As to the fare offered in English inns, as compared with that of the Continental hotel, the least said the better; the subject has been gone over again and again, so it shall not be reiterated here, save to quote Pierre Loti on what one eats for an English dinner.

"We were assembled round a horrible bill of fare, which would not be good enough for one of our humblest cook-shops. But the English are extraordinary folk. When I saw the reappearance, for the fourth time, of the fatal dish of three compartments, for badly boiled potatoes, for peas looking poisonously green, and for cauliflower drenched with a glue-like substance, I declined, and sighed for Poledor, who nourished my studious youth on a dainty repast at a shilling per day."

The modern tourist, and especially the tourist by automobile, has done more for the improved conduct of the wayside hotel, and even those of the large towns, than whole generations of travellers of a former day.

Once the hotel drew its income from the hiring-out of posting-horses, and the sale of a little food and much wine. As the old saying goes: "Four horses and four bottles of port went together in the account of every gentleman." Travellers of those days, if comparatively few, were presumably wealthy. To-day no one, save the vulgar few, ever cares that the innkeeper, or the servants, should suspect him of being wealthy.

It's a failing of the Anglo-Saxon race, however, to want to be taken for bigger personages than they really are, and often enough they pay for the privilege. This is only natural, seeing that even an innkeeper is human. Charges suitable for a milord or a millionaire have been inflicted on Browns, Joneses, and Robinsons simply because they demanded such treatment—for fear they would not be taken for "gentlemen." Such people are not numerous among real traveling automobilists; they are mostly found among that class who spend the week-end at Brighton, or dine at Versailles or St. Germain or "make the fete" at Trouville. They are known instinctively by all, and are only tolerated by the hotel landlord for the money they spend.

The French cook's "batterie de cuisine" is a thing which is fearfully and wonderfully displayed in all the splendour of polished steel and copper; that is, it is frequently so displayed in the rather limited acquaintance which the general public has with the cuisine of a great hotel or restaurant, whether it be in Paris, London, or New York.



In provincial France it is quite another thing. The chef-patron of a small hotel in a small town may be possessed of an imposing battery of pots and pans, but often, since he buys his patisserie and sweetmeats of the local pastry-cook, and since his guests may frequently not number a dozen at a time, he has no immediate use for all of his casseroles and marmites and plats ronds and sauteuses at one time, and accordingly, instead of being picturesquely hung about the wall in all their polished brilliancy, they are frequently covered with a coating of dull wax or, more banal yet, enveloped in an ancient newspaper with only their handles protruding. It's a pity to spoil the romantically picturesque idea which many have of the French batterie de cuisine, but the before-mentioned fact is more often the case than not.

Occasionally, on the tourist-track, there is a "show hotel," like the Hotel du Grand Cerf at Louviers (its catering in this case is none the worse for its being a "show-place," it may be mentioned) where all the theatrical picturesqueness of the imagination may be seen. There is the timbered sixteenth-century house-front, the heavily beamed, low ceiling of the cuisine, the great open-fire chimney with its broche, and all the brave showing of pots and pans, brilliant with many scrubbings of eau de cuivre, to present quite the ideal picture of its kind to be seen in France—without leaving the highroads and searching out the "real thing" in the byways.

On the other hand, in the same bustling town, is the Mouton d'Argent, equally as excellent in its catering (perhaps more so), where the kitchen is about the most up-to-date thing imaginable, with a modern range, mechanical egg-beaters, etc. This last is nothing very wonderful to an American, but is remarkable in France, where the average cook usually does the work quite as efficiently with a two-tined fork, or something which greatly resembles a chop-stick.

In the cuisine electric lights are everywhere, but the up-to-dateness here stops abruptly; the salle a manger is bare and uninviting, and the rooms above equally so, and the electric light has not penetrated beyond the ground floor. Instead one finds ranged on the mantel, above the cook-stove in the kitchen, a regiment of candlesticks, in strange contrast to the rest of the furnishings. Electric bells, too, are wanting, and there is still found the row of jangling grelots, their numbers half-obliterated, hanging above the great doorway leading to the courtyard.

The European waiter is never possessed of that familiarity of speech with those he serves, which the American negro waiter takes for granted is his birthright. It's all very well to have a cheerful-countenanced waiter bobbing about behind one's chair, indeed it's infinitely more inspiring than such of the old brigade of mutton-chopped English waiters as still linger in some of London's City eating-houses, but the disposition of the coffee-coloured or coal-black negro to talk to you when you do not want to be talked to should be suppressed.

The genuine French, German, or Swiss waiter of hotel, restaurant, or cafe is neither too cringingly servile, nor too familiar, though always keen and agile, and possessed of a foresight and initiative which anticipates your every want, or at any rate meets it promptly, even if you ask for it in boarding-school French or German.

There is a keen supervision of food products in France, by governmental inspection and control, and one is certain of what he is getting when he buys his filet at the butcher's, and if he patronizes hotels and restaurants of an approved class he is equally sure that he is eating beef in his bouille and mutton in his ragout.

Horse-meat is sold largely, and perhaps certain substitutes for rabbit, but you only buy horsemeat at a horse butcher's, so there is no deception here. You buy horse-meat as horse-meat, and not as beef, in the same way that you buy oleomargarine as oleomargarine, and not as butter, and the French law deals hardly with the fraudulent seller of either.

The law does not interfere with one's private likes and dislikes, and if you choose to make your breakfast off of oysters and Creme Chantilly—as more than one American has been known to do on the Paris boulevards—there is no law to stop you, as there is in Germany, if you want beer and fruit together. Doubtless this is a good law; it sounds reasonable; but the individual should have sense enough to be able to select a menu from non-antagonistic ingredients.

Foreigners, by which English and Americans mean people of Continental Europe, know vastly more of the art of catering to the traveller than do Anglo-Saxons. This is the first, last, and intermediate verse of the litany of good cheer. We may catch up with our Latin and Teuton brothers, or we may not. Time will tell, if we don't expire from the over-eating of pie and muffins before that time arrives.



Chapter V The Grand Tour



The advantages of touring by automobile are many: to see the country, to travel agreeably, to be independent of railways, and to be an opportunist—that is to say to be able to fly off at a tangent of fifty or a hundred kilometres at a moment's notice, in order to take in some fete or fair, or celebration or pilgrimage.

"Le tourisme en automobile" is growing all over the world, but after all it is generally only in or near the great cities and towns that one meets an automobile on the road. They hug the great towns and their neighbouring resorts with astonishing persistency. Of the one thousand automobiles at Nice in the season it is certain that nine-tenths of the number that leave their garages during the day will be found sooner or later on the famous "Corniche," going or coming from Monte Carlo, instead of discovering new tracks for themselves in the charming background of the foot-hills of the Maritime Alps.

In England, too, the case is not so very different. There are a thousand "week-enders" in automobiles on the way to Brighton, Southsea, Bournemouth, Scarborough, or Blackpool to ten genuine tourists, and this even though England and Wales and Scotland form a snug little touring-grounds with roads nearly, if not always, excellent, and with accommodations—of a sort—always close at hand.

In Germany there seems to be more genuine touring, in proportion to the number of automobiles in use, than elsewhere. This may not prove to be wholly the case, as the author judges only from his observations made on well-worn roads.

Switzerland is either all touring, or not at all; it is difficult to decide which. At any rate most of the strangers within its frontiers are tourists, and most of the tourists are strangers, and many of them take their automobiles with them in spite of the "feeling" lately exhibited there against stranger automobilists.

Belgium and Holland, as touring-grounds for automobilists, do not figure to any extent. This is principally from the fact that they are usually, so far as foreign automobilists are concerned, included in more comprehensive itineraries. They might be known more intimately, to the profit of all who pass through them. They are distinctly countries for leisurely travel, for their areas are so restricted that the automobilist who covers two or three hundred kilometres in the day will hardly remember that he has passed through them.

Northern Italy forms very nearly as good a touring-ground as France, and the Italian engineers have so refined the automobile of native make, and have so fostered automobilism, that accommodations are everywhere good, and the tourist to-day will not lack for supplies of benzina and olio as he did a few years ago.

The bulk of the automobile traffic between France and Italy enters through the gateway of the Riviera, and, taken all in all, this is by far the easiest, and perhaps the most picturesque, of routes. Alternatives are through Gap and Cuneo, Briancon and Susa, Moutiers and Aosta, or by the Swiss passes, the latter perhaps the most romantic of routes in spite of their difficulties and other objections.



Automobiling in Spain is a thing of the future, and it will be a big undertaking to make the highroads, to say nothing of the by-roads, suitable for automobile traffic. The present monarchs' enthusiasm for the sport may be expected, however, to do wonders. The most that the average tourist into Spain by automobile will want to undertake is perhaps the run to Madrid, which is easily accomplished, or to Barcelona, which is still easier, or to just step over the border to Feuntarabia or San Sebastian, if he does not think overrefined Biarritz will answer his purpose.

