["Le duc d'Orléans a voulu donner une leçon aux mauvais
patriotes; il habite Londres, il charge un tailleur parisien
du soin de garnir sa garde-robe."--_French Press._]
Along the boulevard's busy curb
That bristles bravely with _étrennes_,
A thing has threatened to disturb
The careless _vie parisienne;_
It isn't spies or journalist blackmailers,
It is the question of monarchic tailors.
For lo! from _perfide Albion_
Has lately come a ducal note
With patterns for a _pantalon_
And therewithal a _redingote;_
(Observe, in passing, that the royal _billet_
Says nothing of the corresponding _gilet_).
Now while in matters of the gown
The _monde_ of Paris sets the _mode_,
Their gay _flâneurs_ that paint the town
Long since affect a foreign code,
Developing in fact a steady passion
For dressing in the latest London fashion.
With any perfect patriot
How bitterly it stirs the bile,
This craze for being clothed in what
Is thought to be the English style;
It makes the language of his heated brain
Occasionally verge on the profane.
And now the Exile, armed with red
Hot coals of living anthracite,
Projects them on his country's head,
And more in pity than in spite
Bids France that hunted him and his like rabbits
Henceforth to execute his daily habits.
Some fancy, romping at results,
The constitution's overthrow,
A view unworthy of adults,
According to the _Figaro;_
It makes a democrat extremely nettled.
To hear the thing is practically settled.
Of course there may be something in
That strange omission of the vest,
Yet were it little short of sin
To lay this unction to the breast;
A person isn't worth a paltry _filet_
Who stakes the Third Republic on a _gilet_.
There lacks, you see, a final law
To guide in France the statesman's game
The casual ignited straw
Will set the camel's hump aflame;
A _redingote_ may raise enough _éclat_
To bring about a pretty _coup d'état_.
* * * * *
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT.