SEEING EUROPE BY AUTOMOBILE SEEING EUROPE BY AUTOMOBILE A FIVE-THOUSAND-MILE MOTOR TRIP THROUGH FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, GERMANY, AND ITALY; WITH AN EXCURSION INTO ANDORRA, CORFU, DALMATIA, AND MONTENEGRO BY LEE MERIWETHER Author of "A Tramp Trip; How to See Europe on Fifty Cents a Day," "The Tramp at Home," "Afloat and Ashore on the Mediterranean" "A Lord's Courtship," Etc. NEW YORK THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 1911 0^ COPYBIGHT 1911, BY THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY Published Apbil, 1911 Pbess op William G. Hewitt Bbooklyn, New York © GL A TO WHO SHARED WITH ME THE GET-THEBE'S ADVENTURES, AND WHO FOR FIFTEEN YEARS HAS BEEN THE SUNBEAM OF MY LIFE, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGR I Buying the Get-There 1 II The Road to Rouen 15 III At the Gates of Paris 34 IV Off for Normandy 53 V The Chateau Country 72 VI From Blois to Versailles 92 VII A Day with Rousseau 108 VIII The Road to Rheims 133 IX From Valmy to Nancy 154 X The German Tour Begins 172 XI Through German Cities 195 XII The Rhine Country 217 XIII Into Switzerland 235 XIV Over the Alps 256 XV The Smallest Republic 280 XVI The Get-There in Italy 303 XVII Rome and Coast Cities 321 XVIII Hints for Motorists 337 XIX Across the Adriatic 358 XX Montenegro and Journey's Ending 373 Appendix 391 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE The View from Kastrades, in Corfu, was Surpassingly Lovely Frontispiece Hoisting Our Maxwell Out of the Steamer's Hold at Havre 8 : The Get-There on the Main Boulevard of Havre, just after being Unloaded from the Steamer 12 ^ A Windmill in Normandy 22 u It was through this Door that Joan of Arc was Conducted to Torture 28 " The Clock Tower in Rouen: We Stopped the Get-There Here and Lunched on Strawberries, Bread and Cheese. 32 A Corner in the Court of the Inn of William the Con- queror 60 The Get-There Approaching Mont Michel : The Spectre Windmill is a Trick of the Camera 70 L " From St. Malo We Looked Down on the City's Narrow Streets 74 The Chateau at Angers: the Walls are Fifteen Feet Thick. 78 The Chateau of Amboise, where Twelve Hundred Huguenots were Butchered for the Amusement of the Court 88 The Get-There about to Enter a German Village 172 A German Building of the Middle Ages: Note the Four- Storied Roof 182 The Vocation of Chimney Sweep is Still Pursued: One Stands beside our Automobile 202 The Rathshaus of Ulm is One of Germany's Most Interest- ing Buildings 210 All Germany is Airship Mad 218 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAQB \ Lunching on the Roadside in France 238 The Entrance to Besancon, Victor Hugo's Birthplace, is a Crevice in a Huge Rock 244 As We Reached a Higher Altitude the Scenery Became More Wild and Rugged 250 The Alps: Beamer in a Cool Spot on a Hot Surunier Day. 26G Entrevaux: Neither Gate nor Bridge was Wide Enough for the Get-There ■. 274 A Fort Surmounts the Lofty Peak Overlooking the Pic- turesque Town that Borders the River Var 27S A Broad Flight of Steps Leads to the Highest Street in the Deserted Town of Sospello 280 A Street in Ancient Ax: Note the Stairs 282 ' The People of L'Hospitalet Bidding Us Bon Voyage to Andorra 284 The Leaning Tower of Pisa Looked as if it were about to Fall upon the Get-There 312 The Get-There Looks Puny and Insignificant beneath the Massive Walls of the Colosseum 322 Isle of Lacroma, Adriatic Sea: The Cliff from which the Romans Used to Hurl Traitors 362 Lacroma: In this Palace, Now a Monastery, Maximilian Dwelt before He Set Forth to Conquer Mexico 366 Gravosa, the Port of Ragusa: We Disembarked at this Charming Place and Drove in a Carriage to Ragusa. . 370 Although it was a Sunday Morning the Streets of Ragusa were Thronged with Busy People Driving their Bar- gains 374 A View of Lake Skodra 386 SEEING EUROPE BY AUTOMOBILE Seeing Europe by Automobile CHAPTER I We decide to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of my Tramp Trip by traversing the same route in an automobile. — I buy the "Get-There."— Arrival at Havre. A QUARTER of a century ago my worldly goods amounted to just two hundred dol- lars, but I had youth, good health and a well-devel- oped love of adventure; accordingly, despite the pathetically small dimensions of my bank account, I set forth to see the world. And I saw it, at any rate the best part of it. Taking steerage passage in an Italian tramp steamer I landed in Gibraltar one March morning twenty-five years ago, and spent a year in walking through nearly every coun- try between that big rock and the Bosporus. Many a night the ground was my bed and the sky my covering; and a little macaroni, washed down by two cents' worth of red wine, was the extent of my average meal — certainly not luxury, but youth cares little for hardship when the simple life means seeing the world ! l 2 Seeing Europe by Automobile I did not mind sleeping on the ground when I could not find a place in a workingman 's home, nor did I object to macaroni; on the contrary, armed as I was with boyish health and a boundless capac- ity for enjoyment, I thought that first look out into the world the grandest journey ever taken. As the twenty-fifth anniversary of my Tramp Trip approached the idea occurred to me that it would be interesting to take the same trip again, only this time to make it by automobile instead of afoot. If it had been such sport plodding along at the rate of three miles an hour, how much more delightful would it be leisurely to motor through those countries so rich in history and scenery, and with roads as smooth and as firm as a billiard board! But the expense? Would such a trip be within the means of a professional man with a modest, an all too modest, law practice? That was the question ; and now that I have taken the trip and am able to answer that question candor requires the statement that motoring abroad is quite expen- sive enough; it is not the way to see Europe on fifty cents a day, as I saw it on my Tramp Trip a quarter of a century ago. But neither is it any- thing like as expensive as is commonly supposed; in a later chapter I shall give some figures and practical suggestions as to how to take an automo- bile to Europe, and the cost of operating one after Buying the Get-There 3 getting it there. For the present, however, let it only be said that the more I thought of that twen- ty-fifth anniversary the more the idea of dupli- cating it in an automobile appealed to me, with the result that finally I told Beamer — that is what I call my wife — to get ready, that I was decided to go. We arrived in New York one week before the steamer sailed ; that time, though short, sufficed to buy an automobile and to equip it for the trip. The Get-There, as we called our car, not because that was its name, but because it always got us to whatever place we wished to reach, was a two- seated, four-cylinder 28 h.-p. roadster, with a fold- ing seat in the rear which on occasion could com- fortably hold two persons. The rear seat, how- ever, was seldom used. It was folded flat, making a spacious deck upon which was bolted a large trunk. When unlocked the rear end of the trunk opened downward, exposing to view three drawers which slid in and out like the drawers of a bureau. This arrangement was planned so as to avoid the necessity of taking the entire trunk off of the automobile; on reaching the end of a day's run the particular drawer required could be taken out and sent up to our room. Each drawer was eight inches deep, thirty inches long and twenty- four inches wide — considerably larger than the largest suit case. 4 Seeing Europe by Automobile A round tire trunk within the two extra tires on the right running board carried wraps and inner tubes; on the left running board was strapped a light, roomy fiber box with a telescope top, which, when raised to the limit, gave the box a depth of eighteen inches. On the top of the fiber box was a suit case, and on top of that was a hand grip for books, maps and such articles as would be needed from moment to moment while riding. Being on a level with her seat and just to her left, Beamer could reach into this grip and get what was wanted without my having to stop the motor. Next to the fiber box on the running board was strapped a lunch basket containing three Thermos bottles, knives, forks and dishes, and boxes for cold meats and for bread; on the rear deck be- tween the trunk and the front seat was a ten-inch space for steamer blankets, rubber robes, umbrel- las and a bag containing cans of extra oil and gasoline. All this made the Get-There look like a gypsy wagon ; it also made some agility necessary in get- ting into and out of our seats, but these drawbacks were more than compensated for by the fact that we did not have to stint ourselves in clothing and in articles of travel, nor did we have to forward any luggage by rail. With all our belongings be- side us there was a freedom, an independence not otherwise possible. We never felt obliged to go to Buying the Get-There & any particular place in order to get a bag or a trunk; we were free to go absolutely whither the spirit prompted. Although the morning might find us going east, the afternoon would see us west- wardbound if that way lay an unusually pictur- esque road or an unexpectedly interesting ruin or castle. Uncertainty as to what is coming next, as to where nightfall will find you, lends a charm that is absent where your trip is ' l cut and dried, ' ' where you know all along just where you are going and what you are going to see. The automobile equipped, we drove it to a mill- wright's on Hudson Street to be cased, then it was shoved onto a big truck and hauled to the French Line's pier, where a derrick hoisted the huge box onto the steamship Chicago's deck as quickly and as easily as if it had been a five-pound box of candy. Next morning we took passage on the same steamer, and nine days later we were at anchor a mile off the coast of France. The month was July and the heat in New York had been intense, but there was no heat when the passengers crowded on the Chicago's decks to look at Havre's high bluffs and at the villas on those bluffs silhouetted against the cold, gray sky; some of those villas, frescoed in bright colors, looked against that leaden sky as if they were flat and unreal, like the houses of thea- ter scenery on a stage. In the cold, drizzling rain that was falling we had almost to pinch ourselves 6 Seeing Europe by Automobile to realize that we were in midsummer off the coast of "sunny" France, and not in November off the coast of Nova Scotia. The voyage across the Atlantic had been over smooth seas with delightful, balmy weather up to within the last two days of the journey; this had lulled the fears of most of the passengers, and their furs and wraps had been carefully packed away. And now bitterly was that misplaced confidence regretted as they shivered there on the Chicago's decks waiting for a tender to come and carry them ashore. One hundred and twenty-two years ago, when Arthur Young rode into Havre on the blind mare for which he paid twenty-three guineas, he made this entry in his diary : "Havre, Aug. 16, 1788. — The harbor's mouth is narrow and formed by a mole, but it enlarges into two oblong basins of greater breadth. These are full of ships to the number of some hundreds, and the quays around are thronged with busi- ness — all hurry, bustle and animation. They say a fifty-gun ship can enter, but I suppose without her guns. What is bet- ter, they have merchantmen of five hundred and even of six hundred tons! " How that observing English squire would open his eyes could he see the Havre of to-day ! Those basins which so excited his wonder because they floated ships of five hundred tons, and which now float twenty-thousand-ton steamers, have engaged the attention of French governments and engi- neers for the past two hundred and fifty years, and Buying the Get-There 7 they are constantly being improved and enlarged. We saw the President of France stand on a plat- form in the Place Gambetta in Havre and talk to fifty thousand people about a new basin which had just been completed and which the President had come from Paris to open. The basins, some of them seventy acres in extent, reach out into the city in various directions, so that there is presented the curious contrast of great steamships side by side with hotels and office buildings. It is as if the Hudson River were opened up into Fifth Avenue so that a Cunard steamer could lie alongside the Waldorf-Astoria. Only at high tide, however, can vessels enter the basins ; consequently the Chicago, having the ill-luck to arrive at low tide, was obliged to anchor a mile out at sea and send her passen- gers ashore on a tender. The minute we stepped ashore the fact that France was about to celebrate her Fourth of July was everywhere apparent — ribbons, streamers, flags, were flying from every window, while miles of wire for electric lights gave promise of the illumination in store. The French do not cele- brate their Fourth by making hideous noises and by killing or maiming thousands of children, but they do take a little more wine than usual ; at any rate, we were told that for a day or two following the Fourteenth of July French workingmen are seldom in trim to do any work, consequently that 8 Seeing Europe by Automobile we would have to wait until the end of the week before we could get the Get-There. Having no wish to remain in Havre, we at once consulted a shipping agent. The agent said it was impossible to get an automobile on the same day a steamer landed, but when we replied in that case we would consult another agent the impossible suddenly be- came possible. The agent called a cab and the next four hours were spent in going from one "Douane" (Customs) office to another. Just what it was all about we did not understand. We obe- diently signed and swore to an assortment of papers and documents, stuck before us by the agent, then at last he exclaimed : "Voila, Monsieur, c'est fini! (it is finished !) You have but to present these papers and pay the duty and your automobile will be released.' ' The tide was now up and the Chicago was float- ing in one of the large basins alongside a quay in the heart of the city. It took but a few minutes to drive there and produce the papers which we had been signing, whereupon permission was given to unbox the Get-There. Men were close by waiting for the job, and in half an hour, accompanied by a soldier, we were in our automobile on the way to the main Custom House, where a polite official, after weighing the Get-There and making an in- ventory of its number, seating capacity, color, etc., handed us the following certificate : Buying the Get-There 9 "Une voiture automobile No. 9556, moteur en carosserie, 4 cylindres, chassis et carosserie rouges; bandages pneu- matiques, 4 places, 3 lanternes, 2 phares, pesant net 1,128 kilos. Le droit Fr. 676.80." "Preserve this inventory and this receipt," said the official after we had handed him the six hun- dred and seventy-six francs, "and the duty you have just paid will be refunded at the frontier station where you finally leave France. C'est tout, Monsieur (that is all, sir). You are at liberty to go." Yes, we might go so far as he was concerned, but another important formality remained — a per- mit to "circulate" in France had to be obtained. To secure this permit written application must be made in French, on stamped paper, addressed to "M. le Ministere des Travaux Publics, Paris." In due time, usually two weeks, this dignitary sends an official to examine the applicant's ability as a chauffeur. When the official reports to the minister "des Travaux Publics" how much, or how little, the applicant knows about automobiles some more red tape is unwound, and after a while, if he is lucky, he gets his license to operate a motor car in France. This, the usual routine, may do for the man who lives in Paris and wants a permit to motor next year, but it is not a good method for the man whose time is limited and wants to motor now. 10 Seeing Europe by Automobile The idea of passing several weeks in Havre while waiting for a chauffeur's license had not appealed to us, accordingly several months before leaving St. Louis we wrote a letter to the Prefet of Police at Havre, asking him to help us expedite matters. It is no part of the Prefet 's duty to attend to such cases, but with true French courtesy the Havre official sent me a letter of application written in French, accompanied by a note stating if I would return it to him with my signature and photo- graph (postage-stamp size) he would have the permit ready upon our arrival at Havre. Just how he was able at such long range (it is some four thousand miles from St. Louis to Havre) to determine my ability as a chauffeur I do not know, nor did I think it discreet to inquire. In the letter which the Prefet sent for me to sign I was made to give my address as No. 42 Eue de Montivilliers, Le Havre, and to that ad- dress we drove as soon as the customs formalities were completed. A subordinate of the Prefet lived there and had our permit ready; the photograph sent from St. Louis was pasted on the upper cor- ner and the certificate set forth that, having been duly examined, Monsieur Lee Meriwether was au- thorized to " circulate' ' over the roads of France. Eealizing that foreign motorists leave money in France, French officials facilitate their entrance into the country and waive formalities which in Buying the Get-There 11 the case of residents are insisted upon. This is deemed so perfectly proper that there is no harm in mentioning the courtesy extended to us, and it may even be useful to give a copy of the letter which gained us this favor. The reader who pur- poses motoring in France will find that a letter modeled on ours will answer his purpose, even if our French is a bit shaky as to grammar and spell- ing. Of course, the date and port of arrival must be altered to suit. Here is the letter: , St. Louis, 29 Mars, 1909. A Monsieur le Preset du Department de la Seine InfSrieure, Le Havre, France. Monsieur le Prefet: — J'espere arriver au Havre le douze Juillet prochain avec mon automobile. J'ai entendu dire que souvent on etait oblige d'attendre au Havre une semaine avant d'avoir un per- mis de circulation et un brevet de capacite. Comme mes vacances seront tres courtes je ne voudrais pas etre oblige de rester longtemps dans votre ville, et je vous serais reconnaissant de me dire s'il n'est pas possible de faire en sorte que je puisse avoir ces permis le jour meme de mon arrivee au Havre. Je crois savoir, qu'il est necessaire de faire une application sur papier timbre; s'il est vrai qu'on est oblige d'attendre apres remise de cette application, ne pouvez vous pas me faire parvenir le papier timbre necessaire contre un mandat international? Veuillez me dire, alors, si je vous adresse mon application en avance, s'il me sera possible d'avoir mes permis le jour de mon arrivee? Agreez, Monsieur le Prefet, l'assurance de ma parfaite con- sideration. Lee Merjwetheb. 12 Seeing Europe by Automobile (Translation.) St. Louis, March 29, 1909. To the Prefect of the Department, The Lower Seine, Havre, France. Dear Sir: — I expect to arrive at Havre the 12th of next July with my automobile. I have heard that often one is obliged to wait a week at Havre before receiving a permit to drive an auto- mobile. As my vacation is short I should not like to remain a long time in your city and I shall be greatly obliged by your letting me know if it is not possible in some way to secure a permit on the same day of my arrival. I understand it is necessary to make an application upon stamped paper; if this is true can you not furnish me the necessary stamped paper upon my forwarding you a postoffice money order to cover cost of same? Will you inform me, therefore, in case I forward my appli- cation in advance, whether it will be possible to obtain the permit on the day I arrive in Havre? Yours respectfully, Lee Meriwether. Though we made record time in getting the Get- There from the steamer and through the custom house, and in securing a license, still it was late in the afternoon before we left my " domicile' ' at No. 42 Eue de Montivilliers with the license in my pocket and number plates fastened both in the front and rear of our automobile; so we deferred our departure until the next day and spent what remained of the afternoon in motoring about Havre. A very steep, but a very smooth and beautiful boulevard winds up the back of the city, and from the high points of this street, which is lined with o fc w pq P3 H H pq «3 H Cfi P b ^ H tf ti > H <4 3 M p 3 p O o M M ft g 3 come with us to America. Had I asked her to go to the moon she would not have looked more disgusted. No, indeed, France was good enough for her, and she urged her donkey forward as if fearing we had the evil design of taking her away to our heathen land. In the villages we noted that lessons in history are contained in the namos of the streets — Eue Victor Hugo, 1803-1885; Eue Jeanne d'Arc, 1412- 1431, etc. The names include those of all sorts of historical personages, and the dates of their birth and death are shown in brackets under the names. 18 Seeing Europe by Automobile With this information on every street lamp-post, there is little excuse in France for not knowing at least the names of illustrious Frenchmen, and when they were born and when they died. After the perfection of the road and the beauty of the scenery the thing that most impressed us on that ride through Normandy was the absence of anything like poverty or distress. The people seemed happy and prosperous — very different from the French peasant of the seventeenth cen- tury whom the philosopher La Bruyere described as a " strange animal, dark yet pallid in skin, half- clothed and sunburnt, bound to the soil which he dug and turned over with invincible obstinacy.' ' The French peasant of the seventeenth century was a veritable brother to the ox, and a stepbrother at that; for the ox received some attention, some care — the peasant received none. But his modern descendant is a different sort of fellow. The par- cel of ground which the peasant of to-day occupies may be a small one, but it is his, and this alone is enough to account for the conservatism of rural France. The cities have their agitators, their so- cialists, their reformers ready to make of earth a heaven by the simple expedient of adopting their particular panacea ; but the peasant will have none of these. He has no use for any reform that will dislodge him from his patch of ground. And so, being now a citizen with as good a vote as Mon- The Road to Rouen 19 sieur le Marquis or M. le Due, it is the peasant of France who furnishes the balance wheel, who keeps the republic out of dangerous entanglements, who vetoes schemes of military glory and political re- venge. Incidentally, this individual ownership of land makes the plain Frenchman out on the fields of France forget the horrors of the great revolu- tion, for he knows it is to that revolution that he owes the ownership of the ground on which he lives. The valley on both sides of the Seine is one con- tinuous garden ; every acre is cultivated ; the little homes of the peasants are clean and comfortable, many of them even picturesque — a vivid contrast to the France of 1787, as pictured in Arthur Young's celebrated diary. At one point, where the road ran for a long distance close to the bank of the Seine, we stopped the Get-There under the shade of a tree and alternately looked out on the beautiful France of to-day; and then, in the pages of Young's book, we looked out on the unhappy France of one hundred and twenty years ago. Here is a sample of the flashlight which the Eng- lish squire 's diary throws on that troubled period : "Walking up a long hill to ease my mare, I was joined by a poor woman who complained of the times; she said her hus- band had hut a morsel of land, one cow and a poor little horse, yet they had forty-two pounds of wheat and three chickens to pay as quit rent to one seigneur, and 168 pounds of oats, one chicken and one shilling to pay to another, besides very heavy 20 Seeing Europe by Automobile tailles and other taxes. She had seven children and the cow's milk helped to make the soup. * * * At no great distance the woman might have been taken for sixty or seventy, her figure was so bent, her face so hardened by labor, but she said she was only twenty-eight. * * * The women work harder than the men and this, united with the more miserable labor of bringing a new race of slaves into the world, destroys abso- lutely all symmetry of person and of feminine appearance." After reading this description of the French peasant of 1787 we wanted to get a near view of the French peasant of to-day; accordingly we stopped at the first honse we came to. It was built of stone, one story high, with a steep, thatched gable roof. Vines overran the walls. Near-by stood a windmill, with shingled sides and four giant arms revolving lazily in a gentle breeze. The peasant and his wife and the larger children were at work in the fields, but a girl of eight and a sturdy, red-cheeked boy of six were at home, and from the matter-of-fact way in which they received us it was plain they were not unaccustomed to the visit of motorists. Yes, they could give Monsieur and Madame a pitcher of cider — for seven sous the liter; and we might have " essence' ' (gasoline), too, only that cost more — nine sous the liter. We did not need any gasoline, having filled the Get- There 's tank at Havre; neither did we need any cider; we had sampled that famed Normandy bev- erage and found it not at all to our liking. Never- theless, we ordered both cider and essence, for we The Road to Rouen 21 wanted an excuse to linger before that quaint cot- tage, in the shade of that curious old windmill. "Why do you charge more for essence than for cider V 9 we asked the little maid, whereat she smiled at our simplicity. "Because, Monsieur, it costs my father more. The essence comes from America and pays a tax ; the cider we make on the farm : there is no tax on it." Before our trip ended we found the tax question everywhere in Europe an important item in motor- ing. In Germany good old Munich beer costs only six cents the liter, whereas benzine, as the Ger- mans call gasoline, costs from ten to fifteen cents the liter (a liter is a fraction more than a quart). In France you can get a liter of very good claret for eight cents, but for gasoline you pay as much as fifteen cents the liter, the price depending upon the city in which you buy it. The octroi tax of Paris is four cents the liter, and this, added to the government tax, makes the Paris price of essence high, from fourteen to eighteen cents the liter, or something like seventy cents a gallon. In rural regions, where there is no octroi tax, five-liter tin cans of essence (called "Bidons") are sold for from francs 1.80 to 2.25, or, approximately, thirty- five to forty-five cents a gallon. Among our other impedimenta was a gallon can of gasoline for emergency use, but only once on the whole trip 22 Seeing Europe by Automobile (while ascending the mountain of the Grande Char- treuse) did any emergency arise; every time there was need for gasoline it was to be had close at hand at a hotel or chemist's, if we were in town, and at a peasant's house on the roadside, if we were in the country. The little miss in the thatched house by the old windmill wore wooden shoes, so did her little brother ; and both said they liked them — that they kept out the cold and wet. This was probably true, but to us it seemed that this advantage was more than offset by their unsightliness and clumsi- ness. At ^ve o'clock, while the sun was still high in the heavens, the Get-There was suddenly stopped by a closed gateway across the road. At first we thought it a toll-gate or a railway crossing, but it was only the octroi gate of Eouen. When we drew near, a man in uniform got up from the chair in which he was sitting near the closed gate, put his hand over his mouth to hide a yawn, and said: "Bon jour, Monsieur. Est-ce que vous avez quelque chose a declarer?" (have you anything to declare?) "men" (nothing). "Tres bien, Monsieur!" And the man in uniform suppressed another yawn as he opened the gate to let us pass. Accord- ing to the letter of the law, the gasoline in our A WINDMILL IN NORMANDY The Road to Rouen 23 tank and the lunch in our basket were both subject to octroi tax, but with the one exception of Paris we were never bothered by octroi officers. Of course, they knew we had gasoline — the Get-There could not have moved an inch without it — but if all cities and towns followed Paris' example, mo- toring in France would be impossible. You pass through towns a dozen times a day, and it would be intolerably annoying, not to say expensive, were one obliged to have measurements made and pay a tax at the gate of every town entered. This is realized, and as there is no desire to prevent for- eigners from coming to France to spend their money, the question at city gates, ' ' Have you any- thing to declare V 9 is a mere formality. You an- swer "Rien," and the tax officer waves you into his town without even a pretense of examining your possessions. With home folks he is not so complacent. We have seen Frenchmen detained at a city gate while an officer poked around into all sorts of impossible places in the automobile, look- ing for chickens or a roast or something else sub- ject to the municipal tax. Rouen is a fairly big town. Even after entering its gates we had to go a couple of miles over stone- paved streets, not so smooth as the country road we had just traversed, but quite as good as the average asphalt street in an American city, before we drew up in front of the Hotel de Paris on the 24 Seeing Europe by Automobile quai bordering the Seine. From the windows of our room we could see the fish boats unloading their morning's catch; we could also see the extraor- dinary platform, for it is a floating platform rather than a boat, Pont Transbordeur the French call it, which is used to ferry people back and forth across the river. The like of this arrangement we have not seen in any other city; the platform is pulled back and forth across the Seine by means of a cable passed overhead upon a structure so high that the largest ships and tallest masts pass freely beneath it. The aerial track upon which the cable rests is supported on each bank of the Seine by lofty steel towers ; wire ropes connected with the moving cable extend down to the movable platform far below, so that when the cable moves the ferry platform moves, too, carrying with it its load of freight and passengers. We had seen in our Michelin automobile guide that the Hotel de Paris had accommodations for two automobiles; that is why we chose that hotel. Motoring is now so common in France that in their eagerness to secure the motorist's patronage many hotels provide free storage for their guests ' automobiles. On reaching the end of a day's run we always consulted our Michelin to see what hotel would store the Get-There free of charge. On the Chicago was a young student from a western college, who had come over to spend his The Road to Rouen 25 vacation on a bicycle. He started from Havre several hours before we did, yet we passed him on the road, and were dressed and at dinner before he wheeled np to the Hotel de Paris splattered with mud, but declaring that he had had a bully time and wouldn't swap his bike for a dozen autos. "You might as well be in an armchair as in that bunch of upholstery,' ' he said. "You get no ex- ercise, at least none with your legs. I dare say your arms get a bit of a turn now and then, twist- ing that wheel or putting on a tire, but look at that! You can't get that lolling in an auto !" And he pointed with pride to the calves of his stock- inged legs. They certainly were well developed, betokening much cycling in his western state; twenty-five years ago this argument might have carried conviction to me, but the strenuous bicycle does not appeal to one so strongly at forty-five as it does when one is twenty. I smiled at the stu- dent's enthusiasm, but I did not offer to swap my automobile for his "bike." As excellent as was the Hotel de Paris at No. 50 Quai de Paris we shall not stop there the next time we go to Eouen — this because I have prom- ised Beamer to stop at the Inn des Bons Enfants, which we discovered while rambling in the old quarter of the city. We were threading our way down a curious, winding street, so narrow that an automobile could not possibly traverse it — a street 26 Seeing Europe by Automobile like one in an "Old Paris' ' or an "Old Nurem- berg' ' of a World's Fair show — everything was so quaint and queer, so far removed in spirit, in color, in looks from the life and street of the twentieth century. The houses leaned forward as if about to embrace their neighbors across the way; the win- dows were small, like portholes — I could have sworn that a hunchback we saw darting through a narrow passage into a court was a twin brother of Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame." And the courtyard into which he darted was precisely such a place as d'Artagnan was accustomed to stable his horse in. We stumbled on this court of the Inn des Bons Enfants by accident ; a peasant driving a cart with two enormous wheels had quite occupied the nar- row street, compelling us to regulate our steps by those of his horse, for there was not room enough for us to pass the cart. Suddenly the peasant pulled to the right and turned into the courtyard which the hunchback had entered. We in our turn followed the cart and presently found ourselves in a curious place filled with carts loaded with veg- etables; they had come from the country for twenty miles about Eouen and the Hotel des Bons Enfants was a typical peasant's inn. At the court's far end a door admitted us into a large kitchen in charge of a motherly woman with a queer white bonnet on her head. Not suspecting The Road to Rouen 27 that our questions were prompted by mere curi- osity, she saw in us possible patrons and offered to show us rooms. They were small and they looked out on the court filled with carts and horses, but the rooms were clean and the beds were spread with clean linen. For Monsieur and Madame the room would cost two francs (thirty-nine cents) ; dinner, and a good one, too, costs two francs. The grand breakfast was one franc, while petit de- jeuner — "Ah, Monsieur, that is verily but a trifle, three or four sous, according to the amount of bread one eats." The Inn des Bons Enfants has been run as an hotel since the year 1410, exactly ^ve hundred years, and Beamer wanted to bring our things from the Hotel de Paris and stay there. "Just think!" she cried. "This was an inn when they burned poor Joan of Arc. Perhaps the man who slept in this very room, when he awoke in the morning, went around the corner that dread- ful day to see her burn. It will bring it all so close to us if we come and stop here!" Our stay in Rouen was to be so short, and we were so comfortably fixed at the Hotel de Paris, Beamer finally consented to forego making this sentimental change of hotels, but in return I prom- ised if ever we went back to Rouen that we would stop at the ancient Inn des Bons Enfants. 28 Seeing Europe by Automobile "Beyond the Place de la Pucelle is the Place du Vieux- March6 where Joan of Arc was burned in 1431 on the spot marked on our plan by a cross." That is the terse way in which Baedeker puts it ; if anything could make a story seem commonplace and uninteresting it would be this guidebook method of treatment. But nothing can dull the heart-interest, the pathos, the tragedy of Joan of Arc's story — a story without a parallel in the world's history, and hardly paralleled even in the pages of romantic fiction. That is why, in spite of Baedeker's cold two-line notice, every tourist to Rouen goes to. the old market-place and looks at the spot marked with a marble tablet where that marvelous maid was burned to death nearly five hundred years ago. Only nineteen at the time of her death, yet she had already won immortality; only an unlettered, unsophisticated peasant girl, yet she had done what France's greatest men had not been able to do — led French armies to victory, defeated the English and crowned Charles King of France at Rheims. No scientific training, no military college, no drilling for Joan — only dreams and spirit voices. But these were enough to win a kingdom for Charles and to incur a sorceress' death for the poor little maid of Domremy. No, such a story as this can not be made common- place even by cold, terse, guidebook treatment; the spot marked by that marble cross on the side- IT WAS THEOUGH THIS DOOK THAT JOAN OF ARC WAS CONDUCTED TO TORTURE The Road to Rouen 29 walk in front of the market-place in Kouen has been of mournful interest to the world for many hundred years ; it will continue of interest as long as civilization endures and wonderful deeds and undeserved martyrdom have power to thrill the hearts and stir the imagination of men. Rouen 's busiest street is called the Rue Jeanne d'Arc; statues are erected in her honor; secular historians without a dissenting voice have declared her one of the world's most extraordinary figures. And now the church has decreed her a saint and given her the crown of martyrdom. As we stood in the dungeon of Philip Augustus' castle, built in 1207, and called the Tour de Jeanne d'Arc since her imprisonment there in 1431, as we looked on the very manacles and massive walls that once imprisoned her, and then as we stooped and passed out through the same little door through which Joan walked that May morning to her death, and followed the same path which she took from the tower to the market-place, we thought of the infi- nite pity, the infinite tragedy of it all — so much suffering in her life, when suffering meant so much to her; so much homage after her death, when neither suffering nor homage can affect her ! This thought is often impressed upon the traveler; one generation sings paeans of praise and erects monu- ments to the memory of men whom a previous gen- eration burned at the stake or crucified on a cross. 30 Seeing Europe by Automobile In Rome there is a noble statue of Giardano Bruno on the spot where he was burned in February, 1600. Who knows but that some day the traveler in Spain will see boulevards named after Senor Ferrer and statues erected to his memory even in Barcelona, where he was shot to death in October, 1909? While we stood on the sidewalk near Joan of Arc's tablet, reading its brief inscription — "Jeanne d'Arc, 31 Mai 1431 ' '— thinking of that May morn five hundred years ago, when nature was so beautiful and man so cruel, we were roused from thoughts of the dead past and recalled to the present by a sudden and horrible noise — a noise as of several hundred lunatics all screaming at once. Eushing inside the market-house to see what was the matter, we beheld a mob of men and women surging around an enormous stone-covered table, on which was a huge pile of squirming, wrig- gling fish, dumped there a moment before from sacks and barrels filled with water. At one end of the table sat a matronly woman and two men. For a couple of minutes the mob screamed and gesticu- lated wildly, then there was a hush; the matronly woman wrote something in a book, one of the men wrote something in another book, the mass of fish was swept off the table into sacks and we thought the disturbance ended. But before we had time to turn around another The Road to Rouen 31 pile of fish was dumped on that big marble slab, and the screaming began again — all rather mys- tifying until we learned what it was about: the boats from Havre had just arrived and this was an auction of fish to traders and hucksters. One of the men at the head of the table was the auctioneer and the other man was an officer of the Eouen octroi. A tax was due on every pound of those fish and the octroi officer was there to see that every pound paid its tax. The harder a man works the bigger his appetite, and the more he eats the more tax he pays ; this ingenious tax can not be escaped. It reaches out into the market- place, into the grocery store, into the butcher shop and levies toll on every morsel of food that is eaten. The only possible way to beat it is to get dyspepsia and stop eating. As inequitable as such a system is — taxing most heavily those least able to bear it — it, nevertheless, has a firm hold upon the Latin states of Europe ; there are few towns in France, Spain or Italy where incoming food is not stopped and taxed at the city gates. True, in the case of foreign motor- ists the law is frequently not enforced. I recall one instance, however, in the days of my Tramp Trip, when I had to eat the luncheon in my knap- sack in order to avoid the octroi tax. The amount was a trifle, but I had already paid on that same luncheon when passing through a village a few 32 Seeing Europe by Automobile miles back, and I was opposed on principle to pay- ing two tax fees on one and the same lunch; that was why I stopped just outside the town gate and put the lunch where it could not be taxed as I entered the town. Of course, we visited Rouen's cathedral and saw its beautiful windows, its carved stalls, its relics of gruesome interest, such as the heart of Richard Coeur de Lion. That heart, which beat so bravely in a hundred battles, until it was pierced by an ar- row from the Castle of Chaluz, has reposed for seven hundred years in a niche within the stately Gothic Cathedral of Rouen. Not far from the cathedral stands the tower of the big clock, stretch- ing clear across the street. It was raining the morning we were there, so we stopped the Get- There under the shelter of the overhanging tower whilst we went foraging. Despite the octroi tax prices seemed reasonable. For eight cents we got a basket of delicious strawberries ; some excellent cream cheese, bread and cakes cost only a few cents more, and on returning to the Get-There we climbed into its seats and lunched there, protected from the rain by the big clock above; and that lunch cost only thirty cents for the two of us ! The passers-by seemed interested in this unconven- tional proceeding, but they had no advantage over us, for we were interested in them, especially in the women who filled their pitchers from the an- I. THE CLOCK TOWER IN ROUEN : WE STOPPED THE GET- THERE HERE AND LUNCHED ON STRAW- BERRIES, BREAD AND CHEESE The Road to Rouen 33 cient fountain at the base of the clock tower. In America even cheap flats are supplied with run- ning water, but modern plumbing is not often found in houses of the Middle Ages ; consequently, in Old World cities sometimes even the rich, living in pretentious palaces, have to send out to a street fountain for their water. Our luncheon under the big clock finished, the Get-There was put in motion and twenty yards away we turned into the Eue Jeanne d'Arc, then into the Quai de Paris, and soon we were again on our way up the valley of the Seine. CHAPTER III At the gates of Paris. — We make a notched stick. — A French arrest. — Motoring on crowded boulevards. — The Bastile. — Napoleon's tomb. — Malmaison. — Forty-eight miles of motor- ing through the forest of Fontainebleau. ^VN the way from Rouen to Paris both roads and ^-^ scenery were splendid as far as St. Ger- main; then both fell below par, especially the roads, which, the rest of the way to Paris, were as bad as American roads. Just why they should be so bad for ten miles or so around Paris, when they are so excellent everywhere else in France, I do not know, but it is a fact. Not once on any of our excursions out of Paris did we find a good road until we had gone at least a dozen miles. As far as St. Germain the Get-There sailed along over roads so smooth it was like flying ; then the shaking-up process began and continued until we halted in front of the gate opening into the Avenue de la Grande Armee, that superb boule- vard down which the Germans marched forty years ago into the Champs Elysees, and so on to the palace of the Tuilleries. At that gate the shake-up of the road ended and the shake-up of the octroi 34 At the Gates of Paris 35 began, for Paris lets no octroi penny escape, not even that of the foreign motorist. We were asked to remove the cushions so the officer could get at the tank underneath the seat and thrust in his measuring stick and guess at the quantity of " es- sence' ' the tank contained; I say guess, for that is all he could do. It was not possible to get the tank's dimensions, located as it was under the seat ; hence it was the merest guesswork to say it held so many liters, merely because the stick showed that the gasoline was so many inches deep. As the octroi tax is high — four cents a quart — it was worth while to arrange for a real measure- ment rather than submit to mere guesswork; ac- cordingly, one of the first things we did in Paris was to empty the Get-There 's tank, then refill it, ^ve liters at a time; as each five-liter bidon was emptied into the tank a stick was thrust down to the bottom and a notch made at the point where the gasoline came, so that each notch on the stick would mean five liters of gasoline in the tank — a trifling detail this, but one the reader will appre- ciate should he ever do any motoring in and out of Paris. During the ten days Paris was our head- quarters we passed through the gates half a dozen times, visiting Fontainebleau, Versailles, Malmai- son and the many other historic spots in the capi- tal's environs; and that notched stick was like a 36 Seeing Europe by Automobile magician's wand in expediting onr passage. It reduced the delay to a minimum. "Voila, Monsieur, three notches. That means fifteen liters." "Vous etes certain, Monsieur?" (you are cer- tain?) ' ' Quite. It is I myself who made the notches. ' ' "In that case, Monsieur, the amount you pay is three francs. ' ' Such is a sample of the dialogue which took place each time we entered Paris. When going the other way, out instead of in, the notches told the officers how many liters with which to credit us ; then when we re-entered the city the tax was imposed only upon the amount, if any, in excess of that with which we had previously made our exit. When we left Paris for the last time the Get- There 's tank contained forty liters of gasoline and the octroi officer gave us a little blue slip reading as follows : Octroi de Paris, Porte de Charenton. 9986. Bulletin de Constatation de Sortie. A l'usage exclusif des conducteurs d'Automobiles. Bon pour la reintroduction de quarante litres de petrole ou essence minerale (Droit: 19.80 fr l'hectol). Paris le 8 Aout 1909. Chef de Service. 767-Z-5. Ce bon n'est valable que pour une seule reintroduction egale ou inferieure a la quantity ci-dessus indiquee. At the Gates of Paris 37 We are treasuring that little blue slip not so much because of the $1.60 it will save us should we ever re-enter Paris with forty liters of "es- sence," but because we hope it may prove a mascot and some day bring us back to Paris in a motor car. Than this no mascot could do one a better turn, for to be in Paris with your own automobile is the most enjoyable thing imaginable. It is said all good Americans go to Paris when they die, but no motoring American will wait till the hereafter if he has half a chance to go there now. In saying this it is fair to add that I am going counter to the opinion of friends who have motored in France. When they reached Paris they stored their auto- mobile and resorted to 'buses and taxicabs; they thought it too dangerous to motor on the capital's crowded thoroughfares. It is true that amid the congested traffic of one of the world's largest cities one needs steady nerves and a cool head, but even on the Boulevard des Italiens and the Avenue de l'Opera we experienced no special difficulty; and there was keen delight in watching that wonderful stream of vehicles, of horses, of humanity, and of being for the moment an atom in that great stream, mingling with it, a part of its life, of its infinite variety ! Such a stream is to be seen in only two or three of the world's largest cities, and even in them — in New York and in London — the scene is 38 Seeing Europe by Automobile not so variegated, so animated, so picturesque as it is on the great boulevards of Paris. The hotel we went to was near the Opera House, so was the garage, and it took but a few minutes after dinner each evening during our stay to get the Get-There and plunge into one or the other of the animated streams which begin at the Place de l'Opera and radiate thence in a dozen different directions to the farthest extremities of the me- tropolis. During the ten days that we were thus tempting fate, and, according to our timid friends who stored their automobile and rode in 'buses, that we were running the risk of all sorts of acci- dents, we had not a single mishap, not a break- down, not a scratch. Even our lamps came out of the ordeal unscathed, although there were mo- ments when the long line of vehicles hesitated and halted, and it required skilful handling to avoid collision with the driver just ahead or just behind us. One thing did happen during those ten days, but that was funny rather than serious. I was arrest- ed. It was one afternoon on the Boulevard des Ital- iens. While Beamer stepped into the bank, and while I awaited her return, seated in the Get-There in front of the Credit Lyonnaise, a policeman ap- proached, touched his cap in polite salute and said it desolated him inexpressibly, but that he was obliged to place me under arrest ! Why? Because At the Gates of Paris 39 my motor was smoking. I looked around, but not a bit of smoke did I see. "Ah, Monsieur, c'est vrai (that is true), but that is because the motor is now resting. But a while ago ! M on dieu, yes, it was then that Monsieur's motor smoked. I saw it. I followed. And now, Monsieur, be so good as to give me your address." I gave it. What next? "Nothing, Monsieur. C'est tout" (that is all). "But you said I was under arrest !" "Mais oui (yes), but for the present c'est tout. Monsieur is at liberty to proceed ! ' ' And giving another polite salute, the policeman took his departure. At the hotel that evening we were told that in a week or ten days there would be left at the hotel a summons to appear before a magistrate, who would probably fine me ^ve francs. "But we shall not be here after this week." "Ah, in that case, Monsieur, they can not fine you." And that was all there was to it. After my "ar- rest," which detained us less than ten minutes, we continued our drive to the Place de la Bastile, in doing so passing through the eight principal boule- vards of Paris — the Boulevards des Italiens, Mont- marte, Poissoniere, Bonne Nouvelle, St. Denis, St. Martin, du Temple and Beaumarchais, and thence to Napoleon's tomb by the Boulevards 40 Seeing Europe by Automobile Henri IV and St. Germain. Any one who can without mishap conduct an automobile along this route between three and six o'clock in the after- noon can fairly claim to know how to drive a motor car. Such a jam of men, horses and automobiles is to be seen nowhere else in the world; in London there is as big a jam of men and horses, but Paris has more automobiles, and they rush about with- out the least regard for speed laws or the safety of pedestrians. Were it not for the little "islands" stationed at intervals in the center of the streets it would be quite impossible for a pedestrian to cross a Paris boulevard. As it is, he must watch his chance to dart over to the island ; there, under the sheltering wing of a tall lamp- post, standing on the raised circle around its base, he must watch the stream of humanity going the other way on the other half of the street and wait for a gap through which to dart across to his desti- nation. If he is timid and waits for too big a gap he may stand by that lamp-post an hour; but after one has been in Paris a while one ceases to be timid in such matters. Every one seems to be rushing across the boulevards, almost under the horses' hoofs or the automobile wheels, and everybody — or nearly everybody — gets across alive; so you, too, soon find yourself willing to take chances. As the Place de la Bastile is neared the Boule- vard Beaumarchais widens almost into a square At the Gates of Paris 41 which is largely given up to merrymaking, a la Coney Island. We saw there a merry-go-round of goats, lions, hogs and other animals whirling around to the accompaniment of the usual canned music, and grown-up men and women, as well as children, were riding on those goats and lions. Not far away was a sliding game : a cable was fastened at one end to the top of a pier thirty feet high, and the other end, a hundred yards away, was fastened to a ring in the ground. Boys, and men, too, climbed to the top of that pier and grasped a handle con- nected with a grooved wheel and shot down the in- cline at terrifying speed. Next to this game some acrobats were showing their skill on the sidewalk, and then taking up a collection from the lookers- on — all this in the heart of Paris on one of its main thoroughfares. If the reader can imagine the merry-go-rounds of Coney Island suddenly transported across the Brooklyn Bridge and set down in Columbus Circle on Broadway, he will be able to picture the scene one beholds as one ap- proaches the Place de la Bastile. With such horse-play going on, with that canned music filling the air with discordant sounds, it was difficult to step back in spirit to that July day in 1789 when this same square was filled, not with idle merrymakers, but with thousands of stern- faced men about to strike the first deadly blow at the old order of things in France. We stopped the 42 Seeing Europe by Automobile Get-There in front of the column which now stands in the center of the square, and by reading there on the spot descriptions of the celebrated prison, which once stood where we were then reading, we were able to forget the hubbub around us and live for a moment in the past. One of the episodes we read, related in Arthur Young's diary, is worth repeating: The English squire, who was in Paris the day the Bastile was stormed, says that while awaiting the French Min- ister of Foreign Affairs in the latter 's reception- room, Lord Albemarle, the English ambassador, happened to glance at a paper on the minister's table ; it was a list of the Bastile 's prisoners, and the first name on the list was George Gordon. When the minister entered a few minutes later Lord Albemarle apalogized for seeing the list — it was really quite accidental, the paper was lying open where he could not help seeing it. And, hav- ing seen it, he was naturally interested in observ- ing that the first name on the list was that of an Englishman : Would His Excellency mind telling why the Englishman Gordon was imprisoned ? No, His Excellency wouldn't mind in the least, only really he didn't know — but he would inquire and let the ambassador know. Several days later the Minister of Foreign Affairs reported that the Gov- ernor of the Bastile knew nothing of the case ex- cept that Gordon had been in the prison thirty At the Gates of Paris 43 years ; who put him there, or why he was put there, the records did not state. Then the prisoner was sent for, but he, too, declared that he had no idea why he had been imprisoned. Thirty years before he had been dragged from his home in the middle of the night, and from that moment until sent for to answer the ambassador's questions he had never been outside his dungeon walls ! Gordon was at once set free, but think of those awful thirty years of martyrdom — a martyrdom for no known cause either to the victim or to his jailors. Was it the result of a frightful mistake? Was it due to private malice? Did some dissolute woman with an influential lover wheedle him into giving her a lettre de cachet that she might feed her grudge against the Englishman! These ques- tions were never answered, and even the tragedy of his imprisonment would not have been known, and the wretched Gordon would not have gained freedom, even after thirty years, but for the veri- est accident — the accident of the English ambassa- dor happening to glance at a piece of paper on the table of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs ! Eeading this book of Arthur Young, written on the spot within a few days after the storming of the Bastile, almost made lis forget the noise of the merry-go-rounds and the steam organs ; it enabled us, too, to comprehend why the people were so terribly in earnest that July morning in 1789, and 44 Seeing Europe by Automobile why July 14th is to this day celebrated from one end of France to the other. From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step — and so from the ridiculous merry-go-rounds with their hogs and goats and frivolous crowds of fun-finders, it was but a little way to the solemn and majestic tomb of Napoleon. Within a few minutes after leaving the Place de la Bastile with its noisy crowds, the Get-There stood in front of the Hotel des Invalides while we entered and looked down upon the tomb of the mightiest man in history. As is usually the case, the place was filled with people drawn hither by the solemn beauty of the surroundings, as well as by the never-dying inter- est in the marvelous man whose ashes repose where he wished them to repose — "on the banks of the Seine in the midst of the French people whom I loved so well ! ' ' Little attention, certainly little respect, is paid by the average visitor at the Hotel des Invalides to the tomb of Napoleon's common- place brother, Joseph, or to the tomb of his unwor- thy brother, Jerome. Near Jerome's sarcophagus is a smaller one containing the heart of his second wife, Sophia Dorothea, daughter of King Fred- erick I of Wurttemberg. After Napoleon's down- fall King Frederick wanted his daughter to abandon Jerome, as Jerome had abandoned his American wife, the beautiful Miss Patterson; but At the Gates of Paris 45 declaring she meant to share his misfortune as well as his fortune, Sophia Dorothea lived with Jerome until her death. Beamer thought such de- votion deserved respect and was pleased at seeing Sophia Dorothea 's faithful heart awarded a niche a few yards away from the tomb of Napoleon : but why was Jerome there? What had he ever done but mistreat his lovely American wife? That was Beamer's way of looking at it — hardly just, perhaps, for Jerome did do a few things be- sides abandon Miss Patterson, but if he ever did anything to entitle him to a place among France's four most illustrious dead, history has neglected to record it. He was Napoleon's youngest and most obedient brother, which may account for the favors he received from the emperor, but relation- ship and servility to a great man are poor grounds on which to claim a nation's homage. The visitor to the Hotel des Invalides who turns from the sarcophagi of the mighty emperor and his heroic marshals, Duroc and Bertrand, to the sarcophagus of Jerome Bonaparte can but feel that he is in the presence of an anti-climax. In intellect and genius the gulf between the two brothers was too wide to make equal honors to their ashes seem aught but inharmonious and insincere. From Napoleon's tomb we drove eight miles to Malmaison, where some of the happiest and the bitterest moments of his life were spent ; for here, 46 Seeing Europe by Automobile in this modest chateau so near Paris, yet so iso- lated by high walls and tall trees as to seem a score of leagues distant from the city, the First Consul used to retreat with Josephine when wearied of the pomp and ceremony of the Tuileries. And here he came again after Waterloo and remained a week, until the approach of the Prussians on June 29th, 1815, forced him to leave. As bitter as were those days the year before at Fontainebleau, when Napoleon signed the abdica- tion and set forth for Elba, they were not so bitter as the days of that last week at Malmaison. At Fon- tainebleau the defeats he had just endured were overwhelming, the future was black and gloomy — still there was a future ; there still lay before him the Hundred Days, the most marvelous days ever lived by mortal man. For until then not even in the pages of fiction had the world ever witnessed such an exploit as that of a lone exile, with only a riding whip in his hand, overcoming great armies and taking captive a great nation ! But what re- mained after Waterloo 1 Nothing. And Napoleon knew it. There, in that knowledge that for him there was no future, lay the bitterness of those seven days at Malmaison after Waterloo. Fortu- nately the crushed and conquered emperor could not foresee the grim rocks of St. Helena and the six years of mental and physical torture; yet a lit- tle while was he spared that knowledge, but what At the Gates of Paris 47 he did foresee was enough, and we may well imagine that his last week in the home he bought for Josephine after his first Italian campaign was a week of despair and agony. In the garden fifty yards from the Chateau of Malmaison is the little house of a single room which Napoleon used as a study in his early days ; it was into this little room that he crept after Wa- terloo and spent that last dreadful week waiting for the final blow which he knew was swiftly coming. Josephine had died in that room the year before, and one would think that amid such memo- ries, facing such a future, Napoleon might well have sought to end his life as he lay there upon the same couch on which his first wife — the wife he really loved — had recently breathed her last. His- tory tells us, however, that it was at Fontaine- bleau, not at Malmaison, that the suicide attempt was made. In the stable at Malmaison is the carriage in which Josephine drove from the. Tuileries the day of her divorce in 1809, just one hundred years be- fore the day of our visit. On the cushions we saw some stains — tear-stains, Beamer insisted they were; and as doubtless poor Josephine did shed tears on that sad drive to Malmaison I agreed that they ought to be tear-stains, even if in truth they were something else. Near the carriage is the black pall which covered Napoleon's coffin on its 48 Seeing Europe by Automobile return from St. Helena and on its triumphal voy- age up the Seine. The morning after our visit to Malmaison we drove to Fontainebleau and saw more reminders of Napoleon — the hat he wore on his return from Elba, the table on which the abdication was writ- ten and the daub of ink which was splashed on the table when the fallen emperor threw down the pen with which he had just made his wonderful signa- ture — a signature that looked no more like a name than a hen-roost looks like an oil painting. I know not if that ink daub is renewed from time to time ; it certainly looks fresh, but the guide will tell you no, that it is the very same ink which the abdi- cating emperor splashed there in 1814. And so pictures are painted of it and photographs made and post cards printed about it, and altogether it is the most famous daub of ink in Europe. In the luxurious quarters at Fontainebleau where Pope Pius VII was imprisoned occurred the famous interview between Napoleon and the Pope, in which the emperor sought by cajolery to gain the Pope's assent to his projects. His Holi- ness listened quietly, and when Napoleon finished murmured but one word: "Comediante" (Come- dian). Angered at the word, Napoleon changed from smiles to frowns, from promises to threats, and stormed up and down the room as he had done before the Peace Commissioners from Austria that At the Gates of Paris 49 time he dashed the porcelain vase to the floor. The Austrian Commissioners were bluffed at Campo Formio, but not so Pius VII at Fontainebleau. When Napoleon paused to note the effect of his threats the Pope again murmured but a single word, this time: "Tragediente" (Tragedian). Finding neither comedy nor tragedy of avail, Na- poleon realized that he had to perform as well as to promise, and the Concordat was the result. Near the apartments of the Pope is Napoleon's Council Chamber; the throne, a comfortable arm- chair, stands at one end of the room on a platform fifteen inches high. Lined up in front of this arm- chair, facing each other, are two rows of stools — no backs, low, uncomfortable in spite of their gilt legs and plush seats — but what tales those stools could tell were they given power of speech — Napo- leon in that armchair, his ministers and marshals on those stools before him — a different setting from White House cabinet meetings, the President and his secretaries in comfortable revolving chairs around a heavy mahogany table. But the Little Corporal and his counselors decided just as mo- mentous matters on those low, uncomfortable stools as have ever been decided in the more com- fortable cabinet room of the White House. There is one apartment at Fontainebleau which, although seldom visited by tourists, is from one point of view even more interesting than the rooms 50 Seeing Europe by Automobile associated with Napoleon — I mean the chamber in which Queen Christina of Sweden put to death her equerry and lover, Count Monaldeschi. The Count, after receiving the Queen's favors, was un- gallant enough to speak slightingly of her charms and the Queen ordered him put to death. When two officers approached to carry out this order Monaldeschi protested his innocence so loudly and begged for his life so beseechingly that the officers went back to the Queen and implored her to be merciful. But the Queen was a jealous woman; she believed her lover had first enjoyed her favors, then jeered at her. ' ' Go, kill him, ' ' she sternly re- peated. When the officers returned to Monaldes- chi, who was waiting the issue in an adjoining room, and told him Christina was inexorable, he fell on his knees and pleaded again. "For God's sake, not now, not now! Don't kill me now ! Ask her once more, just once more ! ' ' The two officers wavered, then yielded and once more presented themselves before the Queen; but instead of softening, this persistence angered her. "If you do not execute my command," she cried, "I will find those who will. And then Monaldes- chi 's fate shall be yours, too!" A moment later the officers re-entered the room where the unhappy man was waiting. Even as they opened the door he saw from their faces that mercy was denied him, and with a scream he fell At the Gates of Paris 51 upon the floor, where the two officers rushed upon him and slew him with their swords. From the window of the room where this happened we looked out upon the spot where Monaldeschi's body was buried after those two officers had finished their bloody work; the stone marking the grave is still there on the east side of the park not far from the chateau. As we stood in that room (which is seldom shown, and then only by special permission) look- ing at the spot where poor Monaldeschi groveled on his knees and begged for just a few hours more of life, we thought how strange an animal is man ! Strong men, perhaps brave men, killed a fellow- man in cold blood at the behest of a female profli- gate whose pride had been wounded. Why? Sim- ply because that bad old woman was called a Queen ! She was far from her own domains ; she had no army, no judges, no courts to enforce her decrees ; she was a mere traveler in a foreign land. But she was a Queen, and so when she said : i ' Go, kill, ' ' men went and killed. Louis XIV, whose guest Christina was at that time (1657), is said to have disapproved of this private assassination in his chateau at Fontainebleau, but he must have ex- pressed his disapproval in mild terms ; at any rate, the Swedish Queen prolonged her visit at Fon- tainebleau for nearly two years after Monaldes- chi's murder. 