More than one hardy traveller, before the age of automobiles, and even before the age of steam, has made "the grand tour," and then come home and written a book about it until there seems hardly any need that a modern traveller should attempt to set down his impressions of the craggy, castled Rhine, the splendid desolation of Pompeii, or the romantic reminders still left in old Provence to tell the story of the days of the troubadours and the "Courts of Love."

It is conceivable that one can see and enjoy all these classic splendours from an automobile, but automobilists from overseas have been known to rush across France in an attempt to break the record between some Channel port and Monte Carlo, or dash down the Rhine and into Switzerland for a few days, and so on to Rome, and ultimately Naples, where ship is taken for home in the western world.

This is, at any rate, the itinerary of many a self-made millionaire who thinks to enjoy himself between strenuous intervals of international business affairs. It is a pity he does not go slower and see more.

The real grand tour, or, as the French call it, the "Circuit Europeen," may well begin at Paris, and descend through Poitou to Biarritz, along the French slope of the Pyrenees, finally skirting the Mediterranean coast by Marseilles and Monte Carlo, thence to Genoa, in Italy, and north to Milan, finally reaching Vienna. This city is generally considered the outpost of comfortable automobile touring, and rightly so, for the difficulty of getting gasoline and oil, along the route, and such small necessities as an automobile requires, continually oppresses one, and dampens his enthusiasm for the beauties of nature, the fascination of historic shrines, or the worship of art, the three chief things for which the most of us travel, unless we be mere vagabonds, and journey about for the sheer love of being on the move. From Vienna to Prague, to Breslau, to Berlin, Hanover, and Cologne, and finally to Paris via Reims finishes the "circuit," which for variety and excellence of the roads cannot elsewhere be equalled.

This, or something very near to it, would be the very best possible course for a series of reliability trials, and certainly nothing quite so suitable or enjoyable for the participants could otherwise be found. It is much better than a mere pegging away round and round a two hundred and fifty kilometre circuit, as some trials and races have been run. In all the distance is something like five thousand kilometres, which easily divides itself into stages of two hundred kilometres daily, and gives one an enjoyable twenty-five days or a month of travel, which, in all its illuminating variety, is far and away ahead of the benefits our forefathers derived from the box seat of a diligence or a post-chaise.

On this trip one runs the whole gamut of the European climate, and eats the food of Paris, of the Midi, of Italy, Austria, and Germany, and wonders why it is that he likes the last one partaken of the best. Given a faultlessly running automobile (and there are many today which can do the work under these conditions) and no tire troubles, and one could hardly improve upon the poetry of motion which enables one to eat up the long silent stretches of roadway in La Beauce or the Landes, to climb the gentle slopes skirting the Pyrenees, or the ruder ones of Northern Italy, until finally he makes that bee-line across half of Europe, from Berlin to Paris. One's impressions of places when touring en automobile are apt to be hazy; like those of the energetic American who, when asked if he had been to Rome, replied, "Why, yes; that's where I bought my panama (sic) hat!"

Such a "grand tour" as outlined by the "Circuit Europeen" presents a variety which it is impossible to equal. It is a tour which embraces country widely differing in characteristics—one which takes in both the long, broad, ribbon-like roads of Central France, flanked by meadows, orchards, and farmsteads, and lofty mountains from the peaks of which other peaks capped with glistening snow may be gazed upon, sunlit valleys and sparkling lakes. It is a tour which no man could possibly make without a good machine, and yet it is a tour which, with a good machine, can be considered easy and comparatively inexpensive.

One does not require a car with excessive horsepower for the trip, though he does need a machine which has been carefully constructed and adjusted, and above all he must guard carefully that his motor does not overheat, for the hills are stiff for the most part.

When touring on an itinerary as varied as that here indicated one should have anti-skidding tires on the rear wheels, take descents with care, and, if you be the owner of a powerful machine, do not make that an excuse for rushing up the tortuous, twisting, and frightfully dangerous roads, banked by a cliff on one hand, and by a precipice on the other, which abound in all mountainous regions.

In taking turnings on such roads also always keep to the right, even if this necessitates slowing down at the bends. One never knows what is descending, and in such parts slow-moving carts drawn by cattle are numerous, and generally keep the middle of the road. Most of the automobile accidents which take place on mountain roads are due to this swishing round bends, heedless of what may be on the other side, and in allowing one's machine to gather too much speed on the long descents. This is gospel! There is both sport and pleasure to be had from such an itinerary as this, but it is a serious affair, for one has to have a lookout for many things that are unthought of in a two hours' afternoon suburban promenade. The chauffeur, be he professional or amateur, who brings his automobile back from the Circuit Europeen under its own power is entitled to be called expert.

As for the value to automobilism of this great trial one can hardly overestimate it. There is no place here for the freak machine or scorching chauffeur, such as one has found in many great events of the past. A great touring contest over such a course would be bound to have important results in many ways. The ordinary class of circuit is a very close approach to a racing-track, with gasoline and tire stations established at many points of the course. On the European Circuit such advantages would be out of the question, everything would have to be taken as it exists naturally. In a sense, such a competition would be a return to the contests organized in the early days of the automobile, the Paris-Bordeaux and Paris-Berlin races, when the driver had ever to be on the alert for unforeseen difficulties unknown on the racing-circuit as understood in recent years.

To follow the Circuit Europeen one traverses France, Italy, Austria, Germany, and Belgium; and one may readily enough, if time and inclination permit, get also a glimpse of Spain, Switzerland, and Holland. Generally the automobile tourist has confined his trip to France, as properly he might, but, if he would go further afield, the European Circuit, as it has become classically known, is an itinerary vouched for as to its practicability and interest by the allied automobile and touring clubs of many lands.

France is still far in the lead in the accommodation which it offers to the automobilist, but Germany has made great strides of late, and the other frontier boundary states have naturally followed suit. Roads improvement in Germany has gone on at a wonderful rate of late, due, it is said, to the interest of the German emperor in the automobile industry, both from a sportive and a very practical side.

From Paris to the Italian frontier one finds the roads uniformly excellent; but, as one enters Italy, they deteriorate somewhat, except along the frontiers, where, curiously enough, nations seem to vie with each other in a careful maintenance of the highroads, which is, of course, laudable. This is probably due to strategic military reasons, but so long as it benefits the automobilist he will not cry out for disarmament.

The Austrian roads are fair—near Vienna and Prague they are quite good; but they are dangerous with deep ditches and gullies which the French know as canivaux, the Austrians by some unpronounceable name, and the Anglo-Saxon as "thank-you-marms." From Prague to Breslau the roads are twisting and turning, and large stones jut here and there above the actual road level. This is a real danger, a very considerable annoyance. From Breslau to Potsdam one gets as dusty a bit of road travelling as he will find in all Europe. One side of the road only is stone-rolled, the other apparently being merely loose sand, or some variety of dust which whirls up in clouds and even penetrates one's tightly closed bags and boxes. Hanover, the home of Continental tires, is surrounded in every direction with execrable cobblestones, or whatever the German equivalent is—"pflaster," the writer thinks. Probably the makers of the excellent tires for automobiles have nothing to do with the existence of this awful pave, and perhaps if you accused them of it they would repair your tires without charge! The writer does not know.

From Hanover to Minden the roads improve, and when one actually strikes the trail of Napoleon he finds the roads better and better. Napoleon nearly broke up Europe, or saved it—the critics do not agree, but he was the greatest road-builder since the Romans.

Finally, crossing the Rhine at Cologne and passing through Belgium, one enters France by the valley of the Meuse.

One of the most remarkable tours was that undertaken in 1904 by Georges Cormier, in a tiny six horse-power De Dion Populaire. He left the Automobile Club de France in mid-October for Sens, his first stop, 101 kilometres from Paris. His route thenceforth was by Dijon, Les Rousses, and the Col de la Faucille, whence he reached Geneva, after crossing the Swiss frontier, in a torrential rain.

From Geneva he reentered France by the Pont de la Caille, then to Aiguebelle and St. Jeanne de Maurienne, where the women wear the most theatrical picturesque costumes to be seen in France.

After passing Modane and Lanslebourg he followed the ascent of Mont Cenis for ten kilometres before he reached the summit of the pass. Within three kilometres he struck the snow-line, and the falling snow continued to the summit. Here he found two douaniers and two gendarmes, who appeared glad enough to have the monotony of their lonely vigil relieved by the advent of an automobile, quite unlooked for at this season of the year.

The descent to Susa and the great plain of the Po was long and dangerous. It is sixty-two kilometres from Modane to Susa, either up-hill or down-hill, with the descent by far the longest. It is one of the most enjoyable routes between France and Italy. Once on the Italian side the whole climatic aspect of things changes. The towns are highly interesting whenever met with, and the panoramas superb, but there is a marked absence of that active life of the fields, of cattle and human labourers that one remarks in France.

