from the East have entered mighty appearances.  One has captivated the Prince, said to be the handsomest man in Paris.  Russian and Polish great ladies have done the honours—­according to the newspapers—­with their ‘habitual charm.’  The Misses Bickers have had their beauties sung by a chorus of chroniqueurs.  Here the shoulders of ladies at a party are as open to criticism as the ankles of a stage dancer.  The beauties of our blonde Misses have made whole bundles of goose-quills tremble.  Paris society is made up not even chiefly of Parisians; the rich of all nations flock to us, and are content to pay a few hundred pounds per month for a floor of glass and gilding.  The Emperor has made a show capital as a speculation.  All Europe contributes to the grandeur of the fashionable world of Paris.  And suddenly what do we hear?

“That we, whose blood is good enough for England; who can speak a few foreign languages in addition to our own; who know our neighbours by having lived among them; who have travelled enough to learn that good breeding is not confined to England or to France, are accused of having destroyed the high tone of the Opera audiences in this city.  We are good enough, as to manners, for Her Majesty’s Theatre, but not for the Italiens.  Tell Mrs. Sandhurst of this:  she will be so mad!

“A few nights before La Patti left us, to degrade herself by warbling her wood-notes in the ignorant ears of the Opera public whom Mr. Gye is about to assemble, and on whom the leadership of Costa is thrown away, an unfortunate incident happened at the Italiens.  Patti had been announced, and Mdlle.  Harris appeared instead.  Whereupon there was an uproar that could not be stilled.  La Patti wept; la Harris wept also.  Finally, the spoilt child appeared, like Niobe, all tears.  Who created the uproar?  The French chroniqueur answers:  a cosmopolitan audience—­an audience from the Grand Hotel.  He is good enough not to pick us out, but we are included with the rest.  The foreign residents have degraded the Opera.  The audience which greets Patti is a rabble compared with that which listened to Sontag.  ’The exquisite urbanity which is proverbially French,’ and which was apparent at the Italiens fifteen or twenty years ago, has disappeared since Paris has become the world’s railway terminus.  M. Emile Villars, who is so obliging as to make the observation, proceeds to be very clever.  Scratch the Russian, and you know what you will find.  I answer, a gentleman uninfluenced by a stale proverb; we have a delightful specimen in this very house.  M. Villars is great at scratching, since his readers are recommended to grate Peruvians and Javanese.  Under the three articles, we are told, lies the one barbarous material!  The ladies of these are charming, seductive, irresistible, but they want ton, and lack the delicacy of the monde.  We foreigners are too proud of our beauty and our dollars, have an unquenchable thirst for pleasure, and we are