52 Seeing Europe by Automobile The world still has kings and queens, a few of them possibly inclined to be high-handed and auto- cratic, but such an episode as that which occurred in this room at Fontainebleau two hundred and fifty-three years ago is hardly conceivable to-day — from which it is fair to conclude that the world does move, and that humanity is a trifle better off now than it has ever been in past centuries. It was a relief to leave the rooms of the chateau, so crowded with memories of history's tragedies, and go into the forest — the finest forest in France if not in Europe. Both Beamer and I had been there before, but on former visits we had no auto- mobile and saw only its merest fringe. This time we were able to see it all, and so delightful are its shaded lanes, so exquisite the lights and shadows filtering through the foliage and the dense under- growth, we would not have known when to leave had not the deepening shadows at length warned us the day was growing old, and that it was time to return to Paris. From the Chateau of Fontainebleau to our hotel door in Paris the distance was exactly forty miles — eighty miles for the round trip; but our speed- ometer registered one hundred and twenty-eight miles, from which we knew that we had motored forty-eight miles in the delightful forest of Fon- tainebleau. CHAPTER IY Off for Normandy. — We breakfast at the Pavilion Henri IV. — Our siren rouses the peasants. — Trouville. — Mistaken for Baedeker's agent. — Inn of William the Conqueror. — Bayeux. — In a flood at Avranches. — Mont St. Michel and fake omelets. ^l^rE set forth on our trip through Nor- * * inanely and the chateau country one Fri- day morning at eight o 'clock, and at the lively gait one is permitted to motor in Paris ten minutes sufficed to bring us from our hotel to the end of the Avenue de la Grande Armee. There we stopped to measure the gasoline in the Get-There 's tank and to get the little blue slip which would let us bring back into the city free of octroi tax the same quantity of gasoline that we carried away with us. As we put the seat cushions back in place and cranked up to go, the octroi officer wished us a polite bon voyage — and we had one, all except the first twelve miles to St. Germain. Those twelve miles were over rough cobblestones and we were obliged to turn off the road every few minutes so as to make room for the long stream of wagons and carts that was pouring into the great city. This exercise, and this jolting over rough stones, 53 54? Seeing Europe by Automobile gave us such appetites that by the time St. Ger- main was reached, although less than an hour had elapsed, the flimsy meal which the French call petit dejeuner, and which we had eaten at our hotel before leaving, was as if it had never been; we were ready for a "sure enough" breakfast, con- sequently, on reaching the summit of a long climb into St. Germain, instead of continuing on through the town we turned to the right and in a few min- utes found ourselves on the terrace of the Pavilion Henri IV. The waiter was much surprised at the order we gave, for in France nine a.m. is not deemed the time to eat steaks, potatoes and maca- roni an gratin. But motoring of any kind, much less bumping the bumps over twelve miles of cob- blestones, creates an appetite that defies conven- tions and establishes precedents. In all our journeyings we can recollect no more delightful hour than that on the terrace of the Pavilion Henri IV; keen appetites we brought with us, ex- cellent food and artistic cooking the restaurant chef furnished us, while the view — that was fur- nished by nature and man combined, and it cer- tainly was the finest we had yet seen in Europe. Our table was at the very edge of a lofty ter- race; far below, several hundred feet below, but so near that we could almost throw a stone in it, the Seine wound its sinuous way. Beyond, and all around, were the forests of Marly and St. Germain. Off for Normandy 55 From our place on that terrace we looked down on the tops of the trees — it was like a great, green carpet, and beyond, twelve miles away, lay the capital, like some huge, living, breathing thing, the houses of its three millions of people indistinct on the horizon and partly hidden by Mont Valerian ; but the Eiffel Tower rose up from the center of the great mass, its graceful outlines clearly visible against the sky. There was historical interest, too, in the place where we breakfasted that morning; for that pavilion, now a restaurant, is all that remains of the Chateau Neuf, in which Louis XIV was born and in which James II died after living there for the twelve years following his exile from England. Altogether, the charm of that hour re- mains so vivid with us that if ever we revisit Paris Beamer and I are resolved to have another break- fast in the Pavilion Henri IV, even if the Get- There is a thing of the past and we have to go in a steam tram car — which one can do from Paris in two hours at a cost of seventy cents for the round trip. The old chateau, with an ancient chapel built by St. Louis seven hundred years ago, was but a stone's throw from the terrace, but we did not visit it, preferring to any churches and chapels on that delicious summer day the forests and fields and the long, white, ribbon-like road that comes from the 56 Seeing Europe by Automobile coast to the capital. Once through St. Germain we found a road so perfectly smooth and hard that the Get-There proceeded to kick up its heels like a three-year-old just turned loose into a blue-grass pasture. It responded to the slightest touch of the throttle as if eager to be up and doing, now that the cobblestones were gone. For a while we let it go at the rate of fifty miles an hour, just to see what a modest-priced automobile, loaded with bag- gage, could do ; then we slowed down to a dignified thirty-mile gait, and never exceeded that speed all the way to Trouville. When we overtook peasants asleep in their carts — which often happened — Beamer touched an elec- tric button and set a siren to wailing like a thou- sand cats. We lost much time on the drive from Havre, trying to pass carts, the drivers of which were fast asleep and did not hear the Get-There 's "Honk," so in Paris we installed an electric siren and one touch of the button did the work. Few peasants, however befuddled with wine, could sleep when that wailing siren smote their ears. At the sound they would leap up to see what was the mat- ter and, seeing an automobile approaching, would turn out to let us pass. By the time we overtook a peasant's cart it would be off to one side of the road, hence there was no need for us to slow up ; and in this way that siren was equivalent to a ten per cent increase in the Get-There 's speed. Off for Normandy 57 Passing through Nantes to Bonnieres, we turned west to Evreux and Liseux, then due north to Trouville, where we arrived early in the afternoon, one hundred and twenty-five miles from our start- ing point in Paris. From our road map we had made a list of the towns through which we were to pass ; the sign-posts did the rest, making it wholly unnecessary to lose time either in studying maps or in asking peasants what road to take. Trouville is France's great seashore resort. Its boardwalk, like that at Atlantic City, is far-famed ; it is called the Summer Boulevard of Paris, and in the season is thronged with the fashionably dressed people of a dozen European states. I say these things, not because we can bear witness to them, for we can not ; when we were there the place was cold and dreary and deserted, in spite of the fact that it was in the height of the season. But} Baedeker says Trouville is gay and brilliant and crowded in the season, and many people swear by Baedeker, even when his statements are contrary to their own senses. As far as Liseux the day had been divine ; then as the coast was neared cold winds and rain blew in from the ocean and by the time Trouville was reached the mere thought of a surf bath made our teeth chatter. We took a drive on the heights back of Trouville and looked thence across the estuary of the Seine at our hotel in Havre ; then we put the 58 Seeing Europe by Automobile Get-There in a garage and spent the remainder of the afternoon in front of the hotel fire. As an imi- tation of a summer resort it was the saddest sight we ever saw. Our opinion of such beastly weather, and of other things, too, was written in my note- book in the office of the Trouville hotel, and the writing of those notes had a magic effect ; the wait- ers were positively obsequious in their attentions, the proprietor was urbanity itself. When our bill was rendered the charges were unexpectedly mod- erate — indeed, some items were not charged for at all. Other guests paid extra for wine, but to us wine was included without extra cost. We didn't understand it at first, but next morning as we were leaving we learned that in some way rumor had reported me to be an agent of Baedeker, securing data for a new edition of the Handbook for North- ern France. The famous Leipzig guidebook pub- lisher is a powerful personage in the hotel world ; he can make or mar a Boniface by the simple proc- ess of giving, or withholding, a "star" in mention- ing the name of a hotel. For in Baedeker a star (*) means "excellent," while the absence of a 11 *" means "only fair." Of course, no one goes to a hotel that is "only fair" if near-by is an "ex- cellent" hotel at the same price, consequently when Baedeker withholds the coveted star it means a loss of the tourist trade. I do not know what it was that gave that Trouville man the notion that Off for Normandy 59 I was writing for Baedeker, but whatever it was it was a lucky thing for us, and we were sorry the same idea did not occur to other hotel proprietors ; had it done so it would have insured us the best possible attention at the lowest possible price. From Trouville early Saturday morning we started along the Normandy coast over a road that ran so close to the sea and through so many pic- turesque villages that we drove very slowly so as to get the full benefit of the glorious excursion. The sun had once more made its appearance, and for a while at least " sunny " France deserved the name. Twelve miles from Trouville is Dives. We arrived there too late for petit dejeuner and too early for luncheon, nevertheless we looked for the Auberge de Gitillaume le Conqxierant, for that celebrated inn must be visited whether one wants to eat or not. All travelers in Normandy go to this inn and write chapters about it, and some write whole books about it; Anna Bowman Dodd sings its praises in her charming " Three Nor- mandy Inns." Now that we have been there we, too, can add our verdict to that of those who pre- ceded us, viz., that it is indeed a wonderfully quaint, curious old inn; its interior is quite as pic- turesque as enthusiasts have described it. But in no description that we ever read was one word said about the inn's commonplace exterior, consequent- ly we passed right by it without suspecting that 60 Seeing Europe by Automobile the ordinary two-story stone house standing flush on the village street, with no yard or garden in front of it, was the celebrated Inn of William the Conqueror. We were keeping a lookout for some- thing out of the ordinary, and when we got to the end of the town without seeing any house that seemed like a celebrity we asked a citizen to tell us where it was. "Mais oni, Monsieur, vous Vavez passee!" (you have already passed it. It is there behind you !) We retraced our way and this time went too far in the other direction. Had not a boy jumped on the running board and gone back with us to point out the inn we should have passed by it a third time without recognizing it as a "lion" not only of Dives, but of all Normandy; for that dingy stone house is too close to its neighbors and too like them, on the outside, ever to attract a traveler's attention. But once inside the grim walls of that dingy stone house and it was easy to comprehend its fame and popularity. The court is full of de- lightful little nooks and corners and vine-covered arbors, where the most exquisitely cooked dishes are served upon rustic tables. A balcony rambles around the second floor of the irregularly-shaped court, and on the doors of the rooms which open onto this balcony are inscribed the names of cele- brated persons who once occupied them. On one door we saw the words: "A. Dumas, pere, 1855.' ' Off for Normandy 61 On the next door was a name written there in the fifteenth century. Beamer was anxious to stop at this historical old inn. "Just think," she said, "of the famous men who have slept here! Per- haps staying here would give us some sort of in- spiration!" If sleeping in one of those rooms would have given us even the least bit of the inspiration of some of the famous litterateurs who at one time or another have stopped there I would have cut our day's run short then and there, despite the fact that the Get-There had come only a dozen miles ; but as no inspiration was to be hoped for I thought it best to push on ; so, after thanking the amiable wife of the proprietor for showing us the sights of her delightful inn, we continued our westward way — pausing, however, just a moment outside the inn to note that the street on which it stands is called the Rue d 'Hastings, and that over the door- way is an inscription reciting that the marble tab- let was placed over the doorway in i i 1895, exactly eight hundred and thirty-nine years after William embarked from the quai near-by on his way to conquer England." A mile from Dives we passed Cabourg, another fashionable seaside place; then we turned south along the bank of the River Orne to Caen, eighteen miles from Dives and thirty miles from Trouville. Even with the hour's delay at the Inn of William 62 Seeing Europe by Automobile the Conqueror it was still too early to breakfast, so the Get-There was left in front of the cathe- dral while we rambled about Caen on foot. Six hundred years ago Caen was a great city, "greater than any in England, save London," the chron- iclers of that day tell us, and the English captured it in 1346 and again in 1417, and they held it nearly fifty years. To-day it is a sleepy provincial town of fifty thousand inhabitants, interesting for its past rather than its present. Charlotte Corday was born in Caen, and from her home here she set forth to kill Marat in his bath in Paris. In a little cemetery on the Hue du Magasin-a-poudre (good name for a street, that, "Powder Magazine") we saw the grave of Beau Brummel, the exquisite, who for a while set London's fashions, and who was the intimate of England's greatest men. But for his wit Brummel might have died, as he for a time lived, the spoiled darling of wealth and aristoc- racy. But one day when Brummel was talking to a friend — Sheridan, I believe — the future King of England passed by and bowed to Sheridan. "Who is your fat friend, Sheridan!" queried Brummel. The Prince of Wales heard the question and from that time on friends and fortune abandoned Brummel ; he died in a foreign land, and now lies buried in foreign soil. From which the moral may Off for Normandy 63 be drawn that it is not wise to sneer at a future king. In the Church of St. Etienne at Caen is the tomb of William the Conqueror. He was buried there nearly nine hundred years ago, but the tomb is empty now; the Huguenots broke it open in the year 1562 and scattered some of the Conqueror's bones; then two hundred years later, in 1793, the revolutionists scattered what the Huguenots had left. That is one of the penalties men sometimes pay for fame ; they get gorgeous tombs, but there is no telling when the people will take a notion to smash the tombs and desecrate their contents. William had been peacefully resting in St. Eti- enne 's Church for five hundred years, and just why at that late day anybody should get mad at him and want to break his bones is hard to say, but they did get mad and break his bones. And then, after another couple of centuries, they got mad again, and this time they smashed everything except Wil- liam's thighbone. The church cicerone said that that much of the Conqueror is still left in the sar- cophagus. The dead have no feeling, they know nothing of such desecrations, but while one is alive it is so unpleasant to contemplate such mistreat- ment after death that the guarantee of resting peacefully in one's tomb goes far toward recon- ciling one to not being great. Of the Church of St. Etienne Professor Freeman says : G4 Seeing Europe by Automobile "It is the expression in stone of the imperial will of the con- quering Duke. * * * The church of William, vast in scale, hold and simple in its design, disdaining ornament, but never sinking into rudeness, is indeed a church worthy of its founder." If the term " great," applied to man, means the performance of unusual things William, Duke of Normandy, was a very great man. Although near- ly a thousand years have elapsed since his activi- ties ceased, the things he did produced results which are with the world to-day. Napoleon was infinitely the greater soldier, the greater genius, but will Napoleon's having lived mean practical things to men a thousand years hence 1 The impress of William's work is everywhere apparent in Nor- mandy, and England itself is to-day a different land — different in its present daily life, different in its laws and partly, too, in its language — be- cause there lived in Normandy nearly a thousand years ago a man known in history as W T illiam the Conqueror. At Bayeux, our next stopping place, we saw the famous tapestry illustrating William's invasion of England. The tapestry, embroidered by William 's wife, Matilda, eighteen inches wide and two hun- dred and thirty feet long, gives the episodes of the invasion in chapters, like a continued story. As news of each exploit of her liege lord was brought back from England, Matilda added another chap- ter to the tapestry ; and so it grew and grew until Off for Normandy 65 there were two hundred and thirty feet of it, then Matilda died— a little too soon to embroider a pic- ture of her husband's coronation as King of Eng- land. In 1803 Napoleon exhibited this tapestry in Paris, thinking it might incite the French people to another invasion of perfidious Albion, but great soldier though he was Napoleon was unable to do what William had done — conquer England. Not once in all the years that have passed since the Norman Duke landed and won the battle of Has- tings has a hostile army even set foot on British soil, much less conquered the British people. Bayeux is only fifty miles from Trouville — not much of a run, but we stopped so often to see inter- esting things along the way, and we remained so long in the public library of Bayeux looking at that curious tapestry, that we decided to postpone the trip to St. Malo until morning. The dark-eyed girl who keeps guard over the tapestry directed us to an inn, where we found comfortable quarters both for the Get-There and for ourselves. In the rear of the inn was a garden where, on tables under the trees, amid a profusion of vines and sweet-smelling flowers, were served coffee and liqueurs after dinner. The dinner was served in a dining-room on a table forty feet long; just why so big a table was used we were not told. There may be times when a forty-foot table is needed, but the evening we dined there an ordinary family 66 Seeing Europe by Automobile table would have sufficed, for the guests numbered only ten persons. The dinner, however, was as elaborate as if every seat at that forty-foot table had been occupied. Course after course was cere- moniously served by waiters in evening dress; wine was served ad lib. — and the price of it all was only seventy cents. Our room with lofty ceiling and an enormous bed — like the beds one sees in royal palaces or museums — so big and so high a chair must be used to climb into it — cost only $1.40. No charge was made for storing the Get-There, hence it will be seen that for less than four dollars a day two persons can live luxuriously in provincial France. Early next morning we were awakened by the sound of fifes and drums under our windows; we thought soldiers were passing, but on looking out of the window we perceived that it was a troop of volunteer firemen out for an early drill. Their hooks and ladders and fire engines were on two- wheeled trucks — nothing on four wheels could turn around in the narrow streets of a Normandy town — and the. men were on foot pulling the trucks. We quickly dressed and went out to see the drill, but there was none; the volunteers only paraded around town and then disbanded. On a motor trip in France heavy rains do not put a period to locomotion ; rains do not mean mud up to the axles and miring in bogs, as they sometimes Off for Normandy 67 do in America. The harder the rain the cleaner and better are the roads in France, so perfectly are they drained, so scientifically constructed. But even so, there comes a time when rain will put a pause to a motor trip, even in France. At first it is pleasant to fly swiftly forward, the rain beating in your face, but elsewhere not touching you under your rubber cap, coat and wraps. We enjoyed the first hour or so out of Bayeux, enjoyed it so much that we did not raise the Get-There 's top. The baggage was protected with rubber, so were we — why, then, bother about the weather? In the begin- ning we didn't bother; we rather enjoyed the ele- ments. But after two hours' riding with not a moment's cessation of that veritable deluge we tired of defying the elements, and when the Get- There climbed up the steep street leading into Avranches we turned into the courtyard of the first hotel we encountered and resolved to stay there until the sun shone, even if we had to wait a week. "We did not have to wait that long, but we did have to wait until next morning. There was a hammer- ing on our door at six o'clock and when we started up from dreams of the curious old tapestry and of the Norman Duke conquering England the sun was streaming into our room through the open window. " Awake, Monsieur, awake and hear the great news ! ' ' It was the proprietor himself summoning us. 68 Seeing Europe by Automobile "To see the sun shine must be an event in this town, judging by the fuss they make about it," I remarked to Beamer, but the worthy Boniface was not there in pursuance of our instructions to be called early in case the weather cleared ; he awoke us to impart the news of M. Bleriot's flight across the English Channel. "It's too good and too great to keep till you come clown to your breakfast, therefore have I called you, ' ' said the hotel man. ' ' Had I waited to tell such news Monsieur and Madame would never have forgiven me!" Then he went on to the other rooms and knocked on the doors and shouted out his great news. Generalizations are seldom safe, but it is not too much to say that the French are more interested in aviation than any other people; certainly that Avranches hotel man was an enthusiast on the sub- ject. The news of Bleriot's flight, which had oc- curred at four o'clock that morning, had reached Avranches two hours later, and the innkeeper could not keep such news to himself; he went around awaking everybody, and he talked Bleriot until we took our departure. Avranches lies upon a lofty hill overlooking the sea. It is a small place of only eight thousand in- habitants, so in a few minutes after leaving the inn we were in the open country, where a sudden turn in the road exposed to our eyes a splendid Off for Normandy 69 view of the ocean; in the distance was Mont St. Michel, that jagged rock which rises one hundred and sixty feet out of the water, and around which clings a small village and a lot of romantic history. In an air-line from where the Get-There stopped on the summit of the hill above the ocean the dis- tance to Mont St. Michel was not more than three or four miles, but by the road it was several times that distance. We did not reach Pontorsen for an hour and from there we had to motor six miles across the narrow dike which has been constructed from the mainland out to the Mont. By the time we crossed the dike and stabled the Get-There in the garage — that is, on the sand at the base of the huge rock — that is the only "garage" there — we were ready for one of Madame Poulard's famous omelets. And this led us to discover that there is no Madame Poulard. Travelers are sometimes like sheep, they follow one another blindly and take their ideas from some bell-wether who has gone before. A long time ago there may have been a motherly old woman named Poulard, who gave a good omelet to a traveler visiting the rock, but that is no reason why modern writers should go into ecstasies over a thing which no longer exists. In a recently published book we read a glowing account of Madame Poulard's wonderful omelet, 70 Seeing Europe by Automobile although there is no longer a Madame Poulard and a syndicate, which bought the right to use her name, now runs a big inn and makes precisely the same sort of an omelet that is made in other inns all over France. The guidebooks advise tourists to visit the Mont on week-days, because on Sundays it is over- crowded with excursionists. If the crowd on Sun- days is any larger than it was on the Monday of our visit this advice surely should be heeded. The rock literally swarmed with tourists ; omelets were cooked in the syndicate inns in relays of a hundred at a time, and still we had to wait an hour for our turn; the steep steps leading up to the Abbey on the top of the Mont were so crowded,~bnly the superb view we knew was to be had from the sum- mit induced us to persist in elbowing our way through the jam of people. "We enjoyed the view and were interested in the old church built nine hundred years ago, but every train across the dike brought fresh crowds of tourists, so that we were soon glad to get away. We had to traverse the dike again to reach the mainland ; then at Pontor- sen we went west thirty miles to St. Malo on the coast of Brittany. When Arthur Young rode on his blind mare along this same road in 1788 he wrote this paragraph in his diary as he crossed into Brittany at Pontorsen : THE GET-THERE APPROACHING MONT MICHEL; THE SPECTRE WINDMILL IS A TRICK OF THE CAMERA Off for Normandy 71 "Brittainy, a miserable provence, the people almost as "wild as their country, and their town of Combourg one of the most brutal, filthy places that can be seen. Mud houses, no windows, yet there is a cheteau and inhabited by one that has nerves strong enough for a residence amidst such filth and poverty." Combourg to-day is a tidy, prosperous town of six thousand people. Brittany is the very opposite of a "miserable provence''; the people look any- thing but wild ; there are no mud houses, and there are plenty of windows. Only the chateau remains the same as in Young's day — the chateau where Chr eaubriand was born ; his boyhood days there are described in his "Memoires d 'outre Tombe." Yes,- verily, the modern traveler has difficulty in recognizing Brittany from Arthur Young's de- scription ; but the English squire wrote the above paragraph in 1788, and many things have hap- pened since then to alter the condition of France and of the French people. CHAPTER V St. Malo. — Rennes, Angers, Saumur and Tours. — We visit the chateaux of Chenonceau, Loches and Amboise — Interesting reminiscences of Louis XI and other French kings. Q^T. MALO, its steep-roofed houses and turrets ^ and towers just peeping above the prodigious wall which encircles the town, is so picturesque, so romantic, so unlike prosaic twentieth-century cities, as we approached it that summer day, we felt as if we were looking, not at a real city, but at the creation of a maker of stage scenery. On the side of the town abutting the sea the wall is sixty feet high ; at its lowest point it is about thirty feet high; at intervals there are massive stone towers forty feet in diameter. We made a complete circuit of the city on top of this huge wall and got splendid views of coun- try, city and sea. In some places we were on a level with the second stories of the houses and could look through the windows into the rooms and see the home life of the people; at other places, where the wall was sixty feet high, we looked down on the roofs of the city on the one side, while on 72 The Chateau Country 73 the other side we could see far below us hundreds of people bathing in the sea, or basking on the sand. Half a mile out from shore we saw the islet in the solid rock of which was hewn a tomb for Chateaubriand. Chateaubriand was born at St. Malo, and in his will he asked that his remains be buried on the rock where he had played as a boy. Although it is half a mile from shore, at low tide this rock can be reached on foot, so far does the ocean recede at low tide. The difference between high and low tide at St. Malo is forty-nine feet, and so, as may be imagined, at low tide an im- mense tract is uncovered ; but when the tide turns, it rolls in with terrible velocity, destroying any one unlucky enough to be in its path. It seemed to us a foolhardy thing to walk to the islet and take chances of destruction by a change in the tide, so we contented ourselves with a long-distance look at Chateaubriand's tomb through our field glasses. Pent up within high walls, St. Malo 's streets are of necessity very narrow and very crooked, but near one of the gates the inevitable open space has been made, and, as is usual in French towns, the place is surrounded by cafes, each with its music and its chairs and its little round tables out on the sidewalk. Although the keenest rivalry exists be- tween the different cafes, one having an orchestra of pretty Viennese women, another an Hungarian band, a third singers and vaudeville dancers, a 74 Seeing Europe by Automobile fourth a moving picture show, they, fortunately for the peace and welfare of the town, respect each other's artists and do not all play at the same time; the Viennese girls in number two wait till the Hungarians in number one finish before they begin, and the singers in number three wouldn't dream of sounding a note until the Austrian ladies lay down their flutes and fiddles. This arrange- ment means music nearly all the time, but it also means you do not have to listen to four different kinds of music at the same time, which of the two would certainly be the greater evil. The Place Chateaubriand of St. Malo is so small, the cafes are so close together, we did not have to move in order to hear the different bands. From our seats on the sidewalk in front of one cafe we listened to the music of all of them as we ate an ice and watched the passing procession of tourists and townspeople ; the former we could distinguish not only by their dress and appearance, but also by their mad haste to buy picture post cards. No matter what the main business of a shop may be, it is sure to carry picture cards as a side line, and no matter where you go to dine, t)e it inside the shop or outside on the pavement, you will have men poking picture cards at you from soup to coffee, and importuning you to buy. From a fad it has become a fanaticism, and the business has grown to prodigious proportions; the sale of stamps for The Chateau Country 75 mailing these cards has become an important source of revenue to the postal departments of European states frequented by tourists. Of his horseback ride from St. Malo to Kennes, Arthur Young wrote in his diary : "To Rennes: The same strange, wild mixture of desert and cultivation, one-half savage, one-half human." We found it all cultivation and all human, though it must be admitted that the country af- fords no particular interest to the tourist, conse- quently there was no temptation to dally, and the forty-four miles between the two cities were cov- ered in a trifle over an hour. Arthur Young took two days to ride over the same road on his blind mare. Rennes is a quiet, sleepy city, almost as quiet and sleepy as Pisa, which is putting it strongly, as any traveler will agree who has ever been in the town of the leaning tower. Few tourists go to Rennes, and there is really no reason why they should go; we stopped there mainly because we wanted to deliver a letter of introduction which we bore to the Comte de F., father of our French teacher in the Berlitz school. There is one Ameri- can in Rennes, a Mr. Hopkins, who for some rea- son wanted profound quiet, and so went to the an- cient capital of Brittany to reside ; but on the day of our visit Mr. Hopkins was out of town, and we 76 Seeing Europe by Automobile were the only persons in Eennes who spoke the English language. It was a case of Berlitz French or silence, and as nothing is to be learned if one does not talk and ask questions, we proceeded to murder French verbs, nouns and genders in a way that shocked the Comte de F. and perhaps inspired no confidence in the ability of his son as a teacher, or in our ability as pupils. However, we under- stood one another after a fashion and managed to spend a profitable hour visiting the public gardens (the finest gardens in Eennes, and among the finest in France) and the Lycee where Dreyfus was tried and condemned in 1899. We saw the prison where Dreyfus was taken on his return from Devil's Island and the room in the Lycee where he re- ceived his second condemnation. The world's eyes were on Eennes and on that room in August, 1899, but now both Eennes and Dreyfus are forgotten. The Comte de F. showed us where the guillotine stood during the Terror — the spot is at least two hundred yards from the river, but the Comte said the executions were so numerous that blood flowed in a rivulet down the street gutter from the guil- lotine all the way to the Eiver Vilaine. As fright- ful as was the slaughter that dreadful year, it would have been still worse but for the bravery of Leperdit, Eennes' mayor during the Eevolution. At Nantes, seventy miles away, the infamous Car- rier had invented a simple but expeditious method The Chateau Country 77 of murdering by wholesale ; hundreds of helpless men and women were put in barges which were then scuttled and sunk in the river. In this way more people could be killed in two minutes than could be guillotined in two days. So ferocious was the temper of the times, Carrier was applauded for his "invention" and was given extended au- thority by the Committee of Public Safety at Paris. The first thing he did after receiving his commission was to send a long list of citizens to the mayor of Kennes with orders that they be put in the holds of boats, the hatchways then nailed down and the boats sunk in the Vilaine. Leperdit tore Carrier's list to pieces and refused to execute his orders — a bold thing to do in that year of the Terror, but he succeeded. And in memory of his deed the city erected his statue in one of its public squares. Leperdit is represented standing erect, head thrown back, a look of defiance in his eyes and in his hands Carrier's list of the proscribed which Leperdit has just torn in pieces. Leaving Eennes the next morning, we arrived at Angers, eighty- two miles distant, at eleven o'clock, quite early enough to have proceeded on to Tours, but one look at Angers' old castle decided us to postpone further travel till the morrow. The castle walls are fifteen feet thick and on the side abutting the river are one hundred and fifty-six feet high. We spent the entire afternoon rambling 78 Seeing Europe by Automobile about this wonderful old ruin, going down into its dungeons and up on the summits of its towers, whence is a noble view of the city spread out below and of the Eiver Main spanned by a massive stone bridge. The Castle of Angers, built seven hundred years ago on a huge rock above the Main, was for many centuries one of the most powerful feudal strong- holds in Europe. Its walls were so massive and its moats so wide and deep it was as impregnable as Gibraltar, until modern artillery changed the art of war. Stone walls and wide moats, no mat- ter how immense, afford little protection against Krupp cannon that throw thousand-pound shells a dozen miles; so in recent years the castle has been allowed to fall into decay. At the Grand Hotel in Angers we had an enor- mous room with a bed of state even more gorgeous than that in which we had slept at Bayeux. A high canopy overhung our heads and there were rich green velour curtains draping the sides. And here, too, the bed was so high that we had to use a chair to climb into it. The windows of the room opened upon a balcony looking down upon the Place de Ealliement, and after dinner we sat on that balcony and watched several thousand people massed in the square below us. They were gazing upon motion pictures which were being cast on a THE CHATEAU AT ANGERS: THE WALLS ARE FIFTEEN FEET THICK The Chateau Country 79 screen on one of the buildings at the farther end of the square. From Angers we went to Tours, driving most of the way on top of the Levee de la Loire, a huge embankment first built in the ninth century, eleven hundred years ago ; that July day the levee seemed to us unnecessary, the Loire was so quiet, so peace- ful, but during the spring floods the river, so nearly dry the day we drove for forty miles along its banks, becomes a raging torrent, and huge as is the embankment there have been occasions when it was hot large enough to protect the country from frightful inundations. As we passed through Saumur early in the afternoon we saw a crowd of people surging into a side street, making for a field enclosed by grand- stands and high fences. ' ' Let us see what it is all about/ ' I said, and Beamer agreed. We were not trying to make any speed records. We did not have to go to Tours if we didn't want to. So, turn- ing off the main road and following the crowd, presently we found ourselves in front of the en- closed field. Thousands of people were entering the gate, but they had tickets. As we had none we were about to resume our journey to Tours when an officer, who had seen the ticket-takers turn us away, approached and saluted : "Vous voudrez entrer?" (You wish to enter? You wish to witness the exercises?) 80 Seeing Europe by Automobile We did not know what the exercises were, but whatever they were we wished to see them. "Then permit me, Monsieur and Madame, to have the honor of conducting you." We "permitted" him, and this time we were not turned away from the gate. The officer must have been a man of importance, for when the ticket ta- kers saw in whose charge we now were they bowed obsequiously and opened the gate for us to enter. Five minutes later we were in the staff officers' private stand, surveying one of the great military sights of Europe — the annual cavalry maneuvers of Saumur. Five hundred of the flower of the French cavalry officers, seated upon the very finest horses — horses selected to harmonize in color with the different-colored trimmings and uniforms of their riders — were maneuvering in the field in front of us. The officers, in immaculate and resplendent uniforms, carried lances and pennants; it was a gay and gallant sight to see their horses galloping around the field, leaping hurdles, rearing on their hind legs or dashing madly forward while their riders threw away their lances, drew their sabers and struck fiercely at the heads of dummy soldiers which had been planted in various parts of the field. After these maneuvers a park of artillery came whirling into the great square and divided into two hostile camps, one at either end of the field; The Chateau Country 81 then a fierce cannonade began. After that there was a cavalry charge and the earth fairly trembled as those thousands of hoofs struck the ground and sabers clashed against sabers, and helmets and breastplates glistened in the sun as the men of the two opposing lines came rushing together. On the stand with us were officers from Kussia, Eng- land, Austria, Italy and America, detailed by their governments to study these maneuvers at Sau- mur : we had not been detailed by anybody to see them. An hour ago we did not know there were any maneuvers, yet there we were with majors, colonels and generals — partly because of the offi- cer's courtesy, but mainly because of our faithful Get-There, which was bound by no time-table, by no schedules, which was always ready to take us wherever interest and adventure lay. The hours spent in watching those interesting exercises at Saumur meant a night arrival at Tours ; but we did not hurry on that account. Our lunch basket was full, and just before sunset we pulled the Get-There to the side of the road on top of the levee, and there on the bank of the Loire we ate our supper picnic fashion; then we lighted the gas lamps and went on to Tours. All motorists who go to Tours go to the Hotel de l'TJnivers, but they don't all stop there, for even though you wire ahead for rooms, often you will not get one, so popular, so crowded in the 82 Seeing Europe by Automobile season is this noted hostelry. The polite proprie- tor was " desolated' ' at not being able to entertain us, but every apartment was taken — so what could he do? Obviously nothing, so after looking at the score or more of touring automobiles in his court- yard, and at Balzac's statue in front of his hotel, we rode off to seek other quarters, and we got them at the Hotel de la Boule d'Or — a modest inn, not half so luxurious as the Hotel de l'Univers, but neither was it half so expensive. Our large room looking out on Tours' main street cost $1.60 a day; " little breakfast" cost twenty-five cents, and an excellent dinner with wine was served for eighty cents. No charge was made for storing the Get-There — a total, therefore, of less than four dollars a day for the two of us — not dear for a " tourist' ' town in the height of the season. Tours, the ancient capital of Touraine, now a busy city of seventy thousand inhabitants, is the center of the celebrated Chateau country ; we made it our headquarters for several days, driving each morning over delightful roads to first one, then to another of the noted chateaux, and returned to Tours in the evening. Chenonceau, the first cha- teau visited, twenty miles from Tours, is not open to visitors between noon and two o'clock; as we ar- rived there at one o 'clock we had to wait an hour in front of the big wrought-iron gate which opens into the shaded avenue leading to the chateau a The Chateau Country 83 quarter of a mile inside the park. The Get-There stopped under the shade of a big tree a few yards outside the gate, and, while we sat there reading of the kings and queens who once reveled in the castle we were about to visit, an American, who had walked from the station and who had been observing us several minutes from a little dis- tance, suddenly approached and said : "Pardon me, sir, but aren't you the man who told us how to see Europe on fifty cents a day?" "Guilty!" I replied. "How did you know it?" "From the resemblance to the photograph of you in your ' Tramp Trip.' " As the photograph reproduced in that book was taken in St. Peters- burg twenty-five years ago, the American's answer astonished me. "You have changed, of course," he said. ' ' Still, the resemblance is there. And now I wish both to thank and to revile you. For while your book gave me great pleasure and was what prompted my first European trip, yet the promise you gave of seeing Europe on fifty cents a day was a delusion and a snare. I simply couldn't do it. I had to cable my father for funds." "JBut I did it. Perhaps you were not willing to sleep on the ground and live on macaroni!" "I fear that was the reason," answered the American, smiling ; then pointing to the Get-There he added: "And I see you, too, are not repeating the experiment." 