From Turin the route of this energetic little car passed Plaisance, crossed the Appenines between Bologna and Florence, and so to Venice, or rather to Mestre, where the car was put in a garage while the conductor paid his respects to the Queen of the Adriatic.

From Mestre the route lay by Udine, Pontebba, Pontafel, Villac Judenburg, and Murzzuschlag, through Styria to Vienna, with the roadways continually falling off in excellence. Here are M. Cormier's own words: "Mais, par exemple, comme routes, Dieu que c'est mauvais! Malgre cela, j'y retournerai; le pays vaut la peine que l'on affronte les cailloux, les ornieres, les dos d'ane at les derapages sur le sol mouille, comme je l'ai trop trouve, helas!"

Of the road from Vienna, through Moravia and Bohemia, the tourist wrote also feelingly. "May I never see those miserable countries again," he said. Things must have improved in the last two or three years, but the cause of the little De Dion's troubles was the frequent recurrence of culverts or canivaux across the road. Five hundred in one day nearly did for the little De Dion, or would have done so had not it been carefully driven.

From Prague the German frontier was crossed at Zinnwalo, a tiny hamlet well hidden on a mountain-top, beyond which is a descent of fifty kilometres to Dresden. From Dresden to Berlin the way lay over delightful forest roads, little given to traffic, and most enjoyable at any season of the year, unless there be snow upon the ground.

From Berlin the route was by Magdebourg, Hanover, Munster, and Wesel, and Holland was entered at Beek, a little village ten kilometres from Nymegen. At Nymegen the Waal was crossed by a steam ferry-boat, and at Arnhem the Rhine was passed by a bridge of boats, a surviving relic in Continental Europe still frequently to be found, as at Wesel and Dusseldorf in Germany, and even in Italy, near Ferrara on the Po.

Utrecht came next, then Amsterdam—"a little tour of Holland," as the De Dion's conductor put it. In the suburbs of the large Dutch towns, notably Utrecht, one makes his way through miles and miles of garden walls, half-hiding coquettish villas. The surface of the roads here is formed of a peculiar variety of paving that makes them beloved of automobilists, it being of small brick placed edgewise, and very agreeable to ride and drive upon.

From Utrecht the route was more or less direct to Antwerp. At the Belgian frontier acquaintance was made with that horrible granite-block road-bed, for which Belgium is notorious. After Antwerp, Brussels, then forty-five kilometres of road even worse—if possible—than that which had gone before. (The Belgian chauffeurs call that portion of the route between Brussels and Gemblout a disgrace to Belgium.) The French frontier was gained, through Namur, at Rocroi, and Paris reached, via Meaux, thirty-nine days after the capital had previously been quitted.



This was probably the most remarkable "grand tour" which had been made up to that time, and it was done with a little six horse-power car, which suffered no accidents save those that one is likely to meet with in an afternoon's promenade. The automobile itself weighed, with its baggage and accessories, practically six hundred kilos, and with its two passengers 760 kilos. The distance covered was 4,496 kilometres.

Part II Touring In France



Chapter I Down Through Touraine: Paris To Bordeaux

As old residents of Paris we, like other automobilists, had come to dread the twenty-five or thirty kilometres which lead from town out through Choisy-le-Roi and Villeneuve St. Georges, at which point the road begins to improve, and the execrable suburban Paris pavement, second to nothing for real vileness, except that of Belgium, is practically left behind, all but occasional bits through the towns.

At any rate, since our automobile horse was eating his head off in the garage at St. Germain, we decided on one bright May morning to conduct him forthwith by as comfortable a road as might be found from St. Germain around to Choisy-le-Roi.

Getting across Paris is one of the dreaded things of life. For the traveller by train who, fleeing from the fogs of London, as he periodically does in droves from November to February of each year, desires to make the south-bound connection at the Gare de Lyon, it is something of a problem. He may board the "Ceinture" with a distrust the whole while that his train may not make it in time, or he may go by cab, provided he will run the risk of some of his numerous impedimenta being left behind, for—speak it lightly—the Englishman is still found who travels with his bath-tub, though, if he is at all progressive, it may be a collapsible india-rubber affair which you blow up like the tires of an automobile.

For the automobilist there is the same dread and fear. To avoid this one has simply to make his way carefully from St. Germain, via Port Marly, or Marly-Bailly, to St. Cyr (where is the great military school), to Versailles, thence to Choisy-le-Roi via the Route Nationale which passes to the south of Sceaux. The route is not, perhaps, the shortest, and it takes something of the skill of the old pathfinders to worry it out, but it absolutely avoids the pavements between St. Germain and Versailles and equally avoids the drive through Paris with its attendant responsibilities.

The automobilist, once clear of Paris, has only to think of the open road. There will be little to bother him now, save care in negotiating the oft-times narrow, awkward turnings of an occasional small town where, if it is market-day, untold disaster may await him if he does not look sharp.

On the occasion of our flight south, nothing on the whole journey happened to give us any concern, save at Pithiviers, where a market-wagon with a staid old farm-horse—who did not mean any harm—charged us and lifted off the right mud-guard, necessitating an hour's work or more at the blacksmith's to straighten it out again.



At any rate, we had covered a trifle over a hundred kilometres from Paris, and that was something. We lunched well at the Hotel de la Poste, and sent off to city-bound friends in the capital samples of the lark patties for which the town is famous.

Nearly every town in France has its specialty; Pithiviers its pate des allouettes; Montelimar its nougat; Axat its mousserons; Perigueux its truffes, and Tours its rillettes. When one buys them away from the land of their birth he often buys dross, hence it is a real kindness to send back eatable souvenirs of one's round, much more kind than would be the tawdry jugs and plates emblazoned in lurid colours, or white wood napkin-rings and card-cases, usually gathered in as souvenirs.

It is forty-two kilometres to Orleans, one of the most historic and, at the same time, one of the most uninteresting cities in France, a place wholly without local dignity and distinction. Its hotels, cafes, and shops are only second-rate for a place of its rank, and the manners and customs of its people but weak imitations of those of Paris. You can get anything you may need in the automobile line most capably attended to, and you can be housed and fed comfortably enough in either of the two leading hotels, but there is nothing inspiring or even satisfying about it, as we knew from a half-dozen previous occasions.

We slept that night beneath the frowning donjon walls of Beaugency's L'Ecu de Bretagne, for something less than six francs apiece for dinner, lodging, and morning coffee, and did not regret in the least the twenty-five kilometres we had put between us and Orleans.

At one time it was undecided whether we should come on to Beaugency, or put in at Meung, the attraction of the latter place being, for the sentimentalist, that it is the scene of the opening pages of Dumas's "Trois Mousquetaires," and, in an earlier day, the cradle of Jehan de Meung, the author of the "Roman de la Rose." No evidences of Dumas's "Franc Meunier" remained, and, as there was no inn with as romantic a name as that at Beaugency, we kept on another seven kilometres.

We had made it a rule, while on the trip, not to sleep in a large town when we could do otherwise, and that is why Orleans and Blois and Bordeaux are mere guide-posts in our itinerary.

From Beaugency to Blois is thirty odd kilometres only, along the flat, national highway, with glimpses of the broad, shining ribbon of the Loire here and there gleaming through the trees.

Blois is the gateway of the chateaux country; a score of them are within a day's compass by road or rail; but their delights are worthy of a volume, so they are only suggested here.

The chateaux of Blois, Chambord, Cheverny, Amboise, Chaumont, Chenonceaux, Loches, Azay le Rideau, Luynes, and Langeais, at any rate, must be included in even a hurried itinerary, and so we paid a hasty visit to them all in the order named, and renewed our acquaintance with their artistic charms and their historical memories of the days of Francois and the Renaissance. For the tourist the chateaux country of the Loire has no beginning and no end. It is a sort of circular track encompassing both banks of the Loire, and is, moreover, a thing apart from any other topographical division of France.

Its luxuriant life, its splendidly picturesque historical monuments, and the appealing interest of its sunny landscape, throughout the length and breadth of old Touraine, are unique pages from a volume of historical and romantic lore which is unequalled elsewhere in all the world.

The climate, too, combines most of the gentle influences of the southland, with a certain briskness and clearness of atmosphere usually found in the north.

By road the Loire valley forms a magnificent promenade; by rail, even, one can keep in close and constant touch with its whole length; while, if one has not the time or inclination to traverse its entire course, there is always the delightful "tour from town," by which one can leave the Quai d'Orsay by the Orleans line at a comfortable morning hour and, before lunch-time, be in the midst of the splendour and plenty of Touraine and its chateaux.

We made our headquarters at Blois, and again at Tours, for three days each, and we explored the chateaux country, and some other more humble outlying regions, to our hearts' content.

Blois is tourist-ridden; its hotels are partly of the tourist orders, and its shopkeepers will sell you "American form" shoes and "best English" hats. It is really too bad, for the overpowering splendours of the chateau, the quaint old Renaissance house-fronts, the streets of stairs, and the exceedingly picturesque and lively congregation of countryside peasants on a market-day would make it a delightful artists' sketching-ground were one not crowded out by "bounders" in bowler hats and others of the genus tripper.

