Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/71

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Mun. What the Parisianised, ennobled American subject wants is to see her admirable and chivalrous husband Court Chamberlain, or something of the sort;—she, too, yearns for the life which every other countess in Paris wants, a Court to confer a forgotten dignity upon herself, and if she longs for the re-establishment of the old privilege, it is in order to patronise and protect those she fondly deems her inferiors. Other rich or needy foreigners in Paris wish for a Court to shine at, a monarchy or an empire, to be able to boast of their powerful relations. And what none of them will see is that France, in her several experimental moods, is seriously labouring to discover the form of government best suited to her needs, and that the elect of the people still hope, through trial and blunder, to reach the ideal of a progressive liberality. But the passion, the earnestness, of all these Parisianised foreigners in their adoption of the several prejudices and aspirations of Paris prove the truth of my assertion, that Paris absorbs us in her furnace of ardent sentiments and theories as no other place does. We can not stand by and view the spectacle of her follies and furies like a philosopher. Needs must we go down into the fray, which in reality does not concern us, and brandish the stick or parasol of revolt, whatever our nationality. Needs must we adopt a party in the land which regards us mistrustfully as foreigners, and