84 Seeing Europe by Automobile I admitted the truth of this remark, but I did not tell him just what it was costing us to see Europe by automobile. Like most people, including our- selves until personal experience showed the error, the American thought that motoring meant unlim- ited means. He imagined that since my tramp days fortune had smiled upon me and made me a millionaire. Chenonceau, now owned by a rich Cuban named Terry, was once the residence of France 's kings ; Francis I lived here, so did Mary Queen of Scots and her first husband, Francois II, and Diana of Poitiers, mistress of Henry II. Diana's portrait still hangs on one of the walls of the chateau ; if it is a correct likeness she was far from good look- ing, but she must have seemed good in Henri's eyes, for he loved her devotedly and made her a present of this magnificent castle. However, in those days title deeds counted little with kings; no sooner was her royal protector dead than Diana was forced to retire from Chenonceau and to give up the place to Catherine de Medici. Near Diana's picture, which represents her as a homely woman with small, half-shut, evil-squinting eyes, is a likeness of Louis XV in his youth — a hand- some, boyish face framed in a wig of long curly hair and lighted by a pair of bright, smiling eyes — a far different Louis from the debauchee he after- ward became, far different from the man who died The Chateau Country 85 of smallpox in the Tuileries, deserted even by the cringing sycophants of his court. Chenonceau 's huge pile extends clear across the Eiver Cher, supported on stone piers and arches. From the windows of the apartments over the river there is an enchanting view of the magnifi- cent gardens and of the noble forest which sur- rounds the castle. The servant who conducted us through the place said it cost Mr. Terry a million francs merely to restore the gardens; what the castle itself cost he did not say, but it must have been many millions. The Chateau of Loches, to which we rode across country from Chenonceau, has not had the fortune to be restored by a Cuban millionaire, but it is for that very reason the more interesting; for at Loches you get a glimpse of feudal France, while at Chenonceau you see a magnificent, modern look- ing pile and must rely upon reading and imagina- tion to associate it with great events in history. Had nothing else been worth while at Loches the description of the place which the keeper of the Donjon gave would have alone repaid us for the visit. Few Frenchmen are noted for phlegmatic calm, and this particular Frenchman excelled even his own countrymen in dramatic force and fire. When Beamer lagged behind a moment to look at a certain statue, and when the Donjon keeper 86 Seeing Europe by Automobile turned and saw what it was that detained her, a look of genuine distress came into his eyes. " 'Oh, Madame, moderne modeme. Do not look at that, c'est moderne!" (that is modern!) It was as if he had seen a woman about to be swindled by some conscienceless fraud — a thing from which it was his duty as a chivalrous French- man to rescue her, and so he repeated "Moderne, moderne!" as one who by that single word had torn the mask from an impostor. Beamer turned from the "modern" statue (which, by the way, was several hundred years old), a guilty look on her face, as if realizing the gravity of her of- fense, and from that time on she looked on only such things as had the approval of our critical guide. In the dungeon he showed us the sundial and the writing on the wall made by the wretched Duke of Milan during the nine years he was im- prisoned within those gloomy walls. Beneath the duke's dungeon is a cave in which two bishops were once immured for five years ; the guide held his lantern close to the wall so we could see the inscriptions made by the bishops — they were re- ligious phrases, and there were rudely carved crosses and altars on the walls. The duke above seems not to have thought of religious subjects; while the bishops in their subterranean prison were thinking of a future heaven so as to forget a present hell, the Duke of Milan was dreaming of The Chateau Country 87 war, of the roar of cannon, of the crash of mus- ketry, the flash of swords on the field of battle. The duke's dreams were never realized, for he died in prison. Whether the two bishops fared any better in their dream of going to heaven is a question which, of course, history can not answer. Near the duke's and the bishops' prison is the big round tower in which Louis XI kept Cardinal de la Balue in an iron cage suspended in midair by a rope depending from the roof. The crafty, cruel Louis used to go to the tower to watch the cardinal cooped up in his cage, and to taunt him and ask him how he liked it, and if he wasn't glad he had invented the contrivance — for it was the cardinal himself who had invented the cage and who had induced Louis to confine Philippe de Co- mines, the historian, in it. In a way, there was poetic justice in the cardinal's being caged in his own invention — but what a diabolical old scoun- drel was Louis to sit there in that tower and watch his victim's torture ! The cage was so constructed that the miserable cardinal could neither stand nor lie down; he was forced to crouch in a huddled heap, his knees drawn up near his face. That he survived such torture year after year is a striking proof of the endurance and tenacity of the animal we call man ! For a while wherever Louis went he carried that cage and the cardinal with him. He took it to Angers, to St. Malo, to Mont St. Michel 88 Seeing Europe by Automobile — in fact, he seemed so fond of watching the cardi- nal's misery that the cage was made a regular part of his baggage, when he traveled, as is the bird cage of a woman who will not leave home without her canary ! On returning from Loches to Tours the octroi officer was solicitous about only one thing — did we have any whisky? If so, we would have to pay a tax. I assured the officer that chauffeurs do not drink whisky, that it would not be safe for thern to drink it ; it might make them over-merry, and over- merry chauffeurs are liable to try to climb trees with their automobiles and to do other strange things. "No, indeed, Monsieur," I concluded, "we have no use for whisky. We don't drink it, and we haven't a drop of it in our auto." "In that case, Monsieur, you have the right to proceed," said the officer, with a flourish of his hand, as if to say, "Welcome to our city!" And presently we were back at the Hotel de la Boule d'Or, ready for dinner after our day's sightseeing and our seventy-eight miles of motoring from one chateau to another. From Tours we went over a road on top of a dike along the Loire to Amboise, a town of five thousand inhabitants. There we stopped long enough for the Get-There to climb the steep, wind- ing street leading to the famous castle where Mary Queen of Scots and her husband, Francois II, also g I Q S @ W Q w H O 0Q. fa The Chateau Country 89 Catherine De Medici, the mother of Francois II, and his brothers, afterward Charles IX and Henri III, sat on a raised platform overlooking the courtyard to witness the butchery of twelve hun- dred Huguenots. From that courtyard, now a smiling garden, we looked down upon the roofs of the houses in Amboise and upon the River Loire and the fields beginning to yellow with their ripen- ing harvest. And all was so beautiful, so quiet, so peaceful, it was difficult to realize the frightful scene that was once enacted there. What strange notions of pleasure those kings and queens had ! Fancy any one to-day seating himself from choice on a platform to see twelve hundred human beings butchered! The thing is now inconceivable outside cannibal land or Ethio- pia. Tyrants there may be to-day, somewhere in the world, who condemn innocent men to death, but where is even the tyrant who, having ordered men to be killed, invites his friends to sit with him and watch his victims' death struggles? Yes, in the language of Parson Jasper of Virginia, "The world do move!" It has moved far, very far, since Mary and Francois and Catherine de Medici watched the murder of those twelve hundred Hu- guenots in the great courtyard of the castle at Amboise ! In that charming story of the Williamsons, the "Lightning Conductor," Molly Randolph writes 90 Seeing Europe by Automobile her father that she motored right into the castle at Amboise and that the custodian exclaimed : " To-day is the first time that an automobile has ever been inside these gates. Therefore, Made- moiselle, you have just been making history ! ' ' Beamer suggested that we imitate the " Light- ning Conductor" and drive the Get-There right into the castle. Although the road that winds up from Amboise is very steep and very narrow it is not absolutely impossible for a motor-car. And, arrived at the tower, that, too, with its spiral in- clined plane in lieu of stairs, is not wholly impos- sible, providing the automobile be a small one. Nevertheless, I demurred to Beamer's suggestion; it was a foolhardy, if not an altogether impossible, thing to do. So we left the Get-There outside the gates and entered on foot. And well it was we did this, for the custodian assured us we would have landed in jail had we attempted such sacrilege as to introduce a motor-car into the chateau's his- toric precincts. "But you let Molly Bandolph's Lightning Conductor motor into the chateau's court!" exclaimed Beamer. The custodian looked puzzled. We explained what the Williamsons had written, and then the custodian shrugged his shoulders. 1 ' Bah ! " he said. ' ' That 's only a romance ! No automobile has ever passed through these gates." Thus, from my prosaic point of view, was a The Chateau Country 91 charming episode in the Williamson story turned from fact into fiction; but Bearaer's faith was not disturbed by the custodian's statement. "He's a stupid old fossil," she declared. "His memory is no better than a mummy's. I am going to keep on believing in the Lightning Conductor." CHAPTER VI Some more chateaux. — Blois. — Chambord. — Orleans.-— Versailles. — Singular adventure in the Forest of the Trianon. /^UR next excursion from Tours was to Blois, ^-^ where is perhaps the most interesting of all the chateaux. The cheerful Catherine de Medici, who planned the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, used to live at the Chateau of Blois and visitors are shown the secret cabinet entered by a sliding panel in the wall where Catherine kept her stock of poison. Although that cheerful queen was quite successful in engineering massacres, she some- times had the desire to remove people without any fuss or disturbance, and then she would go to her little cabinet and get out a nice dose of poison and give it to the person to be removed. And in this way everything was done quietly and decently and pleasantly. Near-by was a trap-door in the floor, through which the ' ' removed ' ' person was thrown down into the river below. In this way the body floated away without giving Catherine further trouble. The only drawback was, when people found out 92 From Blois to Versailles 93 about this trait in Catherine's character it made them crabbed and suspicious and unwilling to eat or drink anything that she had had a chance to doctor. It was because of this suspicious disposi- tion that Diana of Poitiers escaped death by poison. Catherine fixed the poison all right, but Diana refused to take it. The Duke de Guise also avoided the poison offered him, and then it was that Catherine planned a first-class assassi- nation. She got her son, Henri III, to send for the duke. He responded to the king's summons, and visitors to Blois are shown the spot where the duke stood in the audience chamber, his elbow resting on the mantel, waiting for the king; and as he stood there waiting, Catherine's assassins crept up from behind and plunged their daggers in his back. To make assurance doubly sure Catherine had ordered two priests to pray for the success of her little murder, and at the moment that the dag- ger blows were struck the priests were on their knees, in the oratory near-by, praying for the suc- cess of Catherine's plans. Catherine's son, Henri III, who had been watch- ing the murder from behind portieres, when the deed was done, walked up to the dead duke and kicked him in the face. Meanwhile the assassins went down into the dungeon, where the duke's brother was imprisoned, and stuck their daggers into him, too ; yea, verily, that was a cheerful age, 94 Seeing Europe by Automobile and Catherine de Medici and her sons were cheer- ful people — to keep away from. Arthur Young, who visited the Chateau of Blois on September 11th, 1787, wrote on that date this dry comment: "The murders, or political executions, perpetrated in this castle, though not uninteresting, were inflicted on, and "by, men that command neither our love nor our veneration. The char- acter of the period and of the men that figure in it were alike disgusting. * * * The parties could hardly be better employed than in cutting each other's throats! " Chambord, the next chateau visited, is situated in a park containing twenty square miles of for- ests, gardens and drives. From the main entrance of this great estate a broad, straight road, shaded on each side by tall trees, leads to the chateau, the largest edifice of its kind in France, with the most imposing exterior and the most perfect setting. To seem in keeping with so vast a pile, it is neces- sary that the surrounding estate should be laid out on large lines. As you drive up from the gate you see the chateau in the distance, a mile or two away, at the head of a broad avenue which runs through the forest. It is a noble perspective one gets on entering the park; you look down between two rows of tall trees at a huge castle with hundreds of turrets and towers, some of them nearly two hundred feet high ; the castle has four hundred and forty apartments, and stables for twelve hundred horses. Napoleon gave Chambord to one of his From Blois to Versailles 95 marshals — Berthier, I believe — and thereby did him a sorry service, for poor Berthier nearly broke his back trying to keep even a corner of the palace habitable. It is conceived on too grand a scale to be kept up by any man not possessed of the revenues of a nation, or the income of a Wall Street captain of high finance. And so to-day it is uninhabited — a lonely reminder of an age and a regime which passed away with the coming of the French Eevolution. The wide staircase at Chambord, celebrated for its convenience and ingenuity, is so arranged that people can go up and go down at the same time without meeting one another — a fine thing in the days when the whole court of Paris was brought to Chambord, and when thousands of gorgeously dressed women and dashing cavaliers thronged the huge castle. The stream of returning guests did not meet, or even see, those who were coming up the stairs. In the theater on the second story of the chateau some of Moliere's greatest plays were given their first performance in the presence of Louis XIV and his court. The Grand Monarque has long since vanished from earth, a mere page, or at most a chapter, in history; but Moliere's plays still live, and will continue to live as long as wit and sarcasm and poetic genius command the homage of men. Old castles seem to be Touraine's principal "in- 96 Seeing Europe by Automobile dustry"; there are so many of tliern, one could pass the whole summer in the country about Blois without seeing them all, but our time was limited, so after the visit to Chambord we went on to Or- leans, where, of course, the chief "industry" is Joan of Arc. The principal street bears her name, the largest square has in its center her statue on horseback, and every shop has her pictures for sale. It has been nearly five hundred years since Joan raised the siege of Orleans and drove the English away, but the event is still celebrated every year by a great festival on the seventh and eighth of May. While strolling through the old part of the town we saw on a narrow street a hoary old house which in 1429 was the city's finest hotel ; a tablet over the door records the fact that Joan of Arc stopped there during the English siege, and that when the English were gone Charles VII made a sojourn in the same apartment "in honor of the Maid of Or- leans. ' ' Dingy as the house now looks, had it been still open for guests we, too, would have shown our respect for the Maid of Orleans by "making a sojourn in her apartment.' ' But the building has long since ceased to be used as a hotel. The seventy-five-mile run from Blois had been made in three hours, so that even after stopping to see the sights of Orleans it was still too early in the day to think of looking for night quarters. From Blois to Versailles 97 Versailles was only seventy-three miles away and we decided to make that city the end of the day's run. On the way thither we passed a number of traveling notion stores — big wagons stocked with dry goods, tinwares and groceries. While en route these wagons are closed, but on arriving at a vil- lage the sides are let down, forming counters upon which are displayed the owner's stock of goods. In the top of the wagon, above the stock of goods, is a compartment containing a thin mattress upon which sleep the owner and his family. These itin- erant merchants go from one end of France to the other, replenishing their stocks in the large cities and selling them in peasant villages where there are no dry goods stores. The idea would be a good one to adopt for our American farmers, but were any one to attempt to carry a small store on wheels to the rural districts of the United States it is safe to say the wagon would be stuck in the mud be- fore it got to the first farm. In France there is no danger of this ; regardless of the weather, the itinerant storekeeper knows that his big wagon can roll along over hard, smooth roads, no matter whether he is in the center of the country or in its remotest regions, among the Alps or the Pyrenees. "While talking with the proprietor of one of these moving stores an automobile came up and the driver stopped to see what was the matter; he thought we were in trouble. 98 Seeing Europe by Automobile "Nothing like that in the Get-There family," I said, whereat a man beside the chauffeur laughed and said : "Your talk sounds mighty like United States English." "So does yours," I answered, "but your auto- mobile doesn't look like a home product." And it wasn't. The American explained that he had rented it in Paris for $25 a day ; it was not to travel in a day more than fifty miles, except upon payment of an additional fee, and when it came to a hill it had to stop to let the motor cool. The encounter with this American pleased us not only because it was agreeable to have a chat with a fellow-countryman, but also because the sight of that twenty-five-dollar-a-day automobile, that had to cool off before it could climb a hill, made us contented and proud of the Get-There. Even with a number of short stops in villages and on the roadside, and with one long stop in Orleans, the hundred and forty-eight miles be- tween Tours and Versailles were covered in eight hours, so that we arrived in Versailles in the after- noon in time to see the big fountains play; for it happened to be on one of the two days in the month that the water is turned on in the gardens of the chateau. From the second-story windows of the palace we looked down upon a crowd of fifty thou- sand people gathered to see the fountains; there From Blois to Versailles 99 were no "keep-off-the-grass" signs; not only the walks and roads, but also the lawns of the sunken gardens and the broad, grassy avenue that con- nects the palace with the artificial lake were swarming with men, women and children. When the fountains ceased playing at six o'clock Beam- er, fatigued by her long ride, returned to the hotel, where we had secured quarters — the Hotel des Reservoirs, a stone's throw from the great palace. As I was not tired, I set forth to revisit the forest of the Petit Trianon, where poor Marie Antoinette used to play at being a dairymaid. On previous visits I had seen the Trianon and its Musee des Voitures containing Napoleon's car- riages, consequently this time I passed all that by and went direct to the forest. The little hamlet of ten or twelve thatched huts and the rustic mill where the young queen passed perhaps the only happy hours she ever knew in France, is in a re- mote part of the park; at no time so overrun by tourists as are the more accessible gardens of the palace — at the hour I went there it was entirely deserted. Throwing myself on a pile of leaves which had been heaped up under a tree by one of the caretakers of the forest, I lay there resting a few yards away from the little hut where Marie Antoinette sold milk to her courtiers, a few yards away from the room where she slept, and from the 100 Seeing Europe by Automobile toy mill where she played at being a miller's maid and occasionally ground a measure of corn. And while resting there, dreaming of the strange things once done in that rustic hamlet, I fell asleep and, more fatigued than I had imag- ined, I did not awake for several hours; then it was so dark I could not see, and for a moment I was puzzled at finding myself alone in the night on a pile of leaves under a tree. Presently, how- ever, becoming accustomed to the darkness, I per- ceived the outlines of the deserted mill and the thatched huts and realized where I was. Striking a match and looking at my watch, I was amazed to find that it was midnight ! Beamer, of course, did not know where I was and naturally would be worried. I sprang to my feet with the intention of hurrying back to the Hotel des Reservoirs to reassure her, but this was a thing easier to resolve than to do, for within five minutes I realized that I was hopelessly lost in the woods. While hurrying first one way, then another, try- ing to find the way out, I almost collided with a man muffled up in a greatcoat. On the man's head was a cocked hat, and at his side hung a sword — rather a curious make-up, but in Europe people often wear odd costumes, so I thought nothing of this man's unusual garb; I took him to be one of the forest watchmen and asked him if he knew the way out. From Blois to Versailles 101 "Sir," replied the man muffled up in the great- coat, "no one knows the way out of this forest better than I. It is I who laid out these walks and drives.' ' "Ah, a forester, not a watchman," I thought, and asked him to be good enough to show me the gate. "Nothing would give me greater pleasure," re- plied the man. "It is bad enough to have the rab- ble here in the day without having them at night, which is the only time when the owner of this place is at liberty to visit it. Follow me this way to the gate." But I was too astonished to move. "What do you mean by that?" I demanded. "Who is the owner of this forest?" The man shrugged his shoulders. "I, of course. Pray, who else has better title? Was it not I who built yonder palace? Who laid out its gardens, who constructed these walks and drives ? It is mine, all mine, yet I find shopkeepers and clerks — aye, even common laborers, tramp- ing over the polished floors of my chateau and sprawling on the lawn of my gardens. Doubtless you noticed the crowds this afternoon — larger than usual because of the fountains. In my day those fountains played only for me — for me and the guests I invited." 102 Seeing Europe by Automobile "For you?" I exclaimed. "In Heaven's name, who are you?" "I am the shade of Louis XIV, ' ' replied the man, calmly. I stared at him in amazement ; he had the high, aquiline nose of the Bourbons, the same enormous wig, even the same haughty air which distin- guished the Grand Monarque. But this man Louis XIV? Preposterous! Louis had been dead nearly two hundred years. I told him so. " Monsieur,' ' returned the stranger, loftily, "a Grand Monarque never dies. I revisit my chateau and my gardens nightly, between midnight and dawn ; 'tis the only time I can come. Usually my visits are to my old apartments in the palace, but to-night it was so warm I strolled here to get a breath of fresh air, and to see the farm of the wife of my unhappy great-great-great-grandson. Oh, of what folly, what monumental folly was that poor boy not guilty ! If his wife had attended to her business of queen instead of fooling here, if Louis had left making locks and keys alone and put his mind on being king, those beasts, the peo- ple, would have been kept in their places." Although this man called himself a shade he seemed to me to be rather real and husky, and from his talk I felt sure he was afflicted with hal- lucinations. Without heeding the mistrust which From Blois to Versailles 103 I showed by edging away from him, he continued, more in soliloquy than as if talking to me : " There is nothing so disgusting to me as those acres of pictures of that upstart Napoleon which they have placed on the walls of my palace. Ah, if I could only do more than make midnight visits to my old home, how quickly the pictures of that vulgar Corsican would be torn from the walls and made into a bonfire ! Then, too, how sickening the words 'Liberte, Egalite, F rat emit e' ! They are bad enough anywhere, but carved over the very doors of my chateau — faugh, it is nauseating! That great-grandson of mine was a poor, weak fool. I would have known how to handle the rogues who came marching from Paris — a little powder and shot, a dash of cavalry, a few thou- sands of the rascals trampled under horses ' hoofs or slashed with dragoons' sabers — that would have made everything tranquil again I" The stranger said all this in a regretful but calm, even voice. I rubbed my eyes and pinched myself to see if I were really awake. We were walking slowly along as he spoke, and were now nearing the little mill from which I had started when I arose from my slumber on that bed of leaves under the tree. "Here is the farm where that unfortunate great-granddaughter of mine played at being a dairymaid," observed the man in the greatcoat. 104 Seeing Europe by Automobile "Many are the times on warm summer nights that I have watched her games here — a pretty picture she made, dressed as a peasant girl, passing fresh milk to the Due d 'Orleans or to the Marquis La- fayette, but how short a time it lasted ! It seemed but a few weeks between the last night I saw her in that hut yonder, laughing and chatting with the Marshal de Broligie, until I dropped in one night to see her at the tower and heard those miscreants in red caps calling her 'Citoyenne Capet'! Oh, how I wished for a day, one single day of my old self, to show those canaille their proper places! But alas ! I was only a shade and so had to look on in silence, powerless to lift a finger even when that dreadful day came when I stood on the Place de la Concorde (a sweet name, that, for such a place) and saw them butcher my great-grandson and his unhappy family ! Think of it, Monsieur, I, the Grand Monarque, was obliged to stand by in si- lence while that infamy was committed ! It so dis- gusted me, for many years I discontinued my nightly visits here. I could not bear to come as long as the son of that Corsican country lawyer occupied my throne and ruled over my people. During that painful period I confined myself en- tirely to my chateau at Chambord." "At Chambord?" I interrupted. 1 ' Yes. Do you know the place 1 ' ' From Blois to Versailles 105 < ' Why, I am just from there. I went all through the Chateau of Chambord yesterday." "Ah, then, you know what a noble structure it is, but it has fallen on evil times now — it has be- come a mere show-place for gaping sightseers. It was very different when I lived there. Did you see that engraving in the Grand Trianon, the one representing a hunt in the forest of Chambord? I gave that hunt. We had a hundred hounds in the chase and a thousand guests partook of the luncheon spread in the pavilion which my men erected in the heart of the forest. Ah, those were brave old days. I remember one morning when Moliere came down from Paris with his company of actors and presented his newest play. And, Mon- sieur, let me tell you he had a right royal audience to give him ear. No man of less rank than a mar- quis, and there were dozens of generals and dukes and marshals. Were Moliere to come now he would have to face a mob of lawyers and clerks and laborers. The last time I was at Chambord I saw such a mob, every man of them with a guide- book in his hand, nosing about my apartments, tramping over my polished floors. The sight suf- focated me!" I made some comment upon this ; to which, how- ever, the strange man in the greatcoat did not reply directly ; giving me a scrutinizing glance he said: 106 Seeing Europe by Automobile 1 ' Pray, tell me, sir, where have you acquired such execrable French V I told him in the Ber- litz School, but the answer seemed to convey no meaning to him. " 'Tis no matter/ ' he muttered. 1 ' The times are so degenerate in other respects, it matters little whether a man's French be good or bad. Here is the gate and I pray you, sir, leave me. In these miserable days my palace, my gar- dens, my forests — all belong to the canaille, to the people. But in the small hours of the night, when all here is solemn and still, the mist of the long cycle of years rises, Marie Antoinette is again a happy queen, Louis is once more working at his locks, gallant dukes and pretty duchesses are once more making butter and grinding corn in yonder make-believe village. And then, sir, — ah, then the palace and the gardens and the forests are mine again. But 'tis only for a few short hours, only till day dawns and dreams end — and so, sir, good- night and good-morrow!" As the man spoke these words he drew a key from a pocket in the greatcoat and unlocked the gate; I passed through, then turned to speak my thanks, but he had vanished in the darkness of the forest. Next morning, in response to questions propounded to the head-waiter at the Hotel des Reservoirs I learned that there is in Versailles a harmless crank, whose delusion is that he is Louis XIV. Whether it was he whom I met in the From Blois to Versailles 107 forest can only be surmised, as I never saw or heard of the fellow again. On leaving Versailles we took the road via St. Cloud, where Napoleon dispersed the Council of Five Hundred and proclaimed himself First Con- sul, and a few minutes later we were bowling down the Champs Elysees on the way to our hotel in Paris. CHAPTER VII A day with Rousseau at Les Charmettes. /~\N the left bank of the Seine, on the highest ^^ ground in that quarter of Paris, is a spot which has been known to history for fourteen hun- dred years. Paris' patron saint, Ste. Genevieve, was buried here in 612 A.D. and a church erected over her tomb stood here until it fell into decay in the middle of the eighteenth century. A noble structure on the site of the old, completed in 1790, was dedicated to Ste. Genevieve, but in that time of turmoil and trouble men of daring deeds were more in the public eye than were saints, however pious or pure. Within a short year after the dedication of the new edifice to Ste. Genevieve the Revolutionary Convention ordered it called the " Pantheon' ' and caused to be inscribed over its portals the words : M Aux grands hommes la Patrie reconnaisante." (The Na- tion in homage to its great men.) The first " great men" laid to rest in the new Pantheon were Mirabeau and Voltaire in 1791; 108 A Day with Rousseau 109 two years later Marat, slain in his bath by the beautiful Charlotte Corday, was placed in the same niche with Mirabeau. Shortly afterward, in 1794, the remains of Jean Jacques Eousseau were removed from their grave at Ermonoville, where they had reposed for sixteen years, and were accorded a place among the Pantheon's im- mortals. Since that day a long list of France's more or less illustrious men have been given a resting-place in the Pantheon — most of them a permanent place; but the first four, and perhaps the best known of them all, found there only a temporary abode. Mirabeau and Marat were re- moved within a short time by the same Revolu- tionary Tribunal which had put them there. Vol- taire and Rousseau were also removed, but when, by whom or whither they were taken still remains one of history's literary puzzles. When Voltaire died in 1778 his heart was placed in a silver case and given to his niece, Madame Denis ; eighty-six years later, in 1864, when it was sought to restore the heart to the body, Voltaire's sarcophagus in the Pantheon was opened and found to be empty. On examination Rousseau's sarcophagus was also found without a tenant. The accepted theory is that the remains of these two celebrated men were secretly removed after the Bourbon restoration in 1815, in paltry retalia- 110 Seeing Europe by Automobile tion for the desecration of the tombs of the French kings at St. Denis. Whatever the object of this rifling of the philos- ophers ' graves it does not seem to have lessened the interest or the regard of the common people in France, for at least one of those philosophers — for Jean Jacques Eousseau ! On a week-day, when the visitors to the Pantheon's vaults are mainly foreigners, the crowd scatters, or if it gathers at any one place more than another it is apt to be in front of Victor Hugo's tomb. But on Sundays, when the visitors are French men and women, it is before the tomb of the "Friend of Man" that you will see the largest crowd, the most interested crowd, the crowd that listens the closest to the custodian as he calls Eousseau the great "pre- curseur" of the Eevolution. Doubtless few of the several hundred people whom we saw one Sunday afternoon in July, crowded around Eousseau 's tomb, knew that his body had long since disappeared from its massive sarcophagus to be put away where no tongue or pen hath ever recorded. The crowd, composed al- most entirely of working men and women, prob- ably had neither time nor inclination for the de- tails of history, but that in a general way it knew, or felt, the great role which the vagabond immi- grant from Switzerland had played in the desti- nies of France — aye, in the destinies of the world, A Day with Rousseau 111 was plain from the way it lingered about the sar- cophagus which was once tenanted by Eousseau 's body, and which is still inscribed with his name. A few weeks after observing this illustration of the present-day Frenchman's interest in Bous- seau we stood in Geneva, the city of his birth, where his books during his life were burned by the public hangman, and where, after his death, a statue was erected by the city in his honor. The statue, as all tourists know, is on an island in the Khone, in the heart of Geneva. In this work, described