The Hotel d'Angleterre et de Chambord is good, well-conducted, and well-placed, but it is as unsympathetically disposed an hostelry as one is likely to find. Just why this is so is inexplicable, unless it be that it is a frankly tourist hotel.

At Tours we did much better. The praises of the Hotel de l'Univers are many; they have been sung by most latter-day travellers from Henry James down; and the Automobile Club de France has bestowed its recommendation upon it—which it deserves. For all this one is not wholly at his ease here. We remembered that on one occasion, when we had descended before its hospitable doors, travel-worn and weary, we had been pained to find a sort of full-dress dinner going on where we expected to find an ordinary table d'hote. For this reason alone we passed the hotel by, and hunted out the quaintly named Hotel du Croissant, in a dimly lighted little back street, indicated by a flaring crescent of electric lights over its porte-cochere.



We drove our automobile more or less noisily inside the little flagged courtyard, woke up two dozing cats, who were lying full-length before us, and disturbed a round dozen of sleek French commercial travellers at their evening meal.

They treated us remarkably well at Tours's Hotel du Croissant. "Follow the commis-voyageur in France and dine well (and cheaply)" might readily be the motto of all travellers in France. The bountiful fare, the local colour, the hearty greeting, and equally hearty farewell of the patronne, and the geniality of the whole personnel gave us an exceedingly good impression of the contrast between the tourist hotel of Blois and the maison bourgeois of Tours, always to the advantage of the latter.

The banks of the Loire immediately below Tours grow the only grape in France—perhaps in all the world—which is able to produce a satisfactory substitute for champagne.

Vineyard after vineyard line the banks for miles on either side and give great crops of the celebrated vin mosseaux, the most of which finds its way to Paris, to be sold by second-rate dealers as the "vrai vin de champagne." There's no reason why it shouldn't be sold on its own merits; it is quite good enough; but commerce bows down to American millionaires, English dukes, and the German emperor, and the king of wines of to-day must be labelled champagne.

From Tours to Niort is 170 kilometres, and we stopped not on the way except to admire some particularly entrancing view, to buy gasoline for the automobile, and for lunch at Poitiers.

The whole aspect of things was changing; there was a breath of the south already in the air; and there was an unspeakable tendency on the part of everybody to go to sleep after the midday meal.

We passed Chatellerault and its quaint old turreted and bastioned bridge at just the hour of noon, and were tempted to stop, for we had just heard of the latest thing in the way of a hotel which was brand-new, with steam heat, and hot and cold water, electric lights, baths, etc. Nothing was said about the bill of fare, though no doubt it was equally excellent. The combination didn't appeal, however; we were out after novelty and local colour, and so we rolled on and into Poitiers's Hotel de l'Europe and lunched well in the most charmingly cool garden-environed dining-room that it were possible to conceive. We had made a wise choice, though on a hit-or-miss formula, and we were content.

Here at least the dim echo of the rustle and bustle of Paris, which drifts down the valley of the Loire from Orleans to the sea, was left behind; a whole new chromatic scale was being built up. No one hurried or rushed about, and one drank a "tilleuil" after dejeuner, instead of coffee, with the result that he got sleepy forthwith.

There are five magnificent churches at Poitiers, dating from Roman and mediaeval times, but we saw not one of them as we passed through the town. Again we had decided we were out after local manners and customs, and, for the moment, churches were not in the category of our demands.

We had only faint glimmerings as to where Niort was, or what it stood for, but we were bound thither for the night. We left Poitiers in mid-afternoon, gaily enough, but within five kilometres we had stopped dead. The sparking of course; nothing else would diagnose the case! It took three hours of almost constant cranking of the unruly iron monster before the automobile could be made to start again.

Once started, the automobile ran but fitfully the seventy-five kilometres to Niort, the whole party, with fear and trembling, scarcely daring to turn sidewise to regard the landscape, or take an extra breath. There was no assistance to be had this side of Niort, and should the sparking arrangements go back on us again, and we were not able to start, there was no hope of being towed in at the back of a sturdy farm-horse; the distance was too great. Once we thought we had nearly lost it again, but before we had actually lost our momentum the thing recovered itself, and we ran fearingly down the broad avenue into Niort, and asked anxiously as to whether there might be a grand maison des automobiles in the town.

Indeed there was, and in the twinkling of an eye we had shunted our poor lame duck into the courtyard of a workshop which gave employment to something like seventy-five hands, all engaged in the manufacture of automobiles which were exported to the ends of the earth.

Here was help surely. Nothing could be too great or too small for an establishment like this to undertake, and so we left the machine with an easy heart and hunted out the excellent Hotel de France—the best hotel of its class between Paris and Bordeaux. We dined sumptuously on all the good things of the north and the south, to say nothing of fresh sardines from La Rochelle, not far distant, and we gave not a thought to the automobile again that night, but strolled on the quay by the little river Sevre-Niortaise, and watched the moon rise over the old chateau donjon, and heard the rooks caw, and saw them circle and swing around its battlement in a final night-call before they went to rest. It was all very idyllic and peaceful, although Niort is, as may be inferred, an important centre for many things.

We had planned to be on the road again by eight the next morning, but, on arrival at the garage, or more correctly stated, the usine, where we had left the automobile the night before, we found it the centre of a curious group who were speculating—and had been since six o'clock that morning—as to what might be the particular new variety of disease that had attacked its vital parts so seriously that it still refused to go.

It was twelve o'clock, high noon, before it was discovered—with the aid of the electrician from the electric light works—that two tiny ends of copper wire, inside the coil (which a Frenchman calls a bobine), had become unsoldered, and only when by chance they rattled into contact would the sparking arrangements work as they ought.

This was something new for all concerned. None of us will be likely to be caught that way again. The cost was most moderate. It was not the automobile owner who paid for the experience this time, a thing which absolutely could not have happened outside of France. Pretty much the whole establishment had had a hand in the job, and, if the service had been paid for according to the time spent, it might have cost anything the establishment might have chosen to charge.

Ten francs paid the bill, and we went on our way rejoicing, after having partaken of a lunch, as excellent as the dinner we had eaten the night before, at the Hotel de France.

La Rochelle, the city of the Huguenots, and later of Richelieu, was reached just as the setting sun was slanting its red and gold over the picturesque old port and the Tour de Richelieu. If one really wants to know what it looked like, let him hunt up Petitjean's "Port de la Rochelle" in the Musee de Luxembourg at Paris. Words fail utterly to describe the beauty and magnifycence of this hitherto unoverworked artists' sketching-ground.



We threaded our way easily enough through the old sentinel gateway spanning the main street, lined with quaint old arcaded, Spanish-looking houses, and drew up abreast of the somewhat humble-looking Hotel du Commerce, on the Place d'Armes, opposite the ugly little squat cathedral, once wedded to the haughty Richelieu himself.

The Hotel du Commerce at La Rochelle is the equal of the Hotel de France at Niort, and has the added attraction of a glass-covered courtyard, where you may take your coffee and watch the household cats amusing themselves with the goldfish in the pool of the fountain which plays coolingly in the centre.

La Rochelle and its Hotel du Commerce are too good to be treated lightly or abruptly by any writer; but, for fear they may both become spoiled, no more shall be said here except to reiterate that they are both unapproachable in quaintness, comfort, and charm by anything yet found by the writer in four years of almost constant wanderings by road and rail up and down France.

Offshore four kilometres is the Ile de Re, an isle thirty kilometres long, where the inhabitants wear the picturesque coiffe and costume which have not become contaminated with Paris fashions. The one thing to criticize is the backwardness of the lives of the good folk of the isle and their enormous pieds plats.

Northward from La Rochelle is a region, almost within sight of the Ile de Re, where the women wear the most highly theatrical costumes to be seen anywhere in modern France, not even excepting the peasants of Brittany. The chief distinction of the costume is a sort of tiny twisted bandanna over the head, a tight-fitting or folded fichu, a short ballet sort of a skirt, black stockings, and a gaily bordered apron and dainty, high-heeled, tiny shoes—in strong contrast in size and form to the ungainly feet of the women of the Ile de Re.

We left La Rochelle with real regret, passed the fortified town of Rochefort without a stop, and, in something over two hours, reeled off some sixty-eight kilometres of sandy, marshy roadway to Saintes.

Saintes is noted for many things: its antiquity, its religious history, its Roman remains, and the geniality of its toddling old dealer in sewing-machines (of American make, of course), who, as a "side" line, sells gasoline and oil at considerably under the prevailing rates elsewhere. Truly we were in the ideal touring-ground for automobilists.

To Cognac is sixty-seven kilometres. If we had ever known that Cognac was the name of a town we had forgotten it, for we had, for the moment, at any rate, thought it the name of the region where were gathered the grapes from which cognac was made.

