword and transforms it into a policeman's baton
of wood! You are destined to see within your walls--if any walls remain
to you--your own wives and daughters clog their dainty tread with
encumbrances of English leather, flatten their heads beneath
mushroom-shaped hats, surround themselves with crinoline and flounces,
and wear magenta, that abominable mixture of red and blue which always
filled your soul with horror. Then, to increase the resemblance of your
Parisian women with the Londoners or Cockneys (for it is time you learnt
the fashionable language of England), your dentists will sell them new
sets of teeth, called insular sets, which can be fitted over their
natural front teeth, and will protrude about a third of an inch beyond
the upper lip. And they will have corsets offered them whose aim is to
prolong the waist to the farthest possible limits and compress the
fairest forms--a fact, for report says they lace in London, whilst here
we have nearly abandoned the corset. Well, my Paris, do you tremble and
shiver? Oh! when those days of horror come to pass! when you see that
not only have you forfeited your pride, but your vanity too; when you
are convinced that the Commune has not only rendered you odious, but
ridiculous as well; ah! then, when you wear bonnets that you have not
invented, how deeply will you regret that you did not rebel on that day,
when some of the best of your citizens were put _au secret_ in the cells
of Mazas prison![64]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 62: The refrain of a nu