by Lord Morley as "trimly compla- cent/ J Eousseau is seated in an armchair, a pile of books at his feet, a pen in his hand, his head bent slightly forward as if lost in profound medi- tation. Perhaps into the head of no man in any land or any age did ever stranger thoughts come than the thoughts which sometimes came into the head of Jean Jacques Eousseau — but if his bronze image on that island in the Ehone could only see and think, the statue 's thoughts would be stranger than any of its living original. From that bronze armchair, were the real Eous- seau there, he could see the spot where the city of his birth ordered the hangman to make a bonfire of his books ; he could look out on the city which refused him an asylum when he was driven by despotism from France, but which, when he was dead and unmindful of either praise or blame, 112 Seeing Europe by Automobile could find no honor too great to bestow upon his name and memory; he could see the street down which he fled as a boy to begin life as a tramp and to end it as one of the world's immortals. And finally he could look down on generation after generation of tourists who pause on the bridge spanning the Ehone to look at that statue and to ponder over the strange career of the man to whose memory it was raised. That day in September, after Beamer and I had so paused and so pondered, we suddenly re- solved to spend the day with Rousseau in the farmhouse, where almost the only happy period of his life was passed — at Les Charmettes, in Savoy. The road thither is the same as that taken by Rousseau in 1728, when, while a sixteen-year- old apprentice to a Genevese engraver, he ran away from his master and began that strange pil- grimage which sometimes found him sleeping on benches in public parks for want of a bed, and fasting for want of a crust of bread; but which ended with his name known to all the world, and with his native and his adopted lands vying with each other in doing homage to his memory. Hardly are Geneva's outskirts reached before the road begins a steep ascent, with many a twist and turn until the summit is attained. There we paused to look back upon the lake and the city of Geneva. The city is changed; perhaps it is more A Day with Rousseau 113 beautiful; certainly it is much larger than it was one hundred and eighty-two years ago. But all the rest, the fields, the flowers, the lake, the moun- tains — these are about as they were when the young engraver 's apprentice paused on that same spot in 1728 to take a last look at the city of his birth. The same marvelously beautiful view met our gaze as that which entranced Rousseau, and we lingered perhaps even longer than he did to enjoy it. We could afford to do so, for we were in no danger of being overtaken by either an irate father or an indignant engraver; moreover, we were in an automobile capable of making the whole journey from Geneva to Les Charmettes in a couple of hours, whereas Rousseau, afoot and on the ill-paved road of his time, required several days. Just beyond the village of Cruseilles, fifteen miles from Geneva, there is a profound gorge, the boundary line between France and Switzerland. In Rousseau's day to cross the frontier here meant a descent into the bottom of that gorge and a long and fatiguing climb up its precipitous walls. To- day a superb suspension bridge spans the gorge, and we would have traversed it in two minutes had we not halted in the center to look down at the boiling waters far below, and to observe the traces of the ancient path up which the young Rousseau 114 Seeing Europe by Automobile scrambled when he went that way in the third decade of the eighteenth century. Nine miles beyond the gorge is Annecy, the little city where Eousseau first met Madame de War- rens, that remarkable woman who exerted so pro- found an influence upon his career, and thus indi- rectly upon the career of France. Twenty miles further south we passed through Aix-les-Bains, in Eousseau 's day a quiet village, but now a town of pretentious hotels overflowing with pleasure and health-seekers from all parts of Europe. We were in search of neither health nor pleasure — at least not of that sort of pleasure — so we made no stop at Aix-les-Bains, but hurried on to the completion of our plan, which was to project ourselves back- ward nearly two centuries and to spend a day with Jean Jacques and "Hainan" at Les Charmettes. Whoever has read the fifth and sixth books of Rousseau's "Confessions" need only be told that Les Charmettes is to-day precisely as it was in 1736 to understand that in no spot in the world can one more easily push back the relentless hand of Time and summon forth the shadowy scenes and figures of a bygone age and make them all real again. Charmettes, the farmhouse where Rous- seau and Hadame de Warrens went when they left Chambery, has undergone no change whatever; they sought a place far enough from the city to live in peace, a solitude a deux, and yet near A Day with Rousseau 115 enough to go to town when necessity required. The farmhouse at Les Charmettes filled that require- ment in 1736; it fills it to-day: "At the gate of Chambery, yet as solitary and retired as though it were a hundred leagues off, between two tolerably high hills is a little valley through which among trees and pebbles runs a babbling brook. We chose a house in front of which was a terraced garden with a vineyard above and an orchard below; opposite was a wood of chestnut trees with a fountain hardby; further up the hill were meadows for cattle — in a word, we found every thing we needed for the little rustic household we intended setting up." So Rousseau describes the place, and the de- scription applies to-day. He says the first time they went there Madame de "Warrens was carried in a chair whilst he followed on foot : "The road is up hill, and as she was rather heavy she feared tiring the chairmen and so got out when we were half way on to walk the rest." The road is indeed uphill; the Get-There had crossed the Simplon and the St. Gothard passes, but it was all it could do to climb that road from Chambery to Les Charmettes; it was so rugged, so rocky, so steep, so narrow. Half-way up we, too, got out — not to rest any chairmen, but to rest our motor in which the water was fairly boiling. When it had cooled off we started the climb again and presently found ourselves before a stone farm- 116 Seeing Europe by Automobile house in a terraced garden. On the gatepost were inscribed the words : "Maison de Jean Jacques Rousseau!" Had there been any way to put out of sight our red automobile the illusion would have been com- plete. The house, the terrace, the garden were un- changed; the still autumn air was disturbed only by the drowsy hum of bees winging their way to and from a hive near-by. Rousseau records that he began the days at Charmettes looking after lr\s bees; from them he would glance up at the win- dows of Madame de Warrens' chamber, and if the shutters were open, indicating that she was awake, he would leave the bees to go and embrace her. It was noon when we opened the gate and climbed up the path to the front door ; the bees were there, the window-shutters were open — surely "Hainan" was awake. We rang the bell. A comely lass with brown hair and rosy cheeks opened the door. "M. Rousseau et Mme. de Warrens sont Us chez eux?" These words were spoken in our best Berlitz- School French, and to our delight the little maid understood them — at any rate, she replied with a smile : "All non, Monsieur, Us sont parti. Mais en- trez. La maison est ouverte." In the kitchen, which was just to the left of the entrance hall,, was a fire and the smell of good A Day with Rousseau 117 things cooking; in the dining-room, to the right, were the same table, the same chairs and buffet, filled with the same plates and cups and saucers which were there in 1736. " Would M. Eousseau be back in time for dinner ?" "No, Monsieur," responded the maid; and a smile was the only sign that she did not take our question seriously. * ' But the dinner, ' ' I persisted. * ' It is for him, is it not?" "No, Monsieur. Jean Jacques is not coming again. The dinner is for Monsieur and Madame Aubrey. They live here and care for the house. The dinner is served in the kitchen. Jean Jacques ' dining-room is not used now. It is kept just as it was when he was here." ' ' When was that — yesterday ? ' ' "No, it was many, many yesterdays ago. Nev- ertheless, Monsieur, everything remains the same ; nothing has been changed." Conducting us up the winding stairs to the sec- ond floor, the brown-haired maid showed us Ma- dame de Warrens' room. "This is her bed," she said. "You see, Mon- sieur, it has not been slept on since she was here. This is the same coverlid. It does not look so old? Mais oui, it is old, very old. But there has always been a caretaker. The room has been sunned and aired, and no one has rested on this bed — no one, 118 Seeing Europe by Automobile Monsieur, since Madame de Warrens was here. That is why it seems so new, so fresh!" It was this bed, this coverlid which Kousseau says he kissed because "Maman's dear form had reposed upon it." On the walls of the room were three portraits of Madame de Warrens, no one of which in the least resembled the other. They made us think of the Indian Kajah who importuned Sir Joshua Eeynolds to paint a portrait of his father. Sir Joshua had never seen his subject, nor did the Kajah have any photograph of him, nor even a lock of his hair. "How, then, can I paint his por- trait?" demanded Sir Joshua. "What?" exclaimed the Kajah. "You can not paint my father's portrait because you have never seen him and because I have not his photograph? You have never seen Christ's photograph, nor yet a lock of his hair, yet you paint His portrait. I insist that you paint my father's." Sir Joshua finally consented and painted a most oriental-looking man with a gorgeous Indian head- gear — a very picturesque picture indeed, but when the Kajah came and looked at it he burst into tears as he exclaimed, "My God, how father has changed ! ' ' Had Rousseau dropped in on us that September day and seen those three portraits of Madame de Warrens he would no doubt have exclaimed, "Mon Dieu, how Maman has changed!" For versatile A Day with Rousseau 119 as was Madame de Warrens, she could not possibly have resembled all three of the pictures which now hang on the walls of Les Charmettes. One por- trait represents a refined, spirituelle woman; the second shows a voluptuous, even coarse, woman; the third is the portrait of a comely woman, with thoughtful, almost melancholy, mien. But all three purport to be likenesses of the same person at the same period of her life. The dates beneath the portraits are also at cross-purposes ; under one pic- ture Madame de Warrens ' death is given as occur- ring in 1762 ; under another picture she is said to have died in 1765. The caretaker's pretty maid had never read any of Rousseau's writings, nor even his description of the house where she lived with M. and Mme. Aubrey; she spoke of "Jean Jacques," however, as she might have talked of one who had gone that morning and might be back to-morrow. She never used the word " Rousseau,' ' but invariably said ' ' Jean Jacques. " " Here is Jean Jacques ' room, ' ' she said, leading us into the next chamber; and there we saw the little desk on which Rousseau wrote, and the armchair into which he tells us he curled himself up when he would spend half the night reading Locke's "Essay Upon the Human Understanding. ' ' "There can be no better time or place to read Rousseau's description of this house than right 120 Seeing Europe by Automobile here, seated in his armchair, the book resting on his desk." So spoke Beamer ; but the caretaker's maid frus- trated this sentimental design. It was all right to read in the room and to rest the book on Jean Jacques' desk — but sit in his armchair? "Ah, Madame, c'est impossible! (that is impossible!) No one has sat in that chair for a hundred and fifty years. But I will bring Monsieur and Madame chairs from the kitchen." She did so ; and for the next hour or two we sat at that desk alternately reading the "Confes- sions" and looking out of the window at the majes- tic mountains upon which, through that same win- dow, Eousseau used to look and dream the dreams which were destined to shake the world. Our sur- roundings gave a double charm to what, owing to Rousseau's inimitable style, has an inherent charm of its own, no matter what the circumstances or surroundings of its reading. Describing his daily routine at Charmettes Rousseau says : "I rose every morning before the sun and passed through a neighboring orchard into an exceedingly beautiful path above the vineyard leading to Chambery. Here, while walking along, I offered up my prayer, consisting not in vain lip service, but in a sincere elevation of heart to the Author of that lovely Nature whose beauties met my gaze. I never liked to pray in my room; it seems to me as though the walls and all the little works of man interpose between God and my soul. I love to contemplate Him in His work whilst my heart rises in adora- tion towards Him! " A Day with Rousseau 121 Careless readers of history class Rousseau with the eighteenth century atheists; so far from that being true, Rousseau advocated banishment of all who do not believe in God, and in putting to death any one who, once a believer, should afterward re- nounce his faith. Such intolerance to-day would inspire indifference or contempt, but it was & seri- ous matter in the last years of the eighteenth cen- tury. Robespierre adopted the principle precisely as Rousseau laid it down in the ' ' Social Contract ' ' ; and in 1794 Chaumette and Clootz were both guil- lotined for the sole crime, as St. Just phrased it, of " attacking the immortality of the soul, the thought of which consoled Socrates in his dying moments." On his return from those morning walks Rousseau tells us : "I looked from afar to see if Maman was stirring yet; and if her shutters were open a thrill of joy would run through me and I would make towards the house. If they were still shut I went into the garden to await her rising. * * * The moment the shutter was thrown open I went and embraced her in bed, often while still asleep; and those embraces, as pure as they were tender, derived from their very innocence a charm which never enters into sensual pleasures." Then they breakfasted in a little arbor on the terrace in front of the cottage. The description of those breakfasts, together with the lateness of the hour, made us hungry, and we determined to eat in that arbor. The little maid was "desolated": the arbor was open to us — ah, yes, and the table 122 Seeing Europe by Automobile and chairs were still there, just where Jean Jacques and Maman had put them, but she could give us nothing to eat — there was little in the house, and that little belonged to M. and Mme. Aubrey. * ' That is nothing, ' ' said Beamer, laughing. ' ' We have hot chocolate and wine in our Thermos bot- tles, and a roast chicken and bread and cakes and ever so many other good things in our lunch bas- ket. You spread the cloth for us and fetch fresh water, and we shall have as jolly a luncheon in that little arbor as ever Jean Jacques and Maman had." And we did. At that time of year there were few leaves on the vines, so that as we sat there under the trellised top of the little arbor the view on the sides was not wholly obstructed; we were not more than a dozen steps from the cottage and from our seats at the rustic table we could read the inscription over the door : "Reduit par Jean Jacque habite\ Tu me rappelles son gSnie, Sa solitude, sa fierte Et ses malheurs, et sa folie. A la gloire, a la verite" II osa consacrer sa vie, Et fut toujours persecute" Ou par lui-meme ou par l'envie." (Retreat inhabited by Jean Jacques, thou remindest me of his genius, his solitude, his pride, his misfortunes and his A Day with Rousseau 123 folly; to glory and truth he dared consecrate his life, and waa ever persecuted, either by himself or by Envy.) Herault de Sechelles, the Commissioner of the Convention who inscribed these lines over the door at Charmettes during the Revolution, was not much of a poet, but, like the other revolutionists of his day, he worshiped Rousseau — a thing not hard to comprehend, since Rousseau was the arch- apostle of the Revolution, who styled himself the "Friend of Man," and dared preach the rights of man in an age when man had no rights than any king or nobleman took the trouble to respect. That revolutionists adored him is comprehensible, but it is not so easy to understand the feeling which a large part of the governing class of his day felt toward the man to whom more than any other they owed their destruction a few years later. The kings of both France and England offered him pensions — he refused them both; Frederick the Great wrote offering to befriend him ; the Duke of Luxembourg sought his friendship, so did Lord Marischal. Lord Morley says that the women of France "were intoxicated by Rousseau's 'New Heloise' to such a pitch that they would pay any price for a glass out of which he had drunk; they would kiss a scrap of paper that contained a piece of his handwriting and vow that no woman of sen- sibility could hesitate to consecrate her life to him if she were only certain to be rewarded by his at- 124 Seeing Europe by Automobile tachment. ,, In a letter written from Paris in December, 1765, by David Hume, the historian, to Dr. Blair, Hume says : "It is impossible to express or to imagine the enthusiasm of this Nation in Rousseau's behalf. As I am supposed to have him in my custody all the world, especially the great ladies, tease me to be introduced to him. I have had rouleaux of gold thrown into my hand with earnest supplications that I would prevail on him to accept of them. I am persuaded that were I to open a subscription with his consent I should receive £50,000 in a fortnight. * * * I am strongly solicited to prevail on him to take a walk and then to give warning to my friends. Were the public informed he could not fail to have many thousand spectators. People may talk of ancient Greece as they please, but no Nation was ever so fond of genius as this, and no person ever so much engaged their attention as Rousseau. Voltaire and everybody else are quite forgotten." Thirteen years after Hume wrote this letter saying, if Kousseau would only consent, that within a fortnight his admirers would raise for him a subscription of $250,000, Kousseau died, as he had lived, rejecting alike the subscriptions of friends and the pensions of kings. But twelve years after his death, in 1790, when his widow ap- plied to Mirabeau for alms that Tribune of the Kevolution answered: "I have too much reverence for the memory of the man whose name you bear to assume the honor of paying you the homage which is due you from the Nation. Pray present your petition to the National Assembly. The representatives of the People alone have the right to award the recognition she de- serves to the widow of the immortal man of genius, whose loss they never cease to deplore." A Day with Rousseau 125 The National Assembly immediately voted Therese a yearly pension of fifteen hundred francs. The spot we visited that autumn day has long been a place of pilgrimage to students of history ; Lamartine, Berlioz, Stendhal, Hugo, Lord Morley and a host of others have been there. And long before any of these there came here on Christmas Eve of 1789 the English squire who rode horseback over all France, that Arthur Young, whose book of travels has been a storehouse of information to every historian of the French Eevolution. In the room where we sat reading his book Young wrote these lines : "Dec. 24, 1789 — The country to Chambery improves greatly; the mountains, though high, recede; the valley is wide and the slopes more cultivated, and toward the Capital of Savoy are many country houses which enliven the scene. * * * But Chambery had objects more interesting to me than the houses of the nobility. I was eager to view Charmettes, the road, the house of Madame de Warrens, the vineyard, the garden, every- thing in a word that had been described by the inimitable pencil of Rousseau. There was something so deliciously ami- able in her character in spite of her frailties — her constant gaiety and good humor, her tenderness and humanity, her farming speculations — but above all other circumstances the love of Rousseau has written her name amongst the few whose memories are connected with us by ties more easily felt than described. The house is situated about a mile from Cham- bery, fronting the rocky road which leads to the city, and the wood of chestnuts in the valley. It is small and much of the same size as we should suppose in England would be found on a hundred-acre farm, without the least luxury or pretension. * * * It could but interest me and I viewed it with a degree of emotion; even in the leafless melancholy of December it 126 Seeing Europe by Automobile pleased. I wandered about some hills which assuredly were the walks Rousseau so agreeably describes. * * * I returned to Chambery with my heart full of Rousseau and Madame de Warrens. " Lord Morley wrote of his visit also : "Les Charmettes. the modest farmhouse to which Rousseau and Madame de Warrens retired, still stands. * * * The homes in which men have lived now and again lend themselves to the beholder's subjective imagination; they seem to be brood- ing in forlorn isolation like some life-wearied greybeard over ancient and sorrow-stricken memories. The supreme loveliness of the scene, the sweet-smelling meadows, the orchard, the little vineyard, with here and there a rose glowing crimson among the yellow stunted vines, the rust-red crag of the Nivolet rising against the sky across the valley, the contrast between all this peace, beauty, silence, and the diseased, miserable life of the famous man who found a scanty span of paradise in the midst of it, touches the soul with a pathetic spell!" It was the recollection of the days in that "mod- est farmhouse' ' that caused Rousseau thirty years afterward to write: "Here commenced my brief season of happiness; here came those calm, yet rapid, moments that authorize me to say — I have lived! * * * I rose with the sun and I was happy; I walked out and I was happy; I saw Maman and I was happy; I left her and I was happy; I rambled over the hills and through the woods, or strolled along the valley — I read, loafed, worked in the garden, gathered the fruits, helped in my house- hold duty, and happiness accompanied me everywhere. In nothing assignable was it; 'twas in myself, and so could not for a moment leave me." But happiness did leave him when he left that silent, beautiful little valley ; and it is not too much A Day with Rousseau 127 to say that no real happiness ever came to Rous- seau again until that final moment of all when, just before breathing his last, he exclaimed to his wife : "Look, Therese! Look! The sky is clear — not a cloud is to be seen. Would you not say that the gate of Heaven is open and that God is waiting for me?" Those were his dying words. Rousseau has long since become one of those personages of whom rather than whom the world reads; there are not only many books written about him, but books have been written about the books about Rousseau. These books concerning him are read to-day, but the books which he him- self wrote are covered with dust on library shelves — all except the "Confessions." They, of course, will long be read for their charm of style and their unparalleled exposure of the inmost workings of an extraordinary soul! Verily, Rousseau was right when he said in the opening paragraph of the "Confessions" that he was about to write a work of which history afforded no example, and of which posterity would see no imitation. He would show a man in all the truth of nature, and that man would be himself ! Many men do as mean things as Rousseau did, but no other man ever wrote them down and read them to his friends and published them to the world. For two years, while living at the "Her- 128 Seeing Europe by Automobile milage," a cottage on the outskirts of Madame d'Epinay's estate, Bousseau made desperate love to Madame d'Houdetot. Many years later, while Madame d'Houdetot still lived, he wrote in the " Confessions' ' minute details of this amour and read them aloud to a company of friends in Paris. As an index of the curious state of public opinion of that day it may be added that Madame d'Houde- tot felt flattered rather than outraged at the pub- lication of her affair with the ' ' great philosopher. ' ' Yes, so curious a book as the "Confessions" will always find readers ; but, apart from students, it is safe to say no one nowadays reads either the * ' New Heloise" or the "Social Contract," the two works which made him famous and which produced so profound an effect, not only in France, but throughout the world. The novel of to-day is so far in advance of the eighteenth century romance, in construction, in plot, in technique, that modern readers not only have not the patience to read the "New Heloise," but they find it difficult to com- prehend how a book so written could ever have set the world by the ears. That is was so set we are told by responsible writers; the printing presses could not turn out copies fast enough to supply the demand, so copies were rented at the rate of twelve cents the hour. Fine ladies, beginning the book just before start- ing for the opera or to a ball, could not lay it down ; A Day with Rousseau 129 they would order their carriages returned to the stables, and would read all night. The German philosopher Kant only once in his life failed to take his afternoon walk, says Lord Morley, and that "unexampled omission was due to the witch- ery of the New Heloise. ,, The "Social Contract" began with the words: i i Man is everywhere born free ; man is everywhere in chains ! ' ' — a paradox, illogical, historically un- true ; yet we are told that that sentence shook all Europe. America owes to Rousseau the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence ; ac- cording to some writers our independence was largely due to the Frenchman, for it was his elo- quence which "produced that glow of enthusiastic feeling in France which led to the all-important assistance rendered by that country to the Ameri- can colonies.' ' To Rousseau France owes the center of that trin- ity of words which to-day is carved on every public building and every monument in the republic — "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality.' ' For it was Rousseau who first proclaimed the brotherhood of man. In an age when Louis XV lived and Madame du Barry reigned, Rousseau had the hardihood to write : "I would rather be the wife of a charcoal burner than the mistress of a king." 130 Seeing Europe by Automobile In an age when all the world groveled at the feet of kings, Eousseau declared that true sover- eignty lay not in kings, but in the people. In an age when literary men eagerly sought the patronage of kings, Rousseau proudly refused the pensions offered him by the kings of France and England. Once, when his financial affairs were at their lowest ebb, a friend got the English Govern- ment to send him a draft for the full amount of his pension, some seven thousand francs. Rousseau tore up the draft and rebuked his friend for want- ing him to accept alms from a king. These were some of the things that came back to our memories as we sat in that arbor at Char- mettes that balmy September day. The droning of the bees, the soft autumn air fragrant with the perfume of new-mown hay and of vines and flowers, the perfect stillness that prevailed — all made us take no note of time; we hardly noticed when the sun sank behind the mountain that rises sharply back of the stone cottage. Probably we would have dreamed there till darkness fell had we not been awakened from our dreams by footsteps coming up the garden path. A man and a woman were approaching — Jean Jacques • and Maman? Alas, no; only the caretaker and his wife, returning from their labor in the fields. "Monsieur and Madame have been lunching in Jean Jacques' arbor/ ' explained the red-cheeked A Day with Rousseau 131 maid with the brown hair. "They had their own lunch. I spread a cloth and gave them some dishes.' ' "You did right, Marie," replied the caretaker's wife, with a friendly smile. And, turning to us, she added: "It is a beautiful place in which to lunch, is it not?" 1 i Indeed, it is, ' ' we answered. ' i And a beautiful place in which to dream. ' ' "Ah, oui, Monsieur. That is why Jean Jacques came here. It was so quiet, so out of the way. Monsieur knows, perhaps, that the city of Cham- bery owns the place and preserves it just as when Jean Jacques was here. When he returns he will find everything the same as it was the day he went away, the furniture, the plates, the beds, the gar- den — everything ! ' ' When he returns ! Ah, if the spirits of the dead ever do revisit the earth it is quite certain Rous- seau's spirit pays frequent visits to that stone farmhouse in the silent little valley above Cham- bery. When we descended the garden path and passed out through the gate into the narrow road it seemed to us as if we were stepping out of the eighteenth century. Within that enclosure, while reading Bousseau's books in Rousseau's armchair, while lunching at Maman's table in the vine-cov- ered arbor, the long vista of endless years seemed 132 Seeing Europe by Automobile to pass away; we seemed close, very close to the two extraordinary beings who once lived and loved in this idyllic spot. But outside the gate stood the Get-There — an instant reminder of the twentieth century! Vis- ions of the eighteenth century, with Maman ascending the hill in a sedan chair, Jean Jacques following adoringly after, can not long survive the smell of gasoline and the chug-chug of an auto- mobile. When we had cranked up and were on the way down the valley to Chambery we realized that the eighteenth century had vanished into the dead past again, and that our day with Rousseau was ended ! CHAPTER VIII The Empress Eugenie.— Getting a German Pass. — Triptyques. — On the road to Rheims. — The Chateau Thierry.— On the Field of Chalons. — Race with an aeroplane. — A narrow es- cape. — On to Valmy. 'I XT HILE in Paris we called one evening on a * * friend, Mme. G , who said to us : ' * You can't guess with whom I had tea to-day — with the Empress Eugenie.' ' Then Mme. G explained that the former empress, now a lonely old woman, often visits Paris and stops at a quiet little hotel where many of her friends call on her. We were interested in one fact that Mme. G mentioned, viz., that even in her hired rooms in an hotel Eu- genie affects imperial formality — her visitors may not either commence or end a conversation, the ini- tiative in that regard being the prerogative of royalty. When they enter her presence they kneel, and in leaving they do not shake hands and turn and go, as one does in saying good-by to an ordi- nary person; they kneel again, kiss Eugenie's hand and back themselves out of the apartment, bowing as they retire. In our democratic age all this ceremony seems 133 134* Seeing Europe by Automobile none too sensible, even in the palace of a reigning monarch; in an obscure hotel, in the presence of a lonely, broken-down old woman, it is pathetically illogical. Yet deposed royalty has ever been af- flicted by such lack of logic. Napoleon on St. Helena lived in a house that was little better than a stable; he was poorer than a stable groom, and more desolate and forlorn; yet from the few friends who shared his captivity he demanded the same ceremonious homage which had been paid him while he was the most powerful personage on earth. It was the fact that he had been General Bonaparte that made of Napoleon a modern Caesar, yet nothing the English Government ever did angered him more than its consistent and per- sistent refusal to address him as Emperor; all communications to him from the British Foreign Office were addressed to "General Buonaparte 7 ' — and never by any chance was that "u" omitted, which irritated Napoleon all the more, for it was a reminder of his Italian origin, a thing he wished Frenchmen to forget. The same England which refused to acknowl- edge the sovereignty of Napoleon when he really reigned, when he was an emperor whose com- mands were obeyed by a million men, whose word was law to half Europe — this same England now accords the title of empress to an exile, whose only claim to royalty is that she is the widow of a man The Road to Rheims 135 of doubtful relationship to that same General Bonaparte! Since her residence in England fol- lowing the Second Empire's downfall in 1870 Eugenie has always been accorded the homage deemed due to ex-royalty. Queen Victoria treated her as an empress for the sole reason that she was the widow of the reputed nephew of Napoleon. But Queen Victoria's predecessor on the British throne refused to treat Napoleon himself as an emperor even when he not only was one, but when he was the most powerful emperor the world had ever seen. After this talk with Mme. G about the Em- press Eugenie and Napoleon we drove to the Place Vendome to study that majestic column which stands to-day as an instance of the final tri- umph of genius over mere money and power. In 1814 the Bourbons caused the Colonne Vendome to be hurled to the ground and the bronze effigy of Napoleon to be cast into cannon. The very men- tion of Napoleon's name was forbidden. And six years later, when his body was lowered into a lone- ly grave on a barren isle at the other end of the world, the Bourbon king drew a sigh of relief and fancied France was rid forever of the great Cor- sican's memory. But within twenty years of that burial on St. Helena a vessel, convoyed by a fleet of warships, bore the dead exile across the seas ; and on reach- 136 Seeing Europe by Automobile ing France he was accorded a funeral the like of which is unparalleled in history. From the Rhine to the Pyrenees, from the Atlantic to the Mediter- ranean, the people of France stood with bared heads on the day of Napoleon's second funeral. It is said that no fewer than six millions of French- men lined the banks of the Seine from the coast to the capital, anxious to get a mere glimpse of the catafalque containing the lifeless body of the re- turned emperor. On that day the whole tribe of Bourbons learned that, though dead, Napoleon was mightier than any of them: and a little later the majestic monument to his memory was re-erected in the Place Vendome, where even republican France now wishes it to remain — not as a sign of approval of Napoleon's absolutism, but as a recog- nition of his genius, of his intellectual greatness. The Colonne Vendome, twice hurled to the ground (in 1814 by the Bourbons, in 1871 by the Communists) will probably now be allowed to stand, like Trajan's column at Rome, to interest and instruct generations of men for a thousand years to come. Around Trajan's marble column runs a spiral band three or four feet wide, on which, in nearly three thousand figures carved in the stone, may be read to-day the history of Rome's war with the Dacians eighteen hundred years ago. Doubtless eighteen hundred years hence travelers of that remote day will stop before the Colonne The Road to Ilheims 187 Vendonie to see in its three hundred yards of re- liefs a picture in bronze of that wonderful cam- paign which began with the breaking up of Napo- leon's camp at Boulogne and ended with his brilliant victory at Austerlitz. The foreign motorist in Germany must have his license viseed by a German consul, so before leav- ing Paris we went to the Rue de Lille, Number 123, and found there a dozen automobiles, the owners of which had come to arrange for motoring in the Kaiser's country. We had to wait till they were attended to, then several Germans approached the consul's clerk (the consul himself was far too grand a personage to wait on common mortals), and timidly, apologetically, asked for a "Reise Pass" (a traveling pass). The clerk, majestic and overawing by reason of his deputed authority, his mustache upturned at an angle which the Kaiser himself might have envied, granted the Reise Pass to his countrymen with a quick, curt air — as though he were bestowing an unmerited favor — then turned to us and brusquely demanded : "Was wollen Sief" (what do you want?) " We purpose motoring in Germany and we wish you to do whatever is needful to be done to our papers." "Let me see them." The majestic clerk frowned when he saw the chauffeur's license which we had obtained from the Prefet du Police at Havre. 