Cognac is famous for the subtle spirit which is sold the world over under that name, and from the fact that it was the birthplace of the art-loving monarch, Francois Premier.

For these two reasons, and for the bountiful lunch of the Hotel d'Orleans, and incidentally for the very bad cognac which we got at a cafe whose name is really and truly forgotten, Cognac is writ large in our note-books.

The house where was born Francois Premier is easily found, sitting by the river's bank. To-day it is the counting-house of one of the great brandy shippers whose name is current the world over. Its associations have changed considerably, and where once the new art instincts were born, in the person of the gallant Francois, is now the cradle of commercialism.

The question as to what constitutes good brandy has ever been a favourite one among possessors of a little knowledge. The same class has also been known to state that there is no good brandy nowadays, no vrai cognac. This is a mistake, but perhaps a natural one, as the cognac district in the Charente was almost wholly devastated in the phylloxera ravages of half a century ago.

Things have changed, however, and there is as good cognac to-day as there ever was, though there is undoubtedly much more poor stuff being sold.

Down through the heart of the cognac region we sped, through Blaye to Bordeaux and all the busy traffic of its port.

Bordeaux is attractive to the automobilist in that one enters, from any direction, by wide, broad avenues. It is one of the great provincial capitals of France, a great gateway through which much of the intercourse with the outside world goes on.

It is not so cosmopolitan as Marseilles, nor so historically or architecturally interesting as Rouen, but it is the very ideal of an opulent and well-conducted city, where one does not need to await the arrival of the daily papers from Paris in order to know what has happened during the last round of the clock.

Hotels? The town is full of them! You may put up your automobile in the garage of the Hotel du Chapon-Fin, along with forty others, and you yourself will be well cared for, according to city standards, for twelve or fifteen francs a day,—which is not dear. On the other hand, Bordeaux possesses second-class hotels where, all found, you may sleep and eat for the modest sum of seven francs a day. One of these is the Hotel Francais, a somewhat extensive establishment in a tiny back street. It is the cheapest city hotel the writer has found in France. There was no garage at the Hotel Francais, and we were forced to house our machine a block or two away, where, for the moderate sum of two francs, you might leave it twenty-four hours, and get it back washed and rubbed down, while for another fifty centimes they would clean the brass work,—a nasty job well worth the price. Yes! Bordeaux is pleasant for the automobilist!



Two things the stranger, who does not want to go too far back into antiquity, will remark upon at Bordeaux, the exceeding ampleness, up-to-date-ness, and cleanliness of the great open space in front of the Opera, and the imposing and beautifully laid out Place des Quinconces, with its sentinel pillars and its waterside traffic of railway and shipping, blending into a whole which inspired one of the world's greatest pictures of the feverish life of modern activity, the painting by Eugene Boudin, known as the "Port de Bordeaux," in the Luxembourg.

You may find a good low-priced hotel at Bordeaux, but you pay inflated prices for your refreshments in the cafes; a cafe-glace cost fifteen sous and a glace a cafe twenty-five on the terrace of the magnificent establishment opposite the Opera.



Chapter II A Little Tour In The Pyrenees



We had been touring France en automobile for many months—for business purposes, one might say, and hence had followed no schedule or itinerary, but had lingered by the way and made notes, and the artist made sketches, and in general we acquired a knowledge of France and things French that otherwise might not have been our lot.

The mere name of the Pyrenees had long had a magic sound for us. We had seen them at a distance, from Carcassonne and Toulouse and Pau, when we had made the conventional tour years ago, and had admired them greatly, to the disparagement of the Swiss Alps. This may be just, or unjust, but it is recorded here as a fact.

To climb mountains in an automobile appealed to us as a sport not yet banal or overdone, and since Switzerland—so hospitable to most classes of tourists—was treating automobilists badly just at the time, we thought we would begin by making the itinerary of the "Coupe des Pyrenees;" then, if we liked it, we could try the French Alps in Dauphine and Savoie, delightful and little-known French provinces which have all the advantages of Switzerland and few of its disadvantages, inasmuch as the inhabitants of the valley hamlets and mountain towns have not become so commercant as their Swiss brothers.

In August, 1905, was organized, by La Vie en Grand Air and La Depeche de Toulouse, a great contest for touring automobiles, for an award to be known as the "Coupe des Pyrenees."

As a work of art the "Coupe des Pyrenees" is far and away ahead of most "cups" of the sort. It was the work of the sculptor, Ducuing, and the illustration herewith will show some of its charm. The "coupe" itself has disappeared from mortal view, it having been stolen from an automobile exposition in London.

The trials was intended to develop that type of vehicle best suited to touring, and in every way the event was a great success. The itinerary covered the lovely mountain roads from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and was the immediate inspiration for the author of this book to follow along the same trail. It is one of the most delightful excursions to be made in all France, which is saying that it is one of the most delightful in all the world.

We took our departure from Toulouse, as did the participants in this famous trial of the year before. Toulouse, the gay capital of the gay province of old Languedoc, has abounding attractions for the tourist of all tastes, though it is seldom visited by those who, with the first swallows of spring-time, wing their way from the resorts of the Riviera to Biarritz.



Toulouse has many historic sights and monuments, and a cuisine which is well worth a trip across France. What with truffles and the famous cassoulet and the chapons fins de Toulouse one forgets to speak of anything else on the menu, though the rest will be sufficiently marvellous.

There are three "leading" hotels in Toulouse catering for the automobile tourist. According to report they are all equally good. We chose the Capoul, on the Square Lafayette, and had no cause to regret it. We dined sumptuously, slept in a great ducal sort of an apartment with a hygienique bedstead (a thing of brass openwork and iron springs) tucked away in one corner, full fifteen paces from the door by which one entered—"Un bon kilometre encore," said the garcon de chambre, facetiously, as he showed us up. It promised airiness, at any rate, and if we were awakened at four in the morning by the extraordinarily early traffic of the city what did it matter, since automobiles invariably take early to the road.

It's worth stating here that the cafe au lait at six A. M. at the Hotel Capoul was excellent. Frequently hotel coffee in the morning in France (at no matter what hour) is abominable. Usually it is warmed over from the night before. No wonder it is bad!

Toulouse delayed us not on this occasion. We had known it of old; so we started a little before seven on a brilliant September morning, just as the sun was rising over the cathedral towers and strengthening the shadows on the tree-lined boulevard which leads eastward via Castlemaudry to the walled city of Carcassonne, ninety-six kilometres away. The road-books say of this route;

"Pl. Roul. puis Ond Tr. Pitt." This freely translated means that the road is at first flat, then rolling and hilly, but very picturesque throughout. Castlemaudry delayed us not a moment, except to extricate ourselves from a troop of unbridled, unhaltered little donkeys being driven to the market-place, where there was a great sale of these gentle little beasts of burden. Pas mechant, these little donkeys, but stubborn, like their brethren elsewhere, and it was exceedingly difficult to force our way through two hundred of them, all of whom wiggled their ears at us and stood their ground until their guardians actually came and pushed them to one side. "You can often push a donkey when you can't pull him," they told us, a fact which was most apparent, though unknown to us previously. We arrived at Carcassonne in time for lunch, which we had always supposed was called dejeuner in France, but which we learned was here called diner, the evening meal (at the fashionable hour of eight) being known as souper, though in reality it is a five-course dinner.

Carcassonne was a disappointment. Imagine a puffed-up little metropolis of twenty-five thousand souls with all the dignity that half a dozen pretentious hotels and gaudy cafes can give it; not very clean, nor very well laid out, nor very ancient-looking, nor very picturesque. Where was the Carcassonne of the frowning ramparts, of the gem of a Gothic church, and of the romance and history of which all school-books are filled?

"Oh! You mean la Cite," said the buxom hostess of our hotel. (They are always buxom hostesses in books, but this was one in reality.) Well, yes, we did mean la Cite, if by that name the referred to the old walled town of Carcasonne, la ville la plus curieuse de France, un monument unique au mond.

It is but a short kilometre to reach la Cite from the Ville Basse, as the modern city of Carcassonne is known. Once within the double row of walls, flanked by more than fifty towers, any preconceived ideas that one may have had of what it might be like will be dispelled in air. It is the most stupendously theatrical thing yet on top of earth, unless it be the sad and dismal Pompeii or poor rent Les Baux, in Provence.

The history of this wonder-work cannot be compressed into a few lines. One can merely emphasize its marvellous attractions, so that those who are in the neighbourhood may go and study it all out for themselves. It will be worth whole volumes on history and architecture for the earnest student to see these things. Among all the authorities who have proclaimed the magnificent attractions of Carcassonne the words of Viollet-le-Duc are as convincing as any. He says: "In no part of Europe is there anything so formidable, nor at the same time so complete, as the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth century fortifications of Carcassonne."

We stayed a full day at Carcassonne, and reached the frowning battlements of the Eglise St. Nazaire, at Beziers, at just two by the clock. This is the hour when all the commis-voyageurs, who may have taken lunch at the Hotel du Nord, are dozing over their cafe and petites verres, and the patron and patronne of the hotel are making preparations for their early afternoon siesta, an attribute of all the Midi of France, as it is of Spain.

