Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 2)Trollope, Frances Milton
History
Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 2)
Trollope, Frances Milton
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
The conversation then started off in another direction, and ceased not
till the number of parties who passed us in making their exit roused
us at length to the necessity of leaving our flowery retreat, and
making ours also.
LETTER LXVII.
Chamber of Deputies.--Punishment of Journalists.--Institute
for the Encouragement of Industry.--Men of Genius.
Of all the ladies in the world, the English, I believe, are the most
anxious to enter a representative chamber. The reason for this is
sufficiently obvious,--they are the only ones who are denied this
privilege in their own country; though I believe that they are in
general rather disposed to consider this exclusion as a compliment,
inasmuch as it evidently manifests something like a fear that their
conversation might be found sufficiently attractive to draw the Solons
and Lycurguses from their duty.
But however well they may be disposed to submit to the privation at
home, it is a certain fact that Englishwomen dearly love to find
themselves in a legislative assembly abroad. There certainly is
something more than commonly exciting in the interest inspired by
seeing the moral strength of a great people collected together, and in
the act of exerting their judgment and their power for the well-being
and safety of millions. I suspect, however, that the sublimity of the
spectacle would be considerably lessened by a too great familiarity
with it; and that if, instead of being occasionally hoisted outside a
lantern to catch an uncertain sight and a broken sound of what was
passing within the temple, we were in the constant habit of being
ushered into so commodious a tribune as we occupied yesterday at the
Chamber of Deputies, we might soon cease to experience the sort of
reverence with which we looked down from thence upon the collected
wisdom of France.
Nothing can be more agreeable than the arrangement of this chamber for
spectators. The galleries command the whole of it perfectly; and the
orator of the hour, if he can be heard by any one, cannot fail of
being heard by those who occupy them. Another peculiar advantage for
strangers is, that the position of every member is so distinctly
marked, that you have the satisfaction of knowing at a glance where to
find the brawling republican, the melancholy legitimatist, and the
active doctrinaire. The ministers, too, are as much distinguished by
their place in the Chamber as in the Red Book, (or whatever may be the
distinctive symbol of that important record here,) and by giving a
franc at the entrance, for a sort of map that they call a "_Table
figurative_" of the Chamber, you know the name and constituency of
every member present.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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