138 Seeing Europe by Automobile "This says your domicile is at No. 42 Rue Monti- villiers!" "Yes." 1 ' But you are not a Frenchman ? ' ' My Berlitz French prevented contradiction of this statement, even had I been disposed to deceive him. "I am not a Frenchman,' ' I said, "but pro tern. and officially, strictly officially, I reside at the ad- dress given." Then I explained how my license had been obtained. 1 1 l rr egular, very irregular, ' ' muttered the awe- inspiring clerk. "But if the French Government is satisfied we can not complain; however, you must have your papers authenticated. The French Government must do that before I will vise them." ' ' Just what do you mean by the French Govern- ment?" I mildly queried; and for an instant even that omniscient clerk seemed puzzled, but he quick- ly recovered himself and his brow wrinkled, as became the brow of bored majesty. "The Minister of the Interior," he answered curtly. "Any one should know that in an affair of this kind the term ' Government ' means His Ex- cellency the French Minister of the Interior. ' ' And the clerk wheeled around to dart an Olym- pian glance at another of his countrymen who had come humbly to request a "Reise Pass." The Road to Rheims 139 We were told the Minister of the Interior was to be found on the Place Beauveau. It was easy to find that place, but it was not easy to get our papers ' ' authenticated ' ' ; for after we got to the Place Beauveau nobody seemed to know just what we wanted, and as we ourselves were a bit hazy on the subject we were for a while at what the French call an impasse. Finally, however, after being sent from one bureau to another we found an official who said that, although he didn't know us from the side of a house, if the German Gov- ernment insisted on our being " authenticated' ' he would "authenticate" us. He stamped our li- cense, scrawled his name under the stamp and said: "Voila, Monsieur et Madame — perhaps now they will let you motor in their beloved Germany." Then, thanking the official, we drove back to No. 123 Rue de Lille, showed the majestic clerk the stamp and signature, and this time, on payment of fifteen francs, he viseed our papers. As the finding of the particular bureau where papers will be "authenticated" is a difficult matter, even after one reaches the Ministry of the Interior, it may be well to say here that that bureau is not in the main building on the Place Beauveau; it is half a mile away, at No. 13 Rue Cambaceres, a street named after the man who wrote the sketch of the civil code, which afterward expanded into the Code 140 Seeing Europe by Automobile Napoleon, and who aided Napoleon in overthrow- ing the Directory. For his share in that affair of the 18th Brumaire (November 9th, 1799) Camba- ceres was made Second Consul when Napoleon be- came First Consul. If one's motor trip is confined to a single coun- try it may not be worth while to join a foreign touring club ; you pay the duty on your automobile when you enter the country and you get your money back when you leave; there is but one such transaction, and it involves but little trouble and no expense. But if several countries are to be visited a club membership is helpful. When we reached Havre the Get-There was inventoried and weighed, and a duty of six hundred and seventy- six francs was paid; this amount, less two cents for a receipt stamp, was refunded three months later when we left France for the last time at the frontier near Mentone. That was our only direct dealing with customs officials, for before starting east we went to the handsome home of the Touring Club de France, at No. 67 Avenue de la Grande Armee and paid six francs for a mem- bership, which entitled us to secure for each coun- try we purposed visiting what is called a "Trip- tyque," i.e., a certificate in triplicate setting forth that we had deposited with the club's treasurer an amount sufficient to cover all duties which the Get-There would have to pay. Armed with a trip- The Road to Rheims 141 tyque as you cross a frontier, instead of being obliged to weigh your automobile and furnish a detailed description of its color, its seats, number, motor, etc., and then pay a large sum in cash in the currency of the country you are about to enter — instead of all this delay and bother you merely present your triptyque ; the customs officer retains the first sheet and stamps on the second sheet the date of your entry; when you recross the frontier the date and place of your exit are stamped on the second sheet ; your goings and comings continue to be thus stamped on the second sheet until you leave the country for the last time, then the officer retains the second sheet, and on the third one cer- tifies that you have made your final exit. On for- warding this third sheet, so certified, to the Tour- ing Club de France the amount of your deposit for the country you have definitely left is at once sent to you at any point you request. As we purposed motoring in several countries the total deposit we had to make with the club's treasurer amounted to nearly two thousand francs, but just as soon as the Get-There was shipped from Naples to New York the last franc was promptly refunded ; the convenience afforded us in getting in and out of the various countries visited was well worth the hundred days' use of our money and the fee of twenty francs which the club charged for issuing the triptyques. Some- 142 Seeing Europe by Automobile times, as when visiting the battlefields of 1870, be- tween Mars le Tour and Metz, we crossed back- ward and forward between France and Germany several times in the course of half a day; as we had triptyqnes this entailed little delay. Without triptyques half a day might have been consumed in making a single frontier crossing. It takes only a minute to show a triptyque and have it stamped, whereas to have an automobile weighed and mi- nutely described for future identification takes anywhere from an hour to a day, according to the humor of the frontier official making the inventory. We left our hotel in Paris one Sunday morning at ten o'clock, drove down the Eue de Rivoli and along the quais to the Porte de Charenton and stopped there for a few minutes to get a certificate showing that we were leaving the capital with forty liters of essence in the Get-There 's tank. Then we motored five miles through a wooded park to Joinville le Pont and rode for forty-seven kilometers over a rough stone-paved highway to a little town of 14,000 inhabitants called Meaux. All roads radiating out of Paris are paved with round stones for a considerable distance; we heaved a sigh of relief on reaching Meaux, where the rough road ended and a perfect road began — a road hard and smooth and broad and shaded by the customary double row of stately trees. Be- cause of the "pavee" road it took the Get-There The Road to Rheims 143 an hour and a half to travel that first thirty miles ; the second thirty miles were covered in sixty minntes. A quarter-past twelve o'clock found us at Chateau Thierry, a picturesque town, where in 1814 Napoleon fought a fierce battle in his des- perate efforts to keep the allied armies out of Paris. On a hill right in the town are the ruins of as ancient a castle as there is in all France — a castle built by Charles Martel twelve hundred years ago. Climbing the one hundred steps that lead from a street in the town to the top of that hill, we lunched amid the castle ruins and looked down on the town where Napoleon made his last stand before going to Fontainebleau to attempt suicide and then to abdicate his throne and set out for Elba. After lunch we passed through Dormans, Ver- neuil and several other towns and villages, and at four o'clock in the afternoon arrived at Eheims, exactly one hundred miles from our starting point in Paris. At the gate of Eheims the octroi officer gave us a paper printed in three languages warn- ing motorists not to go faster than ten kilometers an hour. 1 ' Ten kilometers an hour V ' I exclaimed. ' ' Why, a man on foot goes faster than that!" The octroi officer hastened to explain that the law was not enforced and that we need pay no at- 144 Seeing Europe by Automobile tention to it. It seemed funny to give us a printed notice not to go faster than six miles an hour, and at the same time tell us verbally to go as fast as we liked. At first we did not know whether to trust this verbal assurance, but we soon saw that people in Eheims motored just as fast as they do in Paris — that is, they habitually go thirty and even forty miles an hour. So we threw the printed warning away and drove as the spirit prompted during our stay in the city of champagne and churches. All travelers who visit Eheims go to the mag- nificent cathedral where, through Joan of Arc's work, Charles VII was crowned king; and all go, or should go, to see the champagne caves which extend for many miles underneath the city. At the home of "Pommery Sec" we descended one hundred and sixteen broad stone steps and walked through some of its thirteen miles of subterranean streets, in which are stored twelve million bottles of champagne. Prior to this visit we had always thought three to five dollars too much to charge for a bottle of champagne, but after seeing the in- finite pains and trouble involved in the business we think it strange the price can be so little. Every one of those twelve million bottles has to be handled, not once, but scores of times. The bottles are placed on racks in a slanting position, necks downward, and every day for three months The Road to Rheims 14*5 each bottle is turned a fraction of an inch ; a white mark is made on the bottle's side each time it is turned, so as to denote the exact spot that has been moved. At the end of three months of this nursing and coddling the cork is removed, the sedi- ment that accumulates is poured off and the cork replaced. After another period the bottle is again uncorked, the new sediment poured off, the bottle filled almost full with more wine and then sweet liqueur added. The quantity of the liqueur de- pends on whether the champagne is to be sweet or dry. If no liqueur at all is used the wine is called "brut," and consequently is even more "dry" than Vin Sec. Eussians like their wine very sweet and in those underground streets labeled "Moscow," "St. Petersburg" and "Odessa" we saw men uncork- ing the bottles and putting in as much as five tea- spoonfuls of liqueur to the quart. When the liqueur has been added and the cork put back for the last time, each bottle is carefully examined be- fore an electric light to see that the wine is clear and free from sediment. All this tedious labor must be performed deep down under the earth in cold, damp caves — a long, disagreeable, expensive process, which quite accounts for the high price this sparkling beverage commands. In Rheims you can get a quart bottle of the best champagne 146 Seeing Europe by Automobile for $1.80; elsewhere in France the usual price is three dollars. It is $4.50 in the United States. In the Pommery caves are several enormous bas-reliefs carved on the chalk walks of the subter- ranean passages. The figures of these bas-reliefs, which are life-sized, are those of men and women engaged in bacchanalian revelries — Bacchus at the head of a table under which his fellow revel- ers are lying overcome by wine, intoxicated women dancing nude, etc. Champagne doubtless does produce such results when partaken of too freely, but why that fact should be emphasized by a maker of champagne was not clear. Twenty miles from Rheims is the field of Cha- lons, where the French army holds its annual ma- neuvers and where fifteen hundred years ago was fought what was not only one of the greatest bat- tles in history, but the last battle in which victory ever perched upon Rome's imperial eagles. The beginning of the fifth century found the Roman Empire everywhere crumbling and falling into decay — an easy prey to the hordes of fierce bar- barians which poured in from the wilds of east- ern Europe and Asia. After the Roman Empire south of the Danube had been conquered and laid waste, Attila and Genseric, King of the Vandals, marshaled a host which historians say numbered seven hundred thousand men. With this vast army, inured to hardships and flushed with vie- The Road to Rheims 147 tory, Attila assumed the title "Scourge of God" and advanced upon western Europe with the avowed purpose of crushing Christianity and re- storing paganism, with himself as supreme ruler of the world— truly, a bold design, but one not wholly chimerical when we consider the barbarian chieftain's military talents, the vast size of his army and the then enervated and decayed condi- tion of the Roman Empire. For a while the issue was in doubt— nay, for a while, indeed, it seemed almost certain that Attila would win and that Europe would be forced to abjure Christianity and revert to the worship of pagan gods. The innumerable host of Huns and Vandals poured through Germany, across the Rhine into France and penetrated beyond Paris as far as Orleans before the wave reached its height and broke, happily for humanity, never to rise so high again ! Although the Rome of the fifth century was but a feeble and a degenerate reminiscence of the Rome of the Caesars it had in Aetius a general not unworthy of the empire's former days of glory. Aetius hastened across the Alps with a body of men so small, as Gibbon says, it "scarcely de- served the name of an army." But with con- summate skill the Roman general won to his sup- port Theodoric and his Gothic warriors, and also all the other tribes of Gaul and Germany, and the 148 Seeing Europe by Automobile final battle was fought at Chalons in the year 451. The Huns and Vandals outnumbered the Komans and their allies two, some historians say three, to one ; but once again, and for the very last time in all its long twelve hundred years of history, Rome's military genius prevailed over the mere numerical superiority of barbarians. Of the mil- lion men who crossed swords at Chalons three hun- dred thousand remained dead on the battlefield — a slaughter so unparalleled in the annals of war as "to justify the historian's remark that whole gen- erations may be swept away, by the madness of kings, in the space of a single hour. ,, As believers in Christianity and in the ines- timable blessings which Christianity has conferred upon humanity, we could not but feel moved by emotion as we approached this historic field where fifteen hundred years ago the fate of Chris- tianity and of civilization itself hung trembling in the balance. When France was Gaul it was not the densely populated country we know to- day; the fields where Attila's innumerable horde hurled itself to destruction against the Roman legions extended a length of one hundred and fifty miles and a breadth of one hundred miles, practi- cally embracing the whole province of what is now called Champagne. Naturally, with a dense popu- lation the greater part of that vast field has come under cultivation, but the central part is to-day The Road to Rlieims 149 as it was fifteen hundred years ago, an open square some miles in extent; and on the spot where Attila raised a huge pyramid of the wooden saddles of his cavalry to serve as his funeral pyre, in the event of the destruction of his army, the sol- diers of France now hold their annual maneuvers. Looking down the long white road between its two rows of trees as we approached the field of Chalons from the northwest, some miles ahead of us we saw an obelisk which we supposed might have associations connected with the great battle of the fifth century, but on nearing it we found that the obelisk was erected to Napoleon III. An inscription on the pedestal contained this extract from a letter which that emperor wrote on August 15th, 1867, the ninety-eighth birthday of his fa- mous uncle: "Le n ombre et le bon etat des chemins sont un des signes les plus certains de l'etat avance de la civilisation despeuples." (The number and good condition of the roads are one of the most certain signs of the advanced state of a people's civilization.) The last French emperor is called Napoleon the Little, and he certainly ivas little compared with his putative uncle, but his sentiments on the good roads question can but command the approval of mankind — at any rate, of that portion of man- kind which rides in automobiles. While we were sitting in the Get-There reading 150 Seeing Europe by Automobile the inscription on that obelisk we heard a curious noise in the air, and, looking up, we beheld an aeroplane whizzing along fifty feet above our heads. It was the first time we had ever seen one, and as it was flying straight with the road we gave it a race. The Get-There won, but only by advancing the spark lever and opening the throttle wide. For that man-bird was hurtling through the air at the rate of forty miles an hour. At the end of the field, two miles from the obelisk, the aero- plane turned sharply to the left and we stopped to await its return, which was not for a quarter of an hour. During that time we descended from the Get-There to enter the aeroplane's "hangar" (shed), which stood not far from where we had halted; a comely woman met us at the door and pleasantly but firmly said that admission to the hangar was strictly forbidden. We apologized for our proposed intrusion, and must have done so with some grace, for the comely woman relented and said we might enter if we wished. " Though really,' ' she added, " there is nothing to see. The hangar is empty. My husband is flying." That first time it sounded odd to hear a woman say in a careless way that her husband was not at home, that he was flying ! "You are, then, Mrs. Fai-man?" "Yes." The Road to Rheims 151 "And look, there comes Mr. Farman !" ex- claimed Beamer, pointing to an object in the air a quarter of a mile away; to ns it seemed a mere speck in the sky, but to Mrs. Farman 's knowing eye a glance was enough to detect Beamer 's error. "That is not Mr. Farman," she remarked quiet- ly. * ' That is his pupil, an Englishman who bought a machine three weeks ago and is learning to fly. He enjoys the sport. The very first day that he took a lesson he was able to fly around the field. He did not fly high, only five or ten feet above the grass, but it was flying and it made him an enthusiast. ,, As Mrs. Farman spoke the aeroplane landed lightly on the grass a few yards from where we stood, and the English aviator remained in his seat to observe Farman 's aeroplane, which was approaching from the direction of the obelisk. I remarked that Mr. Farman seemed about to alight — and then I saw a look of alarm come into Mrs. Farman's face as she seized hold of Beamer 's arm for support. It all happened in an instant and made us appreciate the hazard of this new sport as we had not done a few minutes before while the Englishman and Mr. Farman were flying with such apparent ease and certainty. Mr. Farman was flying straight toward the aero- plane resting on the grass ; had he been trying to hit it he could not have taken better aim. The 152 Seeing Europe by Automobile Englishman leaped from his seat and ran to get away from the impending catastrophe; Mrs. Far- man closed her eyes and almost swooned in my wife's arms. At the same instant Mr. Farman 's aeroplane, as if by one last supreme effort, just as it reached the Englishman's machine, lifted it- self a little, sped swiftly along, a bare six inches above the aeroplane on the ground, cut off as with a giant's knife the top branches of the tree under which we were standing, and the next moment lay on the far side of the road in a field of yellow wheat. I ran across to it as fast as my legs could carry me, expecting to find an injured, if not a dead, aviator; but with the luck that has always attended him Mr. Farman had escaped without a bruise. His machine was injured, but he himself emerged from the wreck smiling, and in a few mo- ments was by his wife's side assuring her the incident was a trifle. Something had happened to his motor, and only a dexterous twist of the rudder, made in the very nick of time, had lifted his apparatus enough to glide over, instead of crashing down upon, the Englishman's aeroplane where it rested on the ground. This exciting occurrence proved as effective as a letter of introduction; Mrs. Farman introduced her husband and both treated us with genuine cor- diality. We lunched together at the little hotel of Mourmelon and after lunch Mr. Farman The Road to Rheims 153 showed us the surprise lie was planning for the great contest at Rheims — it was a new biplane with a more powerful motor and a greater gasoline- carrying capacity than ever seen before. "With this machine I shall win the grand prize/ ' declared Mr. Farman, confidently, and he did. A few weeks later, waiting till the last day of the tournament to see what records he had to surpass, Farman brought forth his " Surprise/ ' glided into the air and remained there until the frantic cheering of a hundred thousand people told him as he flew in front of the grandstand that he had broken the world's record and had won the the first prize of fifty thousand francs ! CHAPTER IX Pyramid on the Hill of Valmy. — No. 8 Avenue Victor Hugo, Ste. Menehould — On the Battlefields of 1870.— Mars le Tour. — Gravellote. — Metz. — Steuerkarten and Triptyques. — Nancy. F T was four o'clock when we bade the Farmans A good-by and motored away from the field of Chalons. At the end of two hours of riding through a rolling country, now through forests, now amid fields of green and yellow, we halted on top of a high hill to survey the beautiful country and to look at the pyramid placed on the peak of the hill to commemorate the first great victory of the French Eevolution. On the pyramid are carved these words : "Des Francais reconnoissants, a celui qui les a preserves de l'invasion. Ici sont morts les braves du 20 — 7 bre, 1792. Un- soldat qui les commandait en ce jour, le G. al Kellermann, Marechal, Due et Pair de France, a voulu en mourant que son coeur fut place au milieu d'eux" (Greetings from the French to him who preserved them from invasion. Here lie the brave dead of September 20, 1792. A soldier who commanded on that day, Gen. Kellermann, a Marshal, Duke and Peer of France, in dying declared his wish that his heart should be buried in their midst.) His heart is buried there, and near-by is an 154 From Valmy to Nancy 155 heroic bronze statue of Kellermann — his cocked hat in his left hand, sword held aloft in the right hand, his head bent forward as if urging his men to charge the enemy. Dumouriez, who was on this hill that July day, did as much as Kellermann to hurl the invaders back from French soil, and he shared with Kellermann the glory of the victory of Valmy; but neither Dumouriez 's name nor statue appear on the hill which he helped to make famous, for when the Kevolution became a Ter- ror Dumouriez deserted the French army and of- fered his sword to France's enemies — a thing his countrymen have neither forgiven nor forgotten. On one side of the pyramid is carved this line from Goethe : "De ce lieu et de ce jour date une nouvelle epoque dans l'histoire du monde." (Prom this spot and from this day dates a new epoch in the history of the world.) Prior to Valmy the monarchs of Europe had sneered at the Eevolution. "The Paris sanscu- lottes can assassinate unarmed men and women, but when they meet soldiers they will fly like poultry. ' ' So thought and spoke Europe's kings, and forthwith marshaled their armies and led them across the Ehine. Then Danton's stentorian voice rolled out from the Convention Hall in tones of thunder : 156 Seeing Europe by Automobile 1 ' The coalesced kings of Europe threaten us ; as wager of battle we hurl at their feet the head of a king!' 7 One timid soul wanted to know where were the men who were to fight the hosts of the coalesced kings. Danton replied impetuously: "We have but to stamp our feet on the ground and a million men will spring forth to hurl themselves like a thunderbolt upon France's invaders!" The forces of revolution and monarchy met at Valmy on a field dominated by the hill where we stood at sunset that August day, and as Carlyle said, "the French sansculottes did not fly like poultry. ' ' On the contrary, they fought with des- perate valor and made the kings' armies fly out of France a good deal quicker than they had marched in. As large as looms the village of Valmy in his- tory, in its physical actuality it is a very small an a very unprepossessing place; and so, al- though the sun had set by the time we left the hill and entered the village, we decided to push on. The weather was pleasant, there was a full moon and we enjoyed the experience of a moonlight ride over the hills and through the valleys of that beautiful French province. A few miles from Valmy we passed through Ste. Menehould, the town of five thousand inhabitants where Marie Antoinette's brief period of freedom ended and From Valmy to Nancy 157 her march to the guillotine began. She and Louis XVI had left the Tuileries in disguise ; they traveled over the same road the Get-There was traversing, but with the poorer pavements of that time it took them days to do what we did in hours. At first the poor fugitives scarcely breathed, so fearful were they of being discovered ; but as mile after mile was covered with no evil development they gathered courage and dreamed of freedom. Then came the little town of Ste. Menehould with Old Dragoon Druet, and from that moment every step the king and queen took brought them nearer to prison and to the scaffold. The Get-There entered Ste. Menehould about the same time of night that the royal fugitives entered it that unhappy night in June, 1791; and, like them, we drove through the town to its eastern end and stopped at No. 8 in the street that is now called the Avenue Victor Hugo. The two-story stone house at that number is to-day, as it was one hundred and twenty years ago, national prop- erty; it is now a "Gendarmerie Nationale" — that is a sleeping quarters for gendarmes. In the good old days, before steam and railroads changed the ways of travel, No. 8 Avenue Victor Hugo was a post-station, where were changed the horses which the government hired to travelers. Over the door is still carved the word "Poste." It was through this door that the king and queen 158 Seeing Europe by Automobile entered to rest in the post-room while fresh horses were put to their carriage. Had they not been tired by the long ride from Paris, or, being tired, had they nevertheless borne it and remained cramped up in their carriage, how different might have been some of history's pages! Old Dragoon Druet, sitting in the post-room smoking his pipe and fingering a new "Assigned," with the king's picture engraved in one corner, would not have noticed the resemblance between the fugitive Louis and the picture on his money; the lumbering old coach would have carried them out of Ste. Mene- hould and perhaps to Germany — and then who can say what would have happened! Certainly not the tragedy of the tower and the guillotine. Per- haps, with king and queen as rallying points, France might have been so divided that Bourbon rule would have been restored before, instead of after, Napoleon. But it was not so written in the Book of Fate. Marie Antoinette and Louis entered that little stone house and Old Dragoon Druet, looking first at his Assignat and then at Louis, recognized the king — and dreams of safety and of triumphal re- turn to Paris behind an alien army vanished for- ever. Old Dragoon Druet galloped on behind the king's coach, when it left Ste. Menehould, and gave the warning that led to the arrest at Varennes, a few miles away. From Valmy to Nancy 159 Of itself the stone house at No. 8 Avenue Victor Hugo is commonplace and uninteresting, but its association with one of the most dramatic pages in history invests it with interest to all who have read Marie Antoinette 's tragic story. We stopped the Get-There on the street in front of the door and sat there for half an hour looking at the house and reconstructing in imagination the scene which took place on that street and in that house one hundred and twenty years ago. Gendarmes poked their heads out of the second-story windows and cried down to know what we wanted. We could not say we wanted to see Marie Antoinette and Louis and Old Dragoon Druet — that would have made the gendarmes think us crazy; and our sit- ting out there in the moonlight, staring at an ugly little stone house, had doubtless already done enough damage to our reputation for sanity. So we merely said our motor needed cooling, which satisfied the gendarmes and they went back to bed and left us to our dreams. All the way from Paris to Ste. Menehould we had been following pretty much the same route Marie Antoinette and Louis took in June, 1791, but here we parted company; for after Old Dra- goon Druet 's warning the king and queen were taken back to Paris, and their shades accompanied us no farther on our way to Germany. For an hour after leaving the old post-house at Ste. Mene- 1G0 Seeing Europe by Automobile liould the Get-There flew along in the moonlight up and down hill, through forests, across valleys, always on a road that was broad and smooth and perfectly paved, and then at midnight we reached Verdun, where we found a comfortable room for ourselves and a garage for our automobile. Next day from Verdun to the frontier we rode all day in a country that has been the scene of in- numerable conflicts, some of them the bloodiest in history. At Mars le Tour are the graves of ten thousand men who died battling around that little village in 1870. A monument marks the center of the sanguinary struggle; but for that monument one would never suspect that here had been fought a bloody battle, the country is so smiling, so peace- ful, the fields so green, so beautiful, the long, straggling street of Mars le Tours is so quiet and sleepy, the villagers are so amiable and unpugna- cious. But forty years ago these fields were red with blood, these hills echoed back the thunder of a thousand cannon, and from every window of these thatched huts in Mars le Tours a French peasant was thrusting a rifle and shooting at a German soldier! At the east end of the village, over the door of a small house on one side of the road was a sign "Douane." A soldier stopped us as we reached that sign and an official came out of the house and asked where we were going? "To Germany," I answered. From Valmy to Nancy 161 Then the official said if I had a triptyque that he would vise it; without his vise I could not re- enter France without paying another six hundred and seventy-six francs duty. The operation of vise- ing — stamping the date of our exit from France and signing his name — occupied less than five min- utes ; then we were on the way again, and in a few minutes crossed the imaginary line which divides France from Germany. An eight-foot pole, with a shield fastened to the top bearing the words "Deutsches Reich," stands by the roadside to tell the traveler he is no longer in France. A little be- yond this pole, on the right-hand side of the road, is a noble example of the sculptor's art — a majes- tic lion carved from an enormous block of marble. A spear is broken off in the lion's side, and he is dying, but even in death his paw stretches forth to protect the German flag and the German eagles. Translated, the inscription on the pedestal reads : "On this spot, meeting heroes' deaths in 1870, three hundred and seventy-seven men and fourteen officers fell fighting for the colors." A minute or two after stopping to view this noble reminder of a human tragedy we entered the village of Vienville, where the first thing that caught our eyes was a big sign bearing the words : "Halte! Zoll AmtV We halted and paid a Ger- man official twenty-one marks ($4.25) for an oval tin tag bearing the figures "9,142," and for a 162 Seeing Europe by Automobile "steuerkarte" which licensed us to operate a motor-car in Germany for fifteen days. The tin tag was fastened on the rear of the Get-There; the "steuerkarte" I put in my pocket and had no occasion to take it out again until we re-entered France; then the frontier officer scrutinized it to make sure that the fifteen-day limit had not ex- pired. In estimating the time spent in the country any part of a day is reckoned as a full day. For example, if you enter Germany at eleven p.m. and leave at one a.m. you have been in the country only two hours, but officially you have been there two days, and two days are charged up against you on your "steuerkarte." For not knowing, or not remembering, this rule an American we met got into trouble. He had en- tered Germany at five p.m. of Tuesday, July 27th, and was recrossing the frontier into France at ten a.m. of Wednesday, August 11th. Reckoning a day as twenty-four hours the American still had seven hours before finishing his fifteen days, but, counting July 27th, the day of entrance, and Au- gust 11th, the day of exit, each as a full day, he had been in Germany sixteen days ; accordingly the frontier officer demanded twenty-one marks, the fee for another fifteen days. If you stay a minute over your time you are charged the same as though you stayed another fifteen days. The American was indignant. From Valmy to Nancy 163 " It 's a hold-up, ' ' he said. l 1 Still, I guess I have to pay." And he was reaching for his pocket-book when the officer added: "And for operating an automo- bile in Germany without a card you are fined one hundred and fifty marks. The sergeant will keep your car until the fine is paid. ' ' When the average tourist enters Germany he does not know how long he may remain, conse- quently he pays for only fifteen days ; the frontier officer tells him if he stays longer that he may pay for the second fifteen-day period when he recrosses the frontier. That is the way it is actually done, and ordinarily no fuss is made about it, no matter how long you remain, provided you square the ac- count when you leave. But, technically, it is un- lawful to move an inch after your steuerkarte has expired. Angered by the American's language, that German officer enforced the strict letter of the law, and the American's indignation cost him $37.50. This episode was valuable to us. Whatever our manners may have been prior to August 11th, thereafter Chesterfield himself could not have ex- ceeded our urbanity. And the frontier officials seemed to like it — at any rate, they treated us everywhere with the greatest courtesy. Not once did they require us to open our luggage ; not once did the viseing of our triptyques detain us more 164 Seeing Europe by Automobile than a few minutes. We began our trip expecting all sorts of trouble; we ended it with the knowl- edge that the stories told us were unfounded, that motoring abroad is as simple a matter as it is at home — in fact, that it is sometimes more simple. For instance, it is (or was until recently) more trouble for a stranger to motor in New Jersey that in Germany. In New Jersey strangers have been arrested for motoring from the ferry to the North German Lloyd steamship pier, a distance of only a few blocks — and this although it was known that the automobile was being driven to the pier for shipment on the steamer. When I motored from St. Louis to New York in 1906 the cost of a New Jersey license was eight dollars, and this amount had to be paid whether one remained a day or a year in the state. Eecently the law has been amended so as to permit visitors passing through the state to buy a ten-day license, but even with this amendment it is more bother and expense for a non-resident to motor in New Jersey than it is anywhere in Europe. A short distance beyond the German frontier is an obelisk raised to the soldiers who fell at Gra- velotte ; from that obelisk on, all the way to Metz, there are constant reminders of those frightful days of August, 1870. The valley, so peaceful, so beautiful on the August day we motored through From Valmy to Nancy 165 it, was a veritable hell in that other August forty years ago. Both sides of the highway are decorated with monuments, and with innumerable little crosses stuck up in the fields; the crosses bear either the words "Hier ruhen Franzosischen Krieger" or "Hier ruhen Deutschen Krieger" (Here rest French warriors, Here rest German warriors). Around the base of each cross is a small square of grass — that is all. The necessities of the living can not yield to sentiment for the dead. Land