Nothing loath, the kitchen staff, spurred on by the patron (all thoughts of his siesta having vanished), turned out a most excellent lunch, hors d'oeuvres, fresh sardines, omelette, cotelette d'agneau with pommes paille, delicious grapes, and all you wish of the red or white vin du pays. All for the absurd sum (considering the trouble they were put to) of three francs each. No "doing" the automobilist here; let other travellers make a note of the name!

Beziers is altogether one of the most remarkably disposed large towns of the south of France. Its storied past is lurid enough to please the most bloodthirsty, as is recalled by the history of its fortress-church of St. Nazaire, now the cathedral. For the rest the reader must hunt it out in his guide-book. We were doing no lightning tour, but we were of a mind to sleep that night at Perpignan, approximately a hundred kilometres farther on.

Southward our road turned again, through Narbonne, which, both from its history and from its present-day importance, stands out as one of the well-remembered spots in one's itinerary of France. It is full of local colour; its bridge of houses over its river is the delight of the artistic; its Hotel de Ville and its cathedral are wonders of architectural art; and, altogether, as the ancient capital of an ancient province, one wonders that a seventeenth-century traveller had the right to call it "cette vilaine ville de Narbonne."

All the way to Perpignan the roads were terrifically bad, being cut up into great dusty ruts by many great carts and drays hauling wine-pipes to the railway stations. The traffic is enormous, for it is the wines of Roussillon that are shipped all over France for blending with and fortifying the weaker vintages, even those of the Gironde.

Dusty in dry weather, and chalky mud in wet, are the characteristic faults of this hundred kilometres or more of Herault roadway which one must cross to gain the shadow of the Pyrenees. There seems to be no help for it unless cobblestones were to be put down, which would be a cure worse than the disease.

Perpignan is the most entrancing city between Marseilles and Barcelona. It has many of the characteristics of both, though of only thirty thousand inhabitants. The old fortifications, which once gave it an aspect of mediaevalism, are now (by decree of 1903) being torn down, and only the quaintly picturesque Castillet remains. The rest are—at the present writing—a mere mass of crumbled bricks and mortar, and a real blemish to an otherwise exceedingly attractive, gay little city. The automobile garages are all side by side on a new-made street, on the site of one line of the old fortifications, and are suitable enough when found, but no directions which were given us enabled us to house our machine inside of half an hour's time after we had entered the town. Our hotel, unfortunately, was one of the few that did not have a garage as an adjunct of the establishment. In other respects the Hotel de la Poste was a marvel of up-to-dateness. The sleeping-rooms were of that distinction known in France as hygienique, and the stairways and walls were fire-proof, or looked it. One dined in a great first-floor apartment with a marble floor, and dined well, and there was ice for those who wanted it. (The Americans did, you may be sure.)

Perpignan is possessed of much history, much character, and much local colour of the tone which artists love, and above all a certain gaiety and brilliancy which one usually associates only with Spain.

There is what might be called a street of cafes at Perpignan, not far from the Castillet. They are great, splendid establishments, with wide, overhung, awninged terraces, and potted plants and electric lights and gold and tinsel, and mixed drinks and ices and sorbets, and all the epicurean cold things which one may find in the best establishment in Paris. These cafes are side by side and opposite each other, and are as typical of the life of the town as is the Rambla typical of Barcelona, or the Cannebiere of Marseilles. They are dull enough places in the daytime, but with the hour of the aperitif, which may be anywhere between five and eight in the afternoon, they wake up a bit, then slumber until nine or nine-thirty, when gaiety descends with all its forces until any hour you like in the morning. They won't think of such a thing as turning the lights out on you in the cafes of Perpignan.

From Perpignan we turned boldly into the cleft road through the valley of the Tet, via Prades and Mont Louis to Bourg-Madame, the frontier town toward Spain, and the only decent route for entering Spain by automobile via the Mediterranean gateway.

Bourg-Madame is marked on most maps, but it is all but unknown of itself; no one thinks of going there unless he be touring the Pyrenees, or visiting Andorra, one of the unspoiled corners of Europe, as quaint and unworldly to-day as it ever was; a tiny republic of very, very few square kilometres, whose largest city or town, or whatever you choose to call it, has but five hundred inhabitants.

If one is swinging round the Pyrenean circle he goes on to Porte, where, at the Auberge Michette, he will learn all that is needful for penetrating into the unknown darkest spot in Europe. We thought to do the journey "en auto," but on arrival at Porte learned it was not to be thought of. A sure-footed little Pyrenean donkey or mule was the only pathfinder used to the twistings and turnings and blind paths of this little mountain republic, where the people speak Spanish, and religion and law are administrated by the French and Spanish authorities in turn.

It's a week's travel properly to visit Andorra and view all its wild unworldliness, so the trip is here only suggested.



We took up our route again, crossing the Col de Puymorans (1,781 metres), and dropped down on Hospitalet, which also is printed in large black letters on the maps, but which contains only 148 inhabitants, unless there have been some births and no deaths since this was written.

From Hospitalet we were going down, down, down all of the time, the valley road of the Ariege, dropping with remarkable precipitation.

In eighteen kilometres we were at Aix-les-Thermes. The guide-books call it "une jolie petite ville," and no one will dispute it, though it had no charms for us; we were more interested in routes and roads than in mere watering-places, and so, beyond a stop for gasoline for the motor, not having been able to get any for the last fifty kilometres, still following the valley of the Ariege, we arrived at Foix for lunch, at the most excellent Hotel Benoit, just as the ice was being brought on the table and the hors d'oeuvres were being portioned out.

Taken all in all, Foix was one of the most delightful towns we found in all the Pyrenean itinerary. It is quite the most daintily and picturesquely environed town imaginable, its triple-towered chateau and its rocher looming high above all, and sounding a dominant note which carries one back to the days when Gaston Phoebus was the seigneur of Foix.

We planned to spend the night at the Hotel de France at St. Girons, for it was marked down in the Guide-Michelin as being fitted with those modern refinements of travel which most of us appreciate, and there was furthermore a garage and a fosse, or inspection pit. We had need of the latter, for something was going wrong beneath the body of our machine which manifestly require being attended to without delay.

We took the long way around, twenty kilometres more out of our direct road, for novelty of driving our automobile through the Grotto of Mas D'Azil. We had been through grottoes before, the Grotte de Han in the north of France, the caves where they ripen Rochefort cheeses, the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, and some others, but we had never expected to drive an automobile through one. The Grotte de Mas-D'Azil is much like other dark, damp holes elsewhere, and the only novelty is the magnificent road which pierces it. The sensation of travelling over this road is most weird, and it was well worth the trouble of making the experiment.

From St. Girons to St. Gaudens and Montrejeau is sixty odd kilometres. Nothing happened on the way except that the road was literally thronged with great slow-moving ox-teams transporting great logs down the mountainside to the sawmills in the lower valley.

Montrejeau was a surprise and a disappointment. It was a surprise that we should find such a winsome little hill-town, and such a very excellent hotel as was the Grand Hotel du Parc, which takes its name from a tiny hanging garden at the rear; but we were disappointed in that for a mortal half-hour we tried to make our usually willing automobile climb up on to the plateau upon which the town sits. Three separate roads we tried, each three separate times, but climb the machine would not. No one knew why, the writer least of all, and he had been chauffeur and driver of that automobile for many long months, and had never found a hill, great or small, that it would not climb. Automobiles are capricious things, like women, and sometimes they will and sometimes they will not. At last, after the natives had had sufficient amusement, and had told us that they had seen many an automobile party go without lunch because they could not get up that steep little kilometre, we found a sort of back-door entrance which looked easy, and we went up like the proverbial bird. It was not the main road into town, and it took some finding. The writer hopes that others who pass this way will be as successful. Montrejeau, with its three steep streets, its excellent hotel (when you finally got in touch with it), its old-world market-house, and its trim little cafe-bordered square, will be long remembered.

We debated long as to whether we should drop down to Luchon, and come around by Bagnerres-de-Bigorre or not, but since they were likely to be full of "five-o'-clockers" at this season we thought the better of it, and left them entirely out of our itinerary. When one wants it he can get the same sort of conventionality at Ermenonville, and need not go so far afield to find it.

We arrived at Tarbes, at the Hotel des Ambassadeurs, late on Sunday afternoon. The name of the hotel augured well for good cheer, and on the whole we found it satisfactory enough. One of its most appealing features is the fact that the kitchens and the garage were once a convent. It has undergone a considerable change since then, but it lent a sort of glamour to things to know that you were stabling your automobile in such a place.

Tarbes is a great busy, overgrown, unlovely big town, which flounders under the questionable dignities of being a station of an army corps and a prefecture: Bureaucracy and Officialdom are writ large all over everything, and a poor mortal without a handle to his name, or a ribbon in his buttonhole, is looked upon as a sort of outcast when he enters a cafe, and accordingly he waits a long time to be served.

We got out of Tarbes at a tres bonne heure the next morning without a regret, headed for Pau. All of us had always had an affection for Pau, because, in a way, we admired old Henri Quatre, even his rascality.

We found Pau, too, a great, overgrown, fussy town, a bit more delightfully environed than Tarbes, but still not at all what we had pictured it. We knew it to be a tourist resort, but we were hardly prepared for the tea-shops and the "bars" and the papers—in English and "American," as a local newsdealer told us when we went to him to buy the inevitable picture postcards.

We found out, too, that Pau has long held a unique position as the leading hunting centre on the Continent. It costs sixty francs a day for the hire of a saddle-horse, and from 350 francs to four hundred francs for the month—certainly rather dear. There are, as a rule, from thirty to forty hunters available for hire each year, but many of them are reserved by old stagers. Of privately owned horses following the hunt, the number would usually somewhat exceed two hundred. The hounds meet three times a week, and the municipality of Pau shows its appreciation of the good that hunting does for the Pyrenees resort by voting a subsidy of five thousand francs.

What history and romance there is about Pau is pretty well blotted out by twentieth-century snobbism, it would seem.

One learns that Pau was the seat of a chateau of the princes of Bearn as early as the tenth century. Its great splendour and importance only came with the establishment here of the residence of Gaston IV., Comte de Foix, the usurper of the throne of Navarre in 1464. In his train came a parliament, a university, an academy, and a mint. Finally came the birth of Henri Quatre, and one may yet see the great turtle-shell used by the afterwards gay monarch for a cradle. These were gay times for Pau, and the same gaiety, though of a forced nature, exists to-day with the throngs of English and Americans who are trying hard to make of it a social resort. May they not succeed. One thing they have done is to raise prices for everything to everybody. This is bad enough to begin with, and so with this parting observation Pau is crossed off the list.

There are eight highroads which cross the frontier passes from France into Spain, and two lines of railway, one along the border of the Atlantic and Hendaye, and the other following the Mediterranean coast to Barcelona.

"Il n'y a plus de Pyrenees," we were told as we were leaving Pau. It seemed that news had just been received that in fourteen hours a Spanish aeronaut had covered the 730 kilometres from Pau to Grenada "comme les oiseaux." Truly, after this, there are no more frontiers.

After Pau our route led to Mauleon (seventy-two kilometres) via Oloron, straight across Bearn, where the peasants are still of that picturesque mien which one so seldom sees out of the comic-opera chorus. One reads that the Bearnais are "irascible, jealous, and spirituel."

This is some one's opinion of times long passed, but certainly we found nothing of the kind; nothing indeed different from all the folk of the South who dawdle at their work and spend most of their leisure energetically dancing or eating.

Mauleon, known locally as Mauleon-Licharre to distinguish it from Mauleon-Barousse, is the douane station for entering France from Spain (Pampelune) via St. Jean-Pied-de-Port and St. Beat, neither of the routes much used, and not at all by automobiles.

A typical little mountain town, Mauleon is the chef-lieu of the Arrondissement, and the ancient capital of the Vicomte de Soule. It has an excellent hotel, allied to the Touring Club de France (Hotel Saubidet), where one dines well off the fare of the country with no imitation Parisian dishes. There is a sort of a historical monument here, the Chateau de Mauleon (Malo-Leone—Mauvais Lion—Wicked Lion: the reader may take his choice) of the fifteenth century, which surrounds itself accommodatingly with a legend which the native will tell you, if asked.

There is no great accommodation for automobiles at Mauleon, and one can only buy oil and gasoline by going to a man named Etcheberrigary for it. His address is not given, but any one will tell you where he lives. They may not recognize your pronunciation, but they will recognize your dilemma at once and point the way forthwith.

It was forty-one kilometres to St. Jean-Pied-de-Port, over an "all-up-and-down-hill" road, if there ever was one—up out of one river valley and down into another all the way until we struck the road by the banks of the Nive and approached the town.

St. Jean-Pied-de-Port takes its name from its proximity to one of the Franco-Spanish gateways through the Pyrenees.

It is in danger of becoming a resort, since the guide-books already announce it as a station climatique. Its Basque name of Donajouana, or Don Ilban-Garici, ought, however, to stop any great throng from coming.

It lies directly at the foot of the Col de Roncevalles leading into Spain (1,057 metres). The pass has ever been celebrated in the annals of war, from the days of the Paladin Roland to those of Marechal Soult's attack on the English at Pampelune.

Considering that St. Jean-Pied-de-Port boasts of only fourteen hundred inhabitants, and is almost hidden in the Pyrenean fastness, one does very well within its walls. There is a railway to Bayonne, the post, telegraph, a pharmacy, and a Red Cross station, and the wants of the automobilist are attended to sufficiently well by the local locksmith. The Hotel Central, on the Place du Marche, is vouched for by the Touring Club. It has a salle des bains and other useful accessories often wanting in more pretentious establishments, a dark room for camera fiends, a pit for automobiles, and electric lights. For all this you pay six franc a day. "Pas cher!"

Bayonne, through the Basque country, is fifty odd kilometres distant, a gentle descent all the way, down the valley of the Nive.

The Basques are a picturesque and lovable people, and they have kept their characteristics and customs bright and shining through many centuries of change round about them.

They love the dance, all kinds of agile games like the jeu de paume and pelota, and will dance for three days at a fete with a passion which does not tire. Even to-day the Basque thinks more of a local fete than he does of anything else, and will journey fifteen or twenty kilometres afoot—if he can't get a ride—to form a part of some religious procession or a tournee de paume.

Cambo, midway between St. Jean-Pied-de-Port and Bayonne, is a tiny spring and bath resort trying hard to be fashionable. There are many villas near-by of wealthy "Basques-Americains," from the Argentine.

The Basques, at least the Basques-Francais, are a disappearing factor in the population of Europe. It is said there are more Basques in the Argentine Republic than in the Republic of France, and all because of the alienation of the Basques by Louis XIV. when he married Marie-Therese and her 500,000 ecus of dot. Since 1659 the real Basque, he or she of the fine teeth, has been growing beautifully less in numbers, both in France and in Spain.

A certain fillip was given to Cambo by the retreat here of Edward Rostand, the author of "Cyrano" and "L'Aiglon." In his wake followed litterateurs and journalists, and the fame of the hitherto unworldly little spot—sheltered from all the winds that blow—was bruited abroad, and the Touring Club de France erected a pavilion; thus all at once Cambo became a "resort," in all that the name implies.

A mecanicien has not yet come to care for the automobilist in trouble, but the locksmith (serrurier) will do what he can and charge you little for it. Gasoline is high-priced, fifty sous a bidon.

Bayonne, with its tradition, its present-day prosperity, and its altogether charming situation, awaited us twenty odd kilometres away, and we descended upon its excellent, but badly named, Grand Hotel just at nightfall. There's another more picturesquely named near by, and no doubt as excellent, called the Panier-Fleuri. We would much rather have stopped at the latter,—if only on account of its name,—but there was no accommodation for the automobile. M. Landlord, brace up!

Bayonne is a fortress of the first class, and commands the western gateway into Spain. Its brilliant aspect, its cosmopolitanism, and its storied past appealed to us more than did the attractions of its more fastidious neighbour, Biarritz. One can see a better bull-fight at Bayonne than he can at Biarritz, where his sport must consist principally of those varieties of gambling games announced by European hotel-keepers as having "all the diversions of Monte Carlo." Bull-fighting is forbidden in France, but more or less mysteriously it comes off now and then. We did not see anything of the sort at Bayonne, but we had many times at Arles, and Nimes, and knew well that when the southern Frenchman sets about to provide a gory spectacle he can give it quite as rosy a hue as his Spanish brother.

Biarritz called us the next day, and, not wishing to be taken for dukes, or millionaires, or chauffeurs and their friends out on a holiday, we left the automobile en garage, and covered the seven kilometres by the humble tramway. Be wise, and don't take your automobile to a resort like Biarritz unless you want to pay.

It's a long way from the Pont Saint-Esprit at Bayonne to the plage at Biarritz, in manners and customs, at any rate, and the seeker after real local colour will find more of it at Bayonne than he will at its seaside neighbour, where all is tinged with Paris, St. Petersburg, and London.

The Empress Eugenie, or perhaps Napoleon III., "made" Biarritz when he built the first villa in the little Basque fishing-village, which had hitherto known neither courts nor coronets. There's no doubt about it; Biarritz is a fine resort of its class, as are Monte Carlo and Ostende. One can study human nature at all three, if that is what he is out for; so, too, he can—the same sort—on Paris's boulevards.



The month of October is time for the gathering of the fashionables and elegants of all capitals at Biarritz. All the world bathes together in the warm waters of the Plage des Basques, and the sublime contrast of the Pyrenees on one hand, and the open sea and sky on the other, give a panorama of grandeur that few of its competitors have.