is scarce and none is wasted on mounds to mark the resting- places of the innumerable dead. The fields where they lie buried are plowed and tilled, and crops are sown and harvested over the bodies of tens of thousands of sleeping soldiers ! Jean had no grudge against Fritz; Fritz had none against Jean ; and of little moment was it to either of them whether the taxes they paid went to Paris or to Berlin. Yet, at the command of monarchs and ministers whom neither knew, a mil- lion Jeans and Fritzs flew at each other's throats, and tens of thousands of them reddened the fields with their blood and left their bodies mouldering in the ground to enrich the harvests of future gen- erations. Truly, strange animals are the Jeans and Fritzs of the different nations ! The day may come when they will see the folly as well as the crime of cutting the throats of men whom they do 166 Seeing Europe by Automobile not know and have no reason to hate — but alas! that day is far, far in the future. Europe is now, more than ever before, an armed camp, its hun- dreds of millions of people toiling night and day and denying themselves life's luxuries, even life's necessities, that they may amass munitions of war and be prepared to kill each other on a more whole- sale scale than ever before in humanity's history. We spent the day visiting the great battlefields between Mars le Tour and Metz. On the wall of a mean little house in the village of Rezonville we saw a marble tablet which recited the fact that Field Marshal von Moltke occupied that house in August, 1870; across the way, in a house equally squalid, the Emperor William slept; in the adjoin- ing hut the Grand Duke of Hessen made his quar- ters. And in front of all three houses now stand piles of ill-smelling manure. Whether there were such piles there in 1870 to offend the royal nostrils I do not know, but it is likely they were there, for manure piles seem to be inseparable adjuncts of a peasant village in Germany and in French villages near the German frontier. One would think the manure might be placed somewhere in a back yard, but it isn't; it is invariably piled up on the street in front of the house, and the result is that the narrow, straggling street of a German peasant vil- lage is sometimes the reverse of pleasant and sweet-smelling. From Valmy to Nancy 167 Five miles from Metz we saw the small village of Noisseville, which was the scene of the fiercest of all the fierce fights in 1870. The village changed hands a dozen times in the course of twenty-four hours. After a furious charge the French got pos- session at six p.m., but the German commander hurled battalion after battalion upon the miserable little place, and at nine p.m. the French retired — only to make another desperate attack, however, and at ten p.m. they were again in possession. But a few hours later the Germans recaptured the vil- lage; then an hour later the French got it again. This kept up all night and all next day, first one army, then the other flying its banners over Noisseville. But the final possession rested with the Germans. After such terrific fighting, the village changing hands every hour from noon of August 31st to nightfall of September 1st, one would imagine Noisseville would have been annihilated ; it seems, however, not to have suffered any special damage. Its houses look as old, its manure piles look as big and smell as badly as if the town had never heard the cannon's roar or felt the tread of contending armies. Noisseville was honored by all this fierce fighting, not because anybody cared a straw about its mean little houses, but because it lay directly in the path between the French army and Metz. The Germans were besieging Metz, and when the 168 Seeing Europe by Automobile final fight left Noisscville in German hands, Mar- shal Bazaine realized that all hope of saving Metz was ended. A few weeks later the fortress sur- rendered, and the three marshals, fifty generals, six thousand officers and one hundred and seventy- three thousand soldiers who had defended it were sent to languish in German prisons. It was be- cause Bazaine foresaw that a Sedan would inevi- tably follow such a catastrophe that he made such tremendous sacrifices to gain possession of the squalid little village of Noisseville. In Metz itself we did not linger long. "We drove about its fortifications, the strongest in Europe, and we got into trouble by motoring into streets forbidden to automobiles ; but the helmeted police- men let us off with a reprimand when they saw that we were Americans, who really were ignorant of the fact that automobiles were not allowed in certain parts of the city. Leaving Metz, we ascended the picturesque val- ley of the Moselle and at the village of Corny a German frontier officer took our tin tag off the Get-There, stamped our steuerkarte, to show that we had passed out of Germany and that the count against our fifteen-day license was to be suspended until we re-entered the empire ; and presently we were in France again, following the Moselle as it wound its sinuous way through the Valley between two chains of vine-clad hills. Just before reach- From Valmy to Nancy 169 ing the end of the day's run we saw a reminder of the fact that France was once a province of Rome — a huge aqueduct built before Christ by Drusus to convey water to Diodurum, the city now called Nancy. Drusus, by the way, was once a pretty busy man in these parts ; he threw bridges across the Rhine, cut canals, built embankments and erected aqueducts. And he wrought in so solid, workmanlike a manner that his works have endured for centuries. The aqueduct still stands after a lapse of nearly two thousand years. At the Hotel de l'Univers et du Commerce of Nancy our room, not half so grand as that ten- franc apartment in the hotel at Angers, cost twenty francs. This unusual charge was due to an exposition then being held in Nancy; the city was so crowded, the hotels were so filled with strangers, that we were glad to get quarters at any price. The night of our arrival the Place Stanislas, Nancy's largest and noblest square, was thronged by fifty thousand people to hear a military band and to see an illumination and fire- works. A regiment of cavalry patroled the square to keep the people from crowding into the cen- ter, and the way those French soldiers preserved peace was in striking contrast to what we saw a little later in Germany — everything was so good- humored, so neighborly. " Monsieur, will you have the goodness to move 170 Seeing Europe by Automobile back? Madame, will you have the goodness to move back? Really you must not cross here. It is not allowed. Messieurs, Messieurs, back, a little farther back, s'il vous plait!" And the crowd laughed and tried to move back, but occasionally an obstreperous woman would squeeze through the line in spite of orders and then the soldiers would laugh, too. It was cer- tainly not strict discipline, but for all that it was pleasant to see. The people seemed to regard those soldiers as neighbors instead of masters. At the Frankfort Airship Exposition, a week or so later, we saw German soldiers order a crowd to make way for the landing of the airship Parsifal ; there was no "Will-you-have-the-kindness-to-step- back" business. It was simply a curt command, ' ' Back ! ' ' in such a tone and with such a look that the people stood not on the order of backing but backed at once. And there was no laughing or "guying" those German soldiers; it was not necessary to repeat any command. The Germans are so accustomed to obey those in authority, they never dream of questioning an order, or of laughing at the man who gives it — a national trait which, a few years ago, enabled an impudent rogue, arrayed in a stolen uniform, to walk into a garrison and get all the money which had just been received there to pay off the troops. All the impostor had to do From Valmy to Nancy 171 was to order the money turned over to him; his stolen uniform, his air of command did the rest. In obedience to the order of one who looked like an officer, the paymaster turned over his treasure without a question. The rascal was subsequently caught and sent to prison. But the whole world, outside of Germany, was set to laughing at this funny illustration of the result of overmuch rev- ence for uniforms and brass buttons. CHAPTER X Strasburg.— Baden-Baden. — Kuchen Fabrik revisited after twenty-five years. — Stuttgart. — Ulm. — Lunch in a pine for- est — An adventure in Augsburg. rpHIRTEEN miles from Nancy, at Moncel, a A village of a dozen or so houses, the French frontier officer stamped onr triptyque; five miles farther east the German frontier officer stamped our steuerkarte, showing the date of our re-entry into the Kaiser's domains, and he affixed upon the Get-There another tin tag with another number, and then our German tour began. The speedom- eter marked one thousand six hundred and twenty miles as we crossed the frontier near Moncel on August 12th, one month to the day after our land- ing at Havre. One hundred and twenty years ago when Arthur Young was a-horseback to Strasburg on the road we were now traveling, he wrote in his diary : "I find myself to all appearances in Germany. Looking at the map of France and reading histories of Louis XIV never threw his conquest of Alsace into the light which travelling into it does. To cross a great range of mountains, to enter a level plain inhabited by a people totally distinct and different 172 The German Tour Begins 173 from French, with manners, language, ideas, and prejudices and habits all different, makes an impression of the injustice and ambition of such conduct much more forcible than read- ing had done — &o much more powerful are things than words." The injustice Young mentions has been atoned for. The province which Louis XIV wrested from Germany in 1681 was restored to Germany in 1871, but in those hundred and ninety years of French possession the spirit, if not the language, of the people became thoroughly French. When in Strasburg twenty-five years ago I wrote : "The people talk German, they look German, they belong to Germany, but their love, their affection is all for France." ("A Tramp Trip," p. 128.) Since those words were written, a quarter of a century has passed and time has already begun to undo the work wrought by Louis XIV two hundred years ago. The older people in Strasburg may love France as much now as when they fought her battles in 1870; but the two generations which have been born since 1870 have known no country but Germany, and their spiritual as well as polit- ical and physical allegiance is rapidly becoming an asset of the Kaiser's empire. Apart from this dif- ference in the mental attitude of the Strasburgers toward Germany, the city seemed to me little changed from the place I saw in 1885 ; we visited the cathedral, we motored through the streets and 174 Seeing Europe by Automobile in the parks, and spent a restful evening in a cafe listening to an orchestra of pretty girls and watch- ing the people drinking beer; then early next morning we went on to Baden-Baden. From Stras- burg the distance to Baden is only forty miles, so we had time to drive all about the famous watering-place and see the crowds of fashionably dressed men and women drinking the waters in the Conversationshaus, and still finish in good sea- son the day's run to Stuttgart, sixty-eight miles beyond Baden-Baden and a hundred and four miles from the morning's starting point in Stras- burg. Leaving Stuttgart Sunday morning we stopped four miles away at Cannstadt and breakfasted in the beautiful garden of the Kursaal. People do that sort of thing in Germany. There were hun- dreds of men there that Sunday morning, with their families, taking coffee and rolls out under the trees and listening to a fine orchestra playing in a pavilion near-by. Thirty-seven miles from Stuttgart on the high- way toward Ulm is an avenue, densely shaded by two rows of trees, which leads from the main road to a cotton factory on the banks of the little River Fils. Twenty-five years ago, garbed in the flannel shirt and loose blouse of a German Handwerks- bursch (strolling mechanic), I tramped those thirty-seven miles from Stuttgart and turned into The German Tour Begins 175 that shaded avenue, expecting to stop at the fac- tory Gasthaus (inn) one night; instead I remained a week. My companion on that part of my Tramp Trip was a young Dutchman whom I had met at Wiesbaden; and the evening of our arrival, when a local amateur violinist displayed his talents, my Dutchman asked the amateur to let him try his in- strument. It was this request which led to our unexpectedly long sojourn at the Gasthaus of the Kuchen Fabrik. "The country musician eyed the Dutchman's blouse, took him for some village clodhopper, and naturally hesitated to trust him with his beloved fiddle, but the Dutchman insisted and gained his point. The astonishment that followed upon the apparent Handworksbursch's first sweep of the strings is indescribable. As the flood of melody and harmony poured forth the simple country musician and factory hands sat breathless, drinking in the sounds in ecstasy. They realized that they were in the presence of a master. That Dutchman, who had so often tormented me when on other matters intent, with his eternal whistling and humming, was one of the fore- most violinists of Holland. Never had that old fiddle spoken so eloquently. The amateur fiddler and the factory hands called for an encore; more beer was brought and until far in the night the Dutchman stood there in his blouse, now melting with soft, melancholy strains, now firing his hearers with some wild galop or Hungarian theme. The following night, at the fiddler's earnest entreaty, a regular concert was arranged; they persuaded us to stay still longer and get acquainted with the people; and when we left Kuchen Fabrik it was in a blaze of glory." That is from the notes I wrote at the time, and afterward published in my "Tramp Trip" (page 176 Seeing Europe by Automobile 147). Twenty-five years after that Tramp Trip, when the Get-There turned into that shaded ave- nue and stopped in front of the factory Gasthaus, I recognized the place instantly. The Gasthaus, the shady square behind it, with the tables and benches for the hands when they drink beer dur- ing the noon-hour, the little homes of the workers — all were the same. Nothing had changed except- ing the people. They were different, for it was a new generation that crowded around me this time ; of those who were there when the two tramps came walking up that shaded avenue the majority had passed to the Great Beyond. Those who remained were grown old and gray, but some remembered me. The Wirth (host) of our Tramp Trip visit had been dead twenty years, but his son succeeded him in the management of the factory Gasthaus, and when he learned that I was the tramp of that long-ago time excitement soon ran high in that little factory settlement. "I was sixteen years old when you were here," said the new Wirth. "I remember you. I heard your friend play. Ach, mein Gott, how he did play! Such music! We never had such music here again. Und der Geiger, wo ist er dann?" (where is the fiddler?) "In Amsterdam, and a very great virtuoso has he become." " Ach , Gott f das wundert mich nicht (I am not The German Tour Begins 177 &' surprised. He was wonderful). And now I will tell my mother. My father — you remember him, he was very thick? (fat) — he is dead these twenty years, but my mother is here. You must see her. Ach, Gott, to think the American tramp should come back after twenty-five years ! ' ' To that worthy Wirth, who had never been a hundred miles from his home, America seemed indeed a distant land ; to him it was as if a voyager had returned from the moon. In the big room where the young Dutchman played the fiddle that night a quarter of a century ago, Beamer and I ate our dinner surrounded by a crowd of the older hands, who remembered the tramps and who were curious to know how I had made money enough to travel through Europe in an automobile. America must be a wonderful country, indeed, they said, if even a tramp could do such things. When we departed shortly after dinner the men followed us through the shaded avenue as far as the main road, and stood there waving their hats and cheering as the Get-There turned to the east and bore us swiftly away up the valley — the same valley followed by the Grand Army of Napoleon in October, 1805. The road winds along the base of the Hohen- staufen mountains amid very picturesque scenery, and shortly before Ulm is reached there is a long, steady, steep climb. The day we traveled over 178 Seeing Europe by Automobile that road was August 15th, the hundred and for- tieth anniversary of Napoleon's birth, and in rec- ognition of that coincidence, as well as to let the Get-There 's motor cool, when we reached the sum- mit of the heights overlooking Ulm, we stopped for an hour to look down on the spires and roofs of the quaint old German city, and to muse over the thrilling scene enacted on that very spot one hundred and four years before. In all the marvelous career of that marvelous man never did his military genius shine brighter than in the campaign which began on the march over this road to Ulm, and which ended at Auster- litz six weeks later — Napoleon himself always re- garded this as the culminating point, the climax, the zenith of his career. In that campaign more than in any of the others the Little Corporal won battles with his soldiers' legs rather than with their bayonets and guns. There had been no declaration of war; the Austrian minister re- mained quietly at his post in Paris ; Napoleon was at Boulogne planning his invasion of England, when Austria and Eussia, thinking to strike be- fore he knew it, said no word of war, but secretly set their armies in motion. General Mack set out from Vienna with eighty thousand men and at the same time the Emperor Alexander started down from the north with one hundred and sixteen thousand Russians. From The German Tour Begins 179 other points three hundred thousand more soldiers were massing — altogether half a million were con- verging toward the French frontier ; to make suc- cess assured all they had to do was to get together, to unite their forces before Napoleon attacked them — an easy thing, they thought, for he was a thousand miles away on the English Channel busy with his project of invasion. There were no rail- roads or telegraphs in those days; news traveled slowly. The allies reckoned that by the time Napo- leon learned the meaning of their movements it would be too late for him to prevent their sev- eral armies from forming a union. It would have been too late with any soldier of lesser genius than the great Corsican, but with him the seemingly impossible was often accom- plished. When couriers brought word to the camp at Boulogne of the sudden massing of huge armies in eastern Europe, without an instant's hesitation Napoleon abandoned all of his vast preparations for the English invasion and started the army en- camped about Boulogne on forced marches toward the Ehine and the Danube into Austria. Jose- phine went with him as far as Strasburg; there she remained, for from that time on his move- ments were too strenuous, too rapid to be endured by any woman. Before the allies deemed it pos- sible for an enemy to have marched from Bou- logne, even as far as the Ehine, the French had 180 Seeing Europe by Automobile left the Rhine behind them, had silently stolen through the defiles of the Black Forest, marched clear across Wiirttemberg and thrown themselves in the rear of the Austrian army. And the Czar with his one hundred and sixteen thousand Rus- sians had not yet advanced even so near as Bohe- mia; without them General Mack was utterly unable to cope with Napoleon. Afraid to advance farther into the enemy's land, and cut off from retreat into his own country by the French army which, as by a miracle, had suddenly appeared in his rear, the entire Austrian army of eighty thou- sand men was forced to surrender without firing hardly a gun. On the hill where we halted that Sunday afternoon on Napoleon's hundred and for- tieth birthday, Napoleon and his staff stood on October 20th, 1805, and watched the melancholy sight of a vanquished army defiling before its con- queror. So vast was the number of captives, it required five hours for them to pass by the hill; Napoleon sat on his horse until the last Austrian had passed before him ; then he rode down the hill and entered Ulm by the same road which the Get- There traversed that Sunday afternoon. In the bulletin which Napoleon wrote as soon as he en- tered Ulm he said : "Soldiers of the Grand Army! I announced to you a great battle; but thanks to the faulty combinations of the enemy, we have overwhelmed him without incurring any risk, The German Tour Begins 181 "Soldiers, this astonishing success is owing to your bound- less confidence in your emperor, to your patience in under- going fatigue, to your rare intrepidity! " The soldiers knew Napoleon meant victory came to them because of their legs, and during the fol- lowing six weeks they uncomplainingly made such forced marches as until then had never been made by any army in warfare's history. After telling of the sacrifices, of the nights as well as days of marching which he was about to ask of them, a bulletin of Napoleon's concluded by saying: " There are no generals in the enemy's army which it would add to my glory to vanquish ; all my care is to obtain the victory with as little effusion of blood as possible. My soldiers are my children.' ' And how those Frenchmen did march after reading that bulletin ! The Little Corporal would nearly kill them with fatigue and loss of sleep, but that was better than being defeated, better even than winning a victory at the expense of thousands of killed and wounded. So they marched and ma- neuvered and ran until the sun rose on Austerlitz. And then Eussians and Austrians received such a crushing defeat that in far-off England Wil- liam Pitt, the organizer of this coalition against France, rolled up the map of Europe and ex- claimed sadly : ' ' There will be no use to open that map again for half a century!" Pitt died soon after of chagrin and disappointment, little dream- 182 Seeing Europe by Automobile ing how signally Austerlitz was to be avenged at Waterloo, not after half a century, but within a dozen years. For miles around Ulm there are signs announc- ing that Herr August Schweizer, at No. 10 Lang- strasse, sells benzine at thirty pfennige the liter. The usual price in Bavaria is from forty to fifty pfennige, but Herr Schweizer's Napoleonic meth- ods have conquered all opposition. For a while his rivals formed a coalition and announced a price of twenty-five pfennige, but, like, the coalition of 1805, it was followed by an ignominious surrender at Ulm ; for Herr Schweizer cut his price to twenty pfennige and kept it there until the allies gave up the fight ; then he put the price back to thirty pfen- nige, at which figure it has remained ever since — low enough to prevent any competition and appar- ently high enough to give Herr Schweizer a profit, for his establishment is the busiest and most pros- perous-looking one in the city. All motorists to Ulm visit first of all, not the interesting old cathedral or the curious old Eaths- haus, but the establishment of Herr August Schweizer. When we arrived there a number of automobiles were lined up in the street ahead of us, and we had to wait our turn before getting our supply of the liquid which has so revolutionized methods of modern travel. Across the street from Herr Schweizer's place is the Burgomaster's The German Tour Begins 183 house, an ancient edifice only two stories high, but with a steep sloping roof that is itself four stories high ; the exterior walls are covered with very old but very well preserved frescoes. By the time we had looked at these pictures Herr Schweizer an- nounced that the Get-There 's tank was filled. We paid him fifteen marks (at the usual price it would have cost twenty to twenty-five marks) and soon we were once more on the way to Munich. German roads are not so wide nor so good as French roads ; in passing hay wagons automo- biles must slow up and maneuver this way and that in order to avoid collisions. The previous day (Saturday) we had met dozens of these big wagons drawn by cows as well as oxen (Query: are the horses kept for the army?), and in conse- quence we did not make fast time. There were no hay wagons on Sunday, neither were there any hills, so the Get-There fairly flew along after leav- ing Ulm. The country was flat and uninteresting, and we knew when we entered Bavaria by the change in the color and price of the beer. Bava- rian beer is cheaper and much darker than the beer of other parts of Germany. Twenty-three miles east of Ulm, at Giinzburg — a picturesque place, with a castle looking down on the Danube river — we found the town jammed with booths and with men, women and children. It was a quarterly fair, and for miles around the 184 Seeing Europe by Automobile country was emptied of its people, who had come here to spend the day, shop at the fair, drink gal- lons of black beer and chat with friends. Life in a peasant village is none too gay, and these fairs, which are held three times a year, are great events — eagerly looked forward to for weeks before they are held and, when over, looked back upon and en- joyed in retrospection. It was a dense but a good- natured crowd which thronged the main street of Giinzburg. The Get-There had to crawl along at a snail's pace and the "honk" and the siren were both kept in action to help clear a way ; the women smiled and the men laughed as they got to one side to let us pass, and some lifted their jugs of beer and drank to our health, when at last the end of the jam was reached and the Get-There, changing into high speed, forged ahead swift as an arrow, as if eager to make up for lost time. There were no trees along the roadside to inter- pose a grateful shade between us and the August sun, and for a while we were sorry we were not back in France, but presently we came to a pine forest and then all regret vanished; for a more restful, more beautiful, more delightful thing than a German pine forest on a hot summer day is not easy to imagine. The road ran through the middle of the forest, a long white band between two walls of tall trees, so close together that the sun filtered through in little dots — like a million diamonds The German Tour Begins 185 to' glistening everywhere amid the dense green, but nowhere enough open space to let the light enter in a mass. On the ground was a soft carpet of pine-needles. We spread a cloth on these, opened the basket and Thermos bottles and lunched there in nature's cathedral, over our heads Gothic arches, formed by pine-tree boughs, more beauti- ful than any arches made to adorn man's churches. So dense was the forest, there was an echo when we began to sing an old German lied — so distinct an echo that we were startled and looked around, thinking for an instant that others were there sharing the shade and the coolness and the stillness of that restful place. But no one else was in the forest, nor did any travelers pass on the road dur- ing the hour we were there — we had it all to our- selves; and I may add that during our fifteen days' motoring in Germany these delightful for- ests, of which we saw a number, more than made up for the absence of the roadside shade trees which are so pleasing a feature of the highways of France. Since one is never hot in a a moving automobile, roadside trees may well be spared if at noon one finds under a roof of cool foliage a carpet of pine-needles whereon to rest and to re- flect on the marvelous works of God and man that are ever present to the eyes of observant travelers. Owing to time lost in passing through the crowd at Giinzburg, and to stopping in the forest to 186 Seeing Europe by Automobile lunch, it was five p.m. when the Get-There entered the ancient city of Augsburg. There an hour was spent, driving through the narrow, winding streets and looking at the queer old houses adorned with frescoes, their steep four and five-story gable roofs sagging forward as if trying to meet the roofs across the way; then we turned into the Maximilianstrasse, which is wider than Wash- ington's Pennsylvania Avenue, and we saw lined up on both sides of the street some very old build- ings. A particularly interesting place was the Eathshaus with its three-century-old paintings on the walls, its old-fashioned stove thirty-five feet high, its Council Chamber with a ceiling paneled by huge oak beams blackened in the course of many centuries. The Fugger house is also one of Augsburg's sights, but we could not see its won- derful frescoes; for when we drove by it that August afternoon scaffolds were against the front walls from the ground clear up to the roof, and artists were engaged in retouching for the first time in hundreds of years the frescoes which for so many centuries have looked down on the Maxi- milianstrasse to tell passers-by of the greatness and glory of the Fugger family. The work of re- touching will take three years and will cost a great deal of money, but the Fuggers, although no longer the dominant family they were a few cen- turies ago, are still people of power and wealth, The German Tour Begins 187 able to employ the finest artists to work on the mansion which they still occupy, and which their ancestors before them have occupied for nearly seven hundred years. Another interesting building in Augsburg is that where, in 1530, the Emperor Charles V con- vened a Diet at which the Protestant princes sub- mitted a statement of their articles of faith. This statement, drawn up by Martin Luther, Melanc- thon and others, contained twenty-eight articles, which from that day to this have been known as the "Augsburg Confession of Faith' ' — the relig- ious guide for the Protestants of Germany. So long did we linger in Augsburg's quaint old streets, it was seven o'clock when we started for Munich. The distance thither was forty-four miles, but in spite of the lateness of our start we would have reached the Bavarian capital in time for dinner had not Beamer's sudden longing for "schmierkaese" resulted in events that set at naught all our calculations. It was just after leav- ing the Maximilianstrasse at its eastern end and turning to the left to enter the open country that we saw the beer garden which caused the trouble. Several thousand people were there listening to a band of music and drinking beer. As we passed Beamer said: "Let us stop a few minutes. I want to see what real schmierkaese tastes like. It is so good in 188 Seeing Europe by Automobile America that here in Germany it must be de- licious." I remarked on the lateness of the hour, also on the fact that Munich was forty-four miles away, but Beamer said in a large city we could get din- ner at any hour, even at midnight, but that schmierkaese — the real, genuine schmierkaese — that, she felt certain, could only be had in a quaint old Bavarian garden such as that we were then passing. Yielding to her persuasion, I ran the Get-There close to the curb, and presently we were sitting at a table under the trees ordering schmier- kaese and incidentally being observed by at least a thousand pairs of eyes ; for begoggled, dust-cov- ered motorists do look a little odd amid a throng of men and women dressed up in their best Sunday clothes. However, we had no time to think of this, for in a few minutes the waitress returned and said they had no schmierkaese. "Ridiculous !" exclaimed Beamer. "She has misunderstood your German. Describe how it is made; then she will understand and will fetch us some. ,, I did the best I could. I described the rich, creamy stuff eaten with salt and pepper and sprinkled over with that little onion-tasting and smelling herb called "chives." I told the red- cheeked waitress how every beer garden in Amer- ica serves this dish, and how some gardens become The German Tour Begins 189 & ( celebrated merely because they make it a little bet- ter than the others. She listened wonderingly and said she had never heard of it. At this moment the Herr Direktor came up to see what the trouble was. I repeated my description, but he, too, had never heard of such a dish. Whereupon Beamer smiled — a smile that expressed an opinion of my German as plainly as if she had spoken in words. "You shall see that the fault is this man's, not mine, ,, I said, and turned to him with the inten- tion of bidding him bring forth the head cook when, with a look of sudden relief, he exclaimed : "Ah, hier hommt der Herr Besitzer (here comes the Mr. Owner) ; perhaps he will understand your wishes.' ' A well-dressed man, with keen gray eyes and upturned mustache, was approaching; with him were two ladies. The Herr Direktor spoke to the man with the keen gray eyes, who thereupon lifted his Panama hat and asked in what way he might serve us. Again I explained about the creamy stuff with the pepper and chives, and the man with the keen gray eyes said : "Ah, of course, I understand. You mean Thap- fenkaese. We have none here, but one of my men will get some for you." Then, introducing himself as Herr Brauerei Besitzer v S , and the ladies as his wife and sister, they took seats at our table. It was 190 Seeing Europe by Automobile getting late and Munich was still forty-four miles away, but no matter; my German was vindicated and an apology was due for that smile which Beamer had given me, but the apology was never made. For when at length a waiter brought the cheese it was no more like the delicious, creamy schmierkaese of American gardens than a thistle is like a lily — it was a little pyramid that looked as solid and as hard as a bullet. Beamer gave me an- other smile and said: " After the trouble this gen- tleman has taken we must eat this stuff, no matter how terrible it tastes. ' ' ( Mr. S understood no English, so Beamer was safe in speaking thus.) This was so obviously true that I made no reply, but began eating that bullet-like pyramid and made a desperate effort to look as if I liked it. It was a disagreeable task, and so slow a one that by the time enough of the pyramid had been eaten to satisfy the demands of politeness it was too late to go to Munich, and I asked the Herr Besitzer to tell us of a hotel with accommodations for auto- mobiles. "The Augsburg hotels are not equipped with garages,' ' returned Herr S . "But that does not matter. You must stay at my house. Your automobile may be run into my brewery stables." We protested against thus imposing upon a stranger, but the invitation was no mere lip affair. Herr S was in earnest, he listened to no re- The German Tour Begins 191 fusal, and so it was that instead of going on to Munich we stopped that night in an old house on the Maximilianstrasse of Augsburg, adjoining a brewery and almost opposite the ancient mansion of the Fuggers. It was all one property, but the brewery and the proprietor's house were kept distinct. A sign "Privat Wolmung" was on the door opening into Herr S 's living quarters, and no one entered that door who had no personal business with the family. In the rear of the Pri- vat Wohnung, and connected with the brewery, was a "Bier Stube," which was crowded with a bridal party when we were there at midnight after leaving the garden. As we entered the Bier Stube the bride and groom and guests arose from their seats around a big table and said, "Abend, Herr Besitzer!" (Evening, Herr Owner!) That is the way everybody addressed Herr S , and the way, too, that he must have thought of himself, for the card he gave us read, "Herr v S , Brauerei Besitzer." It would seem odd for an American to have his visiting card read, "John Smith, Grocery Owner," and always to be addressed, "Mr. Grocery Owner." But that is the way we saw it done in Augsburg, and appar- ently it was the correct and the usual thing to do. Before going to bed tea was served in the Privat Wohnung' s dear little room called "Speise Saal" — old oak beams in the ceiling and ancient fres- 192 Seeing Europe by Automobile coes on the wall. In Bavaria, and in a brewery at that, we were prepared for beer, but at Herr S 's table beer was conspicuous by its absence. Next morning in the Bier Stube we saw work- ingmen making their breakfast on rye bread and black beer, but so far as we saw them the Herr Brauerei Besitzer and his family did not indulge in Germany's national beverage. Herr S was a native of Austria ; his wife was a native of Augs- burg and on occasion wears the Suabian costume, the striking feature of which is its curious head- dress on a curved gold frame, with big black streamers of ribbon. These gold frames, with their pendants and flowing ribbons, called "Re~ gina Haube," are highly prized in Suabia and are handed down from generation to generation. Frau S 's Regine Haube had been in her family more than a hundred years. Beamer thought it so quaint and curious she put it on her head, with Frau S 's assent and assistance, and, posing as a Suabian Frau, I photographed her with our kodak. This done, and several snapshots being taken of our host and his family, Herr S es- corted us through his brewery and explained to us how the beer, as soon as brewed, is carried to the garden and there stored deep under the ground in cool caves. Such of his employees as are married live in their own homes, but the single men have rooms in the brewery, and over them Herr S The German Tour Begins 193 &■ exercises a sort of parental surveillance — the man who goes out too often, or stays out too late, gets a reprimand, which he knows will mean trouble if it has to be repeated — rather a paternal system, but it seems to work in Augsburg. It exercises a restraining influence, which doubtless is a good thing for a man who has no wife to regulate him. The room in which we slept, over the brewery, was seven hundred years old, but it was immacu- lately clean and the beds, in spite of their enor- mous feather mattresses, were fairly comfortable. As we blew out our candle and lay down upon those feather beds we thought of the curious and unexpected places in which one is apt to land on a motor trip, especially if one has a yearning for schmierkaese. Of the adventures which befell us on our journey, that which happened at Augsburg was by no means the least interesting or the least enjoyable, as these lines would testify to Herr Brauerei Besitzer v S , were he only able to read a little English. However, Herr S knows we enjoyed our visit and appreciated his hospitality, even though he should never read these lines; for bad as my German may be — or even bad as Beamer thinks it is — it was good enough to enable me to tell him how much we en- joyed the glimpse into German life which his hos- pitality so unexpectedly afforded us. We spent 194? Seeing Europe by Automobile the entire forenoon going about with Herr S , and when finally we started for Munich he and his family wished us good luck and extended us a cor- dial invitation to visit them again whenever we returned to Bavaria. CHAPTER XI Growth of German cities,— Munich, Nuremberg, Berlin and Frankfort.