The visitors to Biarritz daily augment in numbers, and, since it had been a sort of neutral trysting-ground for the King and Queen of Spain before their marriage, and since the seal of his approval has been given to it by Edward VII. of England (to the great disconcern of the Riviera hotel-keepers), it bids fair to become even more popular.

From Bayonne to the Spanish frontier it is thirty kilometres by the road which runs through the Basque country and through St. Jean-de-Luz, a delightful little seaside town which has long been a "resort" of the mildly homeopathic kind, and which, let us all hope, will never degenerate into another Nice, or Cannes, or Menton. The great event of its historic past was the marriage here of Louis XIV. with the Infanta Marie-Theres on the sixth of June, 1660, but to-day everything (in the minds of the inhabitants) dates from the arrival of the increasing shoals of visitor from "brumeuse Angleterre" in the first days of November, with the added hope that this year's visitors will exceed in numbers those of the last—which they probably will.

Those who know not St. Jean-de-Luz and its charms had best hurry up before they entirely disappear. The Automobile Club de France endorses the Hotel d'Angleterre of St. Jean as to its beds and its table, and also notes the fact that you may count on spending anything you like from thirteen francs a day upward for your accommodation. The Touring Club de France swears by the Hotel Terminus-Plage (equally unfortunately named), and here you will get off for ten francs or so per day, and probably be cared for quite as well as at the other. In any case they both possess a salle des bains and a shelter for your automobile.

We stopped only for lunch, and found it excellent, at the Hotel de la Poste, with vin compris—which is not the case at the great hotels. En passant, let the writer say that the average "tourist" (not the genuine vagabond traveller) will not drink the vin de table, but prefers the same thing—at a supplementary price—for the pleasure of seeing the cork drawn before his eyes. The "grands hotels" of the resorts recognize this and cater for the tourist accordingly.

We were bound for Fontarabia that night, just over the Spanish border. The Spanish know it as Feuntarabia, and the Basques as Ondarriba. For this reason one's pronunciation is likely to be understood, because no two persons pronounce it exactly alike, and the natives' comprehensions have been trained in a good school.

Fontarabia is gay, is ancient, and is very foreign to anything in France, even bordering upon the Spanish frontier. We left the automobile at Hendaye, not wishing to put up with the customs duties of eighteen francs a hundred kilos for the motor, and a thousand francs for the carrosserie, for the privilege of riding twenty kilometres out and back over a sandy, dreary road.

We dined and slept that night at a little Spanish hotel half built out over the sea, Concha by name, and left the Grand Hotel de Palais Miramar to those who like grand hotels. We lingered a fortnight at Fontarabia, and did much that many tourists did not. One should see Fontarabia and find out its delights for oneself. There is a quaintness and unworldliness about its old streets and wharves, which is indescribable in print; there is a wonderfully impressive expanse of sea and sky on the Bay of Bidassoa, a couple of kilometres away, and all sorts and conditions of men may find an occupation here for any passing mood they may have.

We just missed the great fete of the eighth of September, when processions, and bull-fights, and all the movement of the sacred and profane rejoicings of the Latins yearly astonish the more phlegmatic northerner.

Another great fete is that of Vendredi-Saint (Good Friday). Either one or the other should be seen by all who may be in these parts at these times.

Near by, in the middle of the swift-flowing current of the Bidassoa, is the historically celebrated Ile des Faisans, on which the conferences were held between the French minister Mazarin and the Spanish Don Louis de Haro, which led to the famous Treaty of the Pyrenees, 1659, and the marriage of Louis XIV. with the daughter of Philip IV. The representative of each sovereign advanced from his own territory, by a temporary bridge, to this bit of neutral ground, which then reached nearly up to the present bridge. The piles which supported the cardinal's pavilion were visible not many years ago. The death of Velasquez, the painter, was caused by his exertions in superintending these constructions; duties more fitting to an upholsterer than a painter.

We finished our tour of the Pyrenees at Fontarabia, having followed along the shadow of these great frontier mountains their entire length; not wholly unknown ground, perhaps, but for the most part entirely unspoiled, and, as a touring-ground for the automobilist, without a peer.

Chapter III In Languedoc And Old Provence



The dim purple curtain of the Pyrenees had been drawn behind, us, and we were passing from the patois of Languedoc to the patois of Provence, where the peasants say pardie in place of pardou when an exclamation of surprise comes from their lips.

Cast your eyes over the map of ancient France, and you will distinguish plainly the lines of demarcation between the old political divisions which, in truth, the traveller by road may find to exist even to-day, in the manners and customs of the people at least.

Unconsciously we drew away from the sleepy indolence of Perpignan and Roussillon, and before we knew it had passed Narbonne, and on through Beziers to Agde, where we proposed stopping for the night.

Quite as Spanish-looking as Perpignan, Agde was the very antithesis of the gay and frivolous Catalan city. The aspect of its purple-brown architecture, the bridge-piers crossing the Herault, and the very pavements themselves were a colour-scheme quite unlike anything we had seen elsewhere. Brilliant and warm as a painting of Velasquez, there was nothing gaudy, and one could only dream of the time when the Renaissance house-fronts sheltered lords and ladies of high degree instead of itinerant automobilists and travelling salesmen.

The Hotel du Cheval Blanc was one of these. It is not a particularly up-to-date hostelry, and there is a scant accommodation for automobiles, but for all that it is good of its kind, and one dines and sleeps well to the accompaniment of the rushing waters of the river, at its very dooryard, on its way to the sea.

From Agde to Montpellier is fifty odd kilometres over the worst stretch of roadway of the same length to be found in France, save perhaps that awful paved road of Navarre across the Landes.

Montpellier is one of the most luxurious and well-kept small cities of France. It is the seat of the prefecture, the assizes, and a university—whose college of medicine was famous in the days of Rabelais. It has the modern attributes of steam-heated, electric-lighted hotels and restaurants, a tramway system that is appalling and dangerous to all other traffic by reason of its complexity, and an Opera House and a Hotel de Ville that would do credit to a city ten times its size.

We merely took Montpellier en route, just as we had many other places, and were really bound for Aigues-Mortes, where we proposed to lunch: one would not willingly sleep in a place with a name like that.

Of Aigues-Mortes Ch. Lentherie wrote, a quarter of a century ago:

"The country round about is incomparably melancholy, the sun scorches, and the sandy soil gives no nourishment to plants, flowers, vines, or grain. Cultivated land does not exist, it is a desert: ugly, melancholy, and abandoned. But Aigues-Mortes cannot, nay, must not perish, and will always remain the old city of St. Louis, a magnificent architectural diadem, with its deserted plage an aureole most radiant, a glorious yet touching reminder."

One other imaginative description is the poem of Charles Bigot on La Tour de Constance, in which the Huguenot women were many long years imprisoned. It is written in the charming Nimois patois, and runs thus in its first few lines:

"Tour de la simple et forte, Simbol de glorie et de piete, Tour de pauvres femmes mortes Pour leur Dieu et la liberte."

These few introductory lines will recall to the memory of all who know the history of the Crusades and of St. Louis the part played by this old walled city of Aigues-Mortes.

More complete, and more frowning and grim, than Carcassonne, it has not a tithe of its interest, but, for all that, it is the most satisfying example of a walled stronghold of mediaeval times yet extant.

With all its gloom, its bareness, and the few hundreds of shaking pallid mortals which make up its present-day population, the marsh city of Aigues-Mortes is a lively memory to all who have seen it.

One comes by road and drives his automobile in through the battlemented gateway over the cobbled main street, or struggles up on foot from the station of the puny and important little railway which brings people down from Arles in something over an hour's time. Ultimately, one and all arrive at the excellent Hotel St. Louis, and eat bountifully of fresh fish of the Mediterranean, well cooked by the patron-chef, and well served by a dainty Arlesienne maiden of fifteen summers, who looks as though she might be twenty-two.

"C'est un chose a voir" every one tells you in the Bouches-du-Rhone when you mention Aigues-Mortes; and truly it is. As before suggested, you will not want to sleep within its dreary walls, but "it's a thing to see" without question, and to get away from as soon as possible, before a peculiarly vicious breed of mosquito inoculates you with the toxic poison of the marshes.

Now we are approaching the land of the poet Mistral, the most romantic region in all modern France, where the inhabitant in his repose and his pleasure still lives in mediaeval times and chants and dances himself (and herself) into a sort of semi-indifference to the march of time.

The Crau and the Camargue, lying south of Arles between Aigues-Mortes and the Etang de Berre, is the greatest fete-making pays, one might think, in all the world.

How many times, from January to January, the Provencal "makes the fete" it would be difficult to state—on every occasion possible, at any rate.

The great fete of Provence is the day of the ferrande, a sort of a cattle round-up held on the Camargue plain, something like what goes on in "le Far West," as the French call it, only on not so grand a scale.