— Beer and Art. — Advance of Liberalism in Ger- many.— The Brunnen Madchen in Nuremberg.— Rothen- burg— In wiirzburg where the Wiirzburger does not flow. — Twenty miles through the King's Forest. T N the quarter of a century between my first and * my last visit to Munich the city more than doubled its population ; in 1885 it had two hundred and sixty-two thousand inhabitants; it has now (1910) five hundred and fifty thousand. In making this increase Munich is not unique; it is only in keeping with its sister cities in Germany. Hardly among the rapid-growing municipalities of our western states are there more notable instances of quick increase in population than are to be found in many of Germany's ancient towns. Frankfort- am-Main was a town of only ten thousand in 1387 ; four hundred and thirteen years later, in 1800, it had a population of forty thousand. Even in the following sixty-seven years it added only thirty- eight thousand to its population — increasing from forty thousand to seventy-eight thousand. But since 1867, particularly after the war of 1870, the 195 196 Seeing Europe by Automobile population of German cities increased with mush- room-like rapidity. Frankfort, which had been four hundred and eighty years growing from ten thousand to seventy-eight thousand, almost doubled its population in the eighteen years fol- lowing 1867, increasing from seventy-eight thou- sand in 1867 to one hundred and fifty-five in 1885, Since 1885 the figures have doubled again, the present population being three hundred and fifty thousand. Nuremberg, which had one hundred and sixteen thousand people on my first visit twenty-five years ago, now has three hundred and twenty-four thou- sand, an increase of two hundred and seventy per cent. Berlin, during the Napoleonic wars a small city of less than one hundred and fifty thousand, and at the close of the war of 1870 a city not much larger than St. Louis, now has two million one hundred thousand inhabitants. While the German capital has thus been growing by leaps and bounds, its rival in France has almost stood still. In 1881 Paris' population was two million two hundred and sixty-nine thousand; in 1905 it was two million seven hundred and sixty-three thou- sand, an increase of only four hundred and ninety- four thousand in twenty-four years — less than twenty- four per cent, as compared with Berlin's eighty-one per cent, increase during the same period, Through German Cities 197 In the twenty years between 1885 and 1905 the German Empire's population (without its colo- nies) changed from forty-six million to sixty mil- lion — an increase of fourteen million, about thirty per cent. France's present population is thirty-nine million, an increase since 1881 of only one and a half million — a bare four per cent, in twenty-nine years. Query : If Germany increases thirty per cent, in two-thirds the time it takes France to increase only four per cent., how long will it be before France ceases to be a great power like its neighbor across the Khine? Germany's commercial and manufacturing growth has been as remarkable as has been the growth of its population. And this in spite of a system of militarism and taxes which would seem heavy enough to crush any nation, however vigor- ous or virile. Twenty-five years ago Nuremberg extended little if any beyond its deep moat and massive walls; now, for miles beyond the walls the country is built up with great factories, ware- houses and commercial establishments, and with the homes of their tens of thousands of employees. On my last visit to Munich the colossal statue of Bavaria was more than a mile out in the coun- try ; it is now in the city, for Munich has grown up to, and far beyond, the "Bavaria." The hill on which the statue stands, and the Doric colonnade by which it is half encircled, are all so large that 198 Seeing Europe by Automobile the bronze figure does not seem huge. At first it is difficult to believe the statement that the statue's head can contain five persons and that the eyes are good-sized windows from which may be had a fine view of Munich. But the statement is true, as I found by climbing into the statue's head twenty-five years ago, and as Beamer found by climbing there in 1909. It is hot in that bronze head in August; hence, as I had already seen it, and was not as fond of climbing spiral stairs as I was in 1885, I did not repeat my visit to the top of the statue, but remained below, comfortably seated in the Get-There, in the shade of the trees which stand back of the Doric colonnade and the Hall of Fame. Although Munich has become much bigger since my first visit it has not changed in temperament or character; it is still Germany's foremost city for beer and art. Just why these two things, in themselves so antipathetic, should go together in Munich is not clear, but it is a fact that the Bava- rian capital is preeminent for both beer and art. Nowhere in the world is such good beer brewed or so much of it drunk, as in Munich, and nowhere in the world is art held in greater esteem or carried to greater heights. Almost at every turn there is either a brewery, an open square adorned with a noble statue, or a museum filled with the finest paintings by both ancient and modern masters. Through German Cities 199 Eeally to see the art treasures of Munich would require weeks, not to say months ; we had not the time to make any such satisfactory study as that, but we did remain long enough to make brief visits to the principal galleries. In the Pinakothek I re- newed acquaintance with the two great paintings of Piloty, "Thusnelda in the Triumph of Ger- manicus ,, and "Seni Before the Corpse of Wal- lenstein. ,, And in the Maximilaneum we spent a few hours looking at certain pictures which had interested me on my first visit and which I well remembered in spite of the lapse of twenty-five years. Critics do not rank these pictures high, but to me they are more pleasing, and certainly more in- teresting, than the canvases of some of the Old Masters. For instance, the large painting, "The Fall of Man," in the vestibule of the Maximila- neum : it seems a real scene upon which you gaze. On Adam's face and in his eyes is a look of gloomy remorse. In Eve 's the look is of unutterable grief, unutterable despair, tears glisten on her beautiful lashes, the eyes are almost closed; in the jungle in the background is seen Satan with tail and cloven hoofs, sneaking stealthily away, looking back at Adam and Eve as he goes, on his face and in his eyes a fiendish look of gloating. The color- ing and perspective are so perfect, the flesh tints are so realistic, it is as if you are looking at living, 200 Seeing Europe by Automobile breathing beings. You do not have this feeling — at least I do not have it— in looking upon the pic- tures of those thin, ugly, queer-formed women which Cranach and Holbein have handed down to us as their conceptions of Eve and Venus. Cranach must have been limited in his choice of models, or else his ideas of feminine grace and beauty must have been peculiar ; certainly, the lean, lanky figures he painted seem positively ugly compared with that exquisite Eve in the Maximilaneum. Yet Cranach has been famous for four hundred years, while Cabanel, who painted ' ' The Fall of Man, ' ' is little known in his own country, and outside of it is not known at all. Another painting in the Maximilaneum which interested me on my first visit and which I stopped to study again, was Schweiser's " Henry IV at Canossa." The barefoot emperor is standing in the snow, his cloak clasped tightly around him, in his face a look of dogged determination and sullen hate; soldiers near-by are jeering at him, while looking down upon him from a balcony above are two prelates, triumph in their eyes, sneers on their lips. It is not only a fine painting, it is a lesson in history. What wondrous changes Time has wrought ! What a contrast between then and now — between the year 1077, when an emperor had to stand three days in the snow, bareheaded and barefooted, to gain a Pope's pardon, and the year Through German Cities 201 1911, when the Pope, shorn of the last vestige of temporal power, is a prisoner in his palace ; when not even the humblest private citizen, much less a king or emperor, acknowledges his authority in aught save purely spiritual matters ! As I looked at Schweiser's painting of Henry IV abasing him- self to win the Pope's pardon, I remarked that the Pope could not make an emperor do that now. "Nein, Gott sei dank! (No, God be praised!) The Pope can't do that now," said a custodian who happened to be standing near-by. And this in Catholic Bavaria, from a man who doubtless was himself a Eoman Catholic ! Everywhere in Germany women do work which is done only by men in America; they plow the fields, they pull carts yoked with dogs and oxen, they drive auto-taxicabs ; in Munich they stand in the streets and mind the switches of the trolley tracks. It goes without saying that they serve as barmaids, except in brewery restaurants, where there are no waiters ; there the customers wait on themselves. When we lunched at the Hofbrauerei there were at least a thousand people eating there. All had to wash their own stone mugs and then stand in line and wait their turn to get a liter of the foaming beer. Less than a liter (a trifle more than a quart) is not sold. One who would ask for a smaller quan- tity of the Bavarian nectar than a liter would be 202 Seeing Europe by Automobile deemed a barbarian, unable to appreciate the gifts of the gods and unworthy the hospitality of a brewery. No one ever asks for a smaller mug; for that matter, so far as we could see, no one thought the liter mug too large. On the contrary, the majority of the people took their places in the beer line and drank half a dozen or so quarts of beer during the time they spent in the Hofbrau- haus. Just where they put such a quantity of fluid, or why they wished so to distend their stomachs and disease their kidneys, is not easy to say, but we saw them doing it every time we went to a Munich beer garden, which we did several times — the beer life of the Bavarian capital being unique, different from that anywhere else in Europe and well worth seeing. In some of the beer places with platforms or stages the vast crowd of drinkers joined in the chorus that is sung by the performers, and when the songs ended the girl singers went among the audience soliciting contributions. If the song or the singer is a favorite the contributions are gen- erous. The performers, who receive no salary, depend entirely upon the voluntary contributions ; consequently, they are ever alert to please, and not infrequently the music of the beer halls is really excellent. We went in the Get-There to the Starnberger- see, eighteen miles from Munich, and saw the - Through German Cities 203 castle where King Louis II was a prisoner until lie drowned himself in the lake hard-by, in June, 1886. When we asked a passer-by if this was where the king was drowned, the answer was : "It is where they say he was drowned, but in my opin- ion he wasn't drowned at all." The man refused to explain himself or discuss the matter. Afterward in conversation with other Bavarians similar mysterious hints were uttered regarding the poor, mad king, but they frankly admitted that they feared to talk about it. In spite of this timidity in discussing a topic that with us would be commented upon as freely as one would discuss the weather, it can not be denied that the last ten years have seen in Germany a great ad- vance of liberalism. When in Munich twenty-five years ago I heard of a student who was impris- oned because he remained sitting when the rest of a crowd of persons arose to drink to the health of the Kaiser. The student did not do anything; he made no disturbance, spoke no word; he simply did not rise to his feet and respond to the toast to the Kaiser. But in 1885 that was enough to land him in jail; it is not enough now. To-day Germans indulge in open criticism of the Kaiser. On the occasion of William IPs indiscreet inter- view in the London Telegraph the German press was outspoken in condemning the interview, and many of the papers plainly told him he should keep 204 Seeing Europe by Automobile his mouth shut. Twenty-five years ago such criti- cism would have meant imprisonment in a fortress for those editors ; to-day, so far from imprisoning the editors, the Kaiser conceals his resentment and follows their advice. Since the Telegraph interview he has kept on his tongue a curb that has truly edified and pleased the German nation. At eight o'clock of the morning of August 18th the Get-There rolled down the broad and beautiful Ludwigstrasse, passed through the great Sieges Thor and soon was once again in the open country. Noon found us eighty miles from Munich, an aver- age of twenty miles an hour, including slow time through villages and a stop for benzine at Eich- stadt. For some distance after leaving Munich the country offered little of interest, but just after passing through Eichstadt the Get-There began to climb a steep, winding road and when the summit of the high hill was reached there was a superb view of the valley below, and of the town of Eich- stadt, with its ancient castle and massive walls. We lunched on the edge of a cliff looking down upon Eichstadt, and in spite of the fact that it was mid- August the air was so nipping and eager that we thoroughly enjoyed the hot chocolate with which we had filled two of our Thermos bottles. In America August is not a season to worry about hot drinks, but in Europe there is no telling when Through German Cities 205 the weather is going to be cold, and even in mid- summer it is a good plan to keep at least one Ther- mos filled with hot coffee or hot chocolate. At three o'clock the Get-There entered the an- cient gates of Nuremberg, one hundred and fifteen miles from Munich, and stopped before the famous Bratwurst Gloecklein, that curious little place built on the side of a church and used to-day, as it has been used for the past five hundred years, as a restaurant and saloon. The beer served is dark, much darker than Munich beer — so much darker it is almost black — but drinkers say it is very fine ; as to the Bratwurst, we do not need to ask what the drinkers say about that. We can personally attest that it is excellent — at least, it so seemed to us that afternoon after our one-hundred-and-fif- teen-mile drive. The Bratwurst Gloecklein, which is not more than seven feet wide by forty feet long, has its oven at one end of the narrow room and the guests from their tables can watch the glowing coals and see the little bratwursts becoming crisp and brown as the fat fries out into the saucepan. To a hungry man the smell is good, and the place is comfortable, cosy and unique. In bygone cen- turies some famous men were " Stamm Gaste" (regular guests) here. A brass plate on the wall over one table recites the fact that Albert Diirer used to drink beer at that table from 1490 to 1510. Near the Diirer plate is a card on the wall con- 206 Seeing Europe by Automobile taming these lines written by Carmen Sylva, the Queen of Koumania, when she visited the Brat- wurst Gloecklein a few years ago : "Ich las was all hier geschrieben stand, Und weil ich die Hernn nit finden kannt, So nab ich auf ihren Platze gesessen In Ihren Geiste mich satt gegessen! " ("I have read all that is written here; and though I rj*ti not find the men themselves, I have seated myself in their old pla,ces and in their spirit have I feasted full.") As late as the time of Napoleon Nuremberg was a little town of less than twenty-five thousand peo- ple; nevertheless, even then it was of political importance. Its prosperity, considerable as far back as the twelfth century, reached great heights after the Emperor Charles IV issued in the year 1356 his celebrated " Golden Bull" ordaining that the Diet of the empire should be held in Nurem- berg. Not long after this the imperial regalia were brought to Nuremberg, where they remained until removed to Vienna in 1796, nearly four hundred years later. Over the great door of the Frauen Kirche is a curious clock built by the Nuremberg- ers to commemorate Charles IV s Golden Bull. Every day at noon for the past four hundred years a door on one side of the clock dial has opened to let seven figures, almost life-sized, come forth and turn one by one and salute an eighth figure; this done, all eight figures disappear through another Through German Cities 207 door on the other side of the dial. The seven figures represent the seven German Electors; the eighth figure represents Charles IV, whose favor made Nuremberg the political center of the em- pire. This clock looks down on the market-place, which on fine days is thronged with peasants sell- ing their fruits and vegetables to the housewives of Nuremberg. Half a block from the market flows the quiet, sleepy old Pegnitz river. At the point where the river is spanned by a massive stone structure called the " Museumsbruecke ' ' there is an ancient house with an enormously high gable roof, and a large, narrow balcony projecting from the side of the house out over the river. The house is so quaint, so picturesque, it merits any traveler 's at- tention; but to me it was especially interesting because I lived there once and on that balcony overhanging the Pegnitz, in July and August, 1891, 1 wrote my " Afloat and Ashore on the Medi- terranean/ ' afterward published by the Scribners in New York, and by Samson, Low & Marston in London. During the summer that I was engaged in writ- ing that book I worked on that balcony every day until four o'clock, then took a tramp around the city walls to the hill of the old castle. There I would stop to look down upon medieval Nurem- berg, to see the massive eleventh century tower of 208 Seeing Europe by Automobile the castle and to listen to a pretty, red-cheeked girl describe to tourists the deep well which in bygone ages furnished water to the castle when- ever it was besieged. During the two months that I made these daily walks with their daily pause near the deep well, an agreeable friendship was formed with the <( Brunnen Madchen," as I called her. And now as the Get-There climbed the steep street which I had so often climbed on foot, I wondered if the Brunnen Madchen would still be there, and if she would remember me. Presently we reached the castle court; the Get-There was left near the gate and we walked across the court to the little pavilion which shelters the deep well. As we entered a girl was holding a mirror over the well to throw the light on the water below, and she was saying in toneless, parrot-like English: "You see from the light on the glass it is very deep, three hundred and thirty feet deep. ' ' The setting was the same, the pavilion, the well, the descriptive words learned by rote like a parrot, the tourists with their red guidebooks — everything was precisely as I had so often seen it eighteen years ago. But that was not all, the Brunnen Madchen was the same — at least she seemed so; I saw the same eyes, same features, expression, hair, even the same rosy complexion which I used to see in 1891. Had time, so relentless with others, Through German Cities 209 stood still for her? When the tourists paid their fees and left I spoke to the girl : "Entschuldigen Sie, Fraulein (excuse me, Miss), but are you Fraulein Elizabetta B V y She did not answer at once ; she seemed too sur- prised. She gave me an inquiring look, then said : "Nein, Herr, ich heisse Elizabetta H (No, sir, my name is Elizabeth H ). Elizabeth B was the maiden name of my mother.' ' "And your mother? Eighteen years ago I used to see her here. Is she still living ?" She was, in the caretaker's house hard-by in the courtyard of the castle. And presently I had in- troduced her to Beamer, and for an hour we lived over the events of the summer that was long ago swallowed up in the endless years of the past, but which neither of us had yet quite forgotten. I was less fortunate when I looked for another old friend in the court of the castle. In those sum- mer days of 1891 1 used often to rest in the shade of the venerable lime tree which was planted there by the Empress Kunigunde in the year 1010, ex- actly nine hundred years ago. On our last visit I learned that the old tree, bowed down by the weight of nearly nine hundred years, had died in 1893, two years after I used to rest under its spreading boughs. As medieval as Nuremberg is it is less so than Bothenburg, which we reached after riding forty- 210 Seeing Europe by Automobile eight miles over a fine road that passed through several deliciously cool and shady forests. On this journey the advantages of the automobile were emphasized, for although we did not leave Nurem- berg until eight o'clock we reached Rothenburg a little after nine, and had driven all over the town when we met some tourists in a 'bus coming from the railway station. These tourists were from our hotel in Nuremberg; they had left an hour before us, yet here they were reaching Eothenburg an hour after we had finished seeing the town. I do not mean to say that that German railway was so much slower than the Get-There, for in this instance there was a change of trains and a de- lay in making connections; but with an auto- mobile you come and go when you are ready: without the Get-There we would have reached Rothenburg at ten o'clock instead of nine, and we would have been obliged to wait for an evening train before we could continue our journey to Wiirzburg. As it was, we left the Get-There in front of the wonderful old Rathshaus of Rothen- burg while we rambled through the crooked streets and walked on top of the wall that encircles the city; then we went back to the Rathshaus and cranked the Get-There and without having to wait for any train we were off on our journey. In Rothenburg we got a lad of fourteen to guide us to the Burg Garden, the site of the Castle of Through German Cities 211 Hohenstaufen — a hill from which we looked down into the deep Tauber valley, a vast, natural amphi- theater, with terrace after terrace of green vines. This lad showed ns where to find the steps that lead to the top of the city wall. He told us the reason the houses of Eothenburg have such high roofs is that in ancient times the law limited the number of stories which a house might have, but said nothing as to the roof; hence, while these old houses are low they sometimes have prodigi- ously high roofs. We saw some roofs that had six tiers of windows, indicating they had six separate stories. Another piece of information imparted to us by that fourteen-year-old lad made us regret that we had not come to Eothenburg in June instead of in August; had we come in June, he said, we would have seen the wonderful "Meisterdrank" festival, a celebration indulged in every year by the good people of Eothenburg to commemorate the feat of one of their town councillors in 1631. That grim old savage, Tilly, when he rode up to the Eaths- haus of Eothenburg two hundred and eighty years ago at the head of his victorious soldiers, ordered a batch of the town councillors to be hanged. "While the unlucky burghers were facing the scaf- fold the Burgomaster's daughter approached with a huge flagon of wine and passed it first to Tilly and then to his officers ; even after all of them had 212 Seeing Europe by Automobile drank their fill the flagon remained but half empty, whereupon the Burgomaster's daughter remarked that a single one of her father's councillors was able to empty such a flagon at a single draught. "By heavens, if you speak truth," cried the grim old general, "I will pardon your father's councillors." And forthwith commanded that one of them prove the truth of that which the fair maid had uttered. Forth from the batch of condemned men stepped one of commanding height and large in girth. "Fill the flagon," he cried, "and / will empty it even as the maid hath said." The flagon was filled, filled to the brim, and the tall burgher raised it to his lips and kept it there until the very last drop was drained — whereupon Tilly, in recognition of the feat, and in perform- ance of his promise, pardoned the condemned city fathers. Every June Bothenburg re-enacts the scene. Dressed in the garb of the city fathers of the year 1631, men line up in front of the old Baths- haus as they did that day Tilly rode in at the head of his savage troopers, and every June one of these masqueraders empties a huge flagon of wine, and thereupon another masquerader, dressed as Tilly, pardons the hero of the "Meisterdrank" and his fellow-burghers; and then the ancient old town of Bothenburg gives itself up to merriment, as their ancestors did two hundred and eighty Through German Cities 213 years ago! It is all very naive and quaint and characteristic of German sentiment— the way that lad described it — and we were sorry we were six weeks too late to witness so odd a celebration. Our youthful Rothenburg guide had never been in an automobile and asked permission to ride in the Get-There as far as Wiirzburg. From there, he said, he would return home by rail. The lad was so bright, we readily granted his request, and he was enjoying the ride up the Main valley among the vine-clad hills when, in an unlucky moment, we met a man driving toward us in a two-wheeled cart. On seeing our young guide the man made frantic motions to us to stop. His horse did not seem the least afraid, and we won- dered why the man was so excited. It turned out that he was our guide's father, and he fancied we were kidnapping the lad. Even when the real situ- ation was explained the father's doubts remained, and he insisted on his son getting out of the auto- mobile and going home with him in his cart. On the road up the valley of the Main we ran into a flock of sheep, and it was harder to pass those sheep than anything we had yet encountered. The silly beasts ambled lazily along in a dozen dif- ferent directions, wholly indifferent to the wail of our siren or the honk of our horn. Meanwhile, the shepherd looked quietly on, apparently not caring whether we got through his flock or not. In truth, 214 Seeing Europe by Automobile we would not have been able to pick a way between the sheep had not the shepherd's dog, with more intelligence than his master, finally rounded the sheep up on one side of the road. The droves of cattle which we occasionally met offered no diffi- culty compared to the sheep; as for chickens, we had trouble with them every day. It is a singular thing, but it is a fact, that no matter on what side of the road a chicken may be, when it sees an auto- mobile coming it wants to go to the other side of the road. If there are chickens on both sides of the road they change places when they see an auto- mobile; those on the left cross to the right, and those on the right cross to the left. Naturally, under such circumstances even the most expert chauffeur sometimes kills one of the foolish fowls as they dart across the road in opposite directions. In several villages through which we passed after leaving Kothenburg we were made to pay a "Pflaster" toll — a pavement tax of twenty pfen- nige (about four cents). Noticing that the peasants in carts passed without paying, we demanded an explanation. " Sie sind Fremden" (You are for- eigners") was the unexpected reply. "Do only foreigners have to pay?" I asked. "Ja (Yes). The others live here. They do not have to pay the Pflaster toll." Whether this discrimination was lawful, or whether it was a petty graft, we did not trouble to Through German Cities 215 inquire. The way to enjoy travel is to follow the line of least resistance and not make a fuss over trifles. The River Main is spanned at Wurzburg by an imposing stone bridge with two huge bronze lions guarding the entrance to the city. We crossed this bridge, passed by the lions and proceeded to search for a beer garden ; not that we cared for beer, but because we wanted the see the "Wiirzburger flow in Wurzburg." Everybody has heard the song, "Down, down, down where the Wiirzburger flows," and in all lands Wiirzburger beer is deemed the king of beers. Naturally, we supposed Wurzburg would be the beeriest of all the beer cities of Germany, but such was not the case. On the contrary, it was the one city where we actually had to get a guide to point out a beer garden. In Munich, if you toss a biscuit out of your window the chances are it will fall in a brewery, but in Wurzburg, its native city, Wiirzburger does not seem to flow half as freely as it does in the cities of foreign lands. We saw few gardens in the city, and those we did see were poorly attended. We stopped in one of these gardens long enough to write a German friend in St. Louis that the Wiirz- burger was flowing very slowly in Wurzburg; then we set forth for Frankfort-am-Main. After passing through the town of Markt Hei- dendenfeld the Get-There climbed a high hill from 216 Seeing Europe by Automobile the summit of which we looked down on the top of a vast forest, the largest we had seen in Germany. The pine trees were so close together, it was like looking upon a great green carpet. Three-quar- ters of an hour later we had descended the other side of the hill and were entering that forest ; then for many miles the Get-There flew along over a magnificent road that was built right through the forest, the tall pine trees coming close to the road on each side. After a while we came to a gate stretched across the road. To the left was a gate- keeper's lodge, almost hidden by the trees. A woman came out of the lodge and opened the gate, and on we flew until several miles farther on we came to another gate. There another woman let us pass, and soon we were in the town of Aschaf- fenburg. That forest belongs to the King of Bavaria and the portion shut in between those two gates is a "Wild Thier Park." We were an hour passing between those two walls of pine trees, and that twenty miles or so of our journey lives in our memory as the most delightful part of our motor trip in Germany. From Aschaffenburg it was not far to Frankfort ; when we stopped in front of the Prinz Heinrich Hotel in that city our speedometer registered one hundred and sixty-seven miles from the morning's starting-point in Nuremberg. CHAPTER XII The Frankfort airship exposition.— We find a baron.— Lunch in a forest overlooking the Rhine. — Up the Moselle Valley. —A night on a haystack.— Aeroplane races at Rheims.— A French Democrat. A T Frankfort, as at Nancy, we found an expo- sition going on, but the Luftschiff Ausstel- lung (airship exposition) of the German city did not have the disturbing effect upon Frankfort's life that the Nancy exposition had upon that French city. This was partly because Frankfort was a larger and a busier place, but it was also because Germans take things more coolly than the French ; also because the Germans regulate every- thing. If an American builds a grandstand along the line of a parade he will charge for a seat just as much as he thinks people will be willing to pay; not so in Germany; there the police tell him how much may reasonably be demanded and he may ask that much and no more. There was no abnor- mal charge for rooms at the Frankfort hotel, as there was at the hotel in Nancy; and at the expo- sition itself grandstand seats in full view of the 217 218 Seeing Europe by Automobile balloons and airships cost only one mark (twenty- four cents). The morning of our visit we saw twelve big bal- loons go up in quick succession, followed immedi- ately by an enormous airship; the balloons and airship all quickly disappeared in the sky. The balloons we saw no more, but in an hour the airship reappeared, at first a small black spot in the heavens ; then it came closer and closer and pres- ently hovered right in front of the grandstand, and ropes were thrown down to men on the ground below and the airship was hauled down to its orig- inal starting-point — just as a steamer is warped to its pier by ropes thrown to longshoremen on the quay. To us it was a novel and an interesting sight, but the Frankfort newspapers did not seem to think so — at any rate, they said little about it. American newspapers devote columns to the spe- cial events of local expositions, but the Frankfort press did not give even a "stickful" to the twelve balloons and airships all combined. When Count Zeppelin's huge airship arrived on a visit from Lake Constance there was less said about it in the Frankfort papers than was said in the papers in western America, six thousand miles away. While we stood on the grandstand with up- turned heads, looking at the balloons and majestic w CO H 5 The Rhine Country 219 airships sail away, I heard a pleasant voice to my left say in perfect English: ' ' Your pardon, sir, but would you mind ceasing for a moment to stand on my foot?" In my interest in things celestial I had quite forgotten terrestrial affairs, but this polite re- quest recalled me to earth again, and, of course, I "ceased to stand' ' on the gentleman's foot, not only for the moment, but I ceased permanently and apologized in the bargain; whereupon we ex- changed cards and I learned that the man on whose foot I had been standing was a nobleman, the Baron von S , with a castle in Rothenburg, a hunting lodge in Elsass, a motor-car in Frankfort, and with other things besides that some noblemen do not have; for example, motor-cars and castles were certainly not owned by the nobleman whom we saw in Heidelberg. He was a Graf, but he worked in the telegraph office and looked like any other clerk around the place. Not so the Baron von S . He looked his part and was in truth a very polished and very agreeable gentleman. The meeting begun in this unconventional way ripened into a pleasant acquaintance. The baron insisted upon our dining with him at the exposi- tion that evening, and he accepted our invitation to dine with us the next day. The following morn- ing a bouquet of beautiful roses arrived at our hotel with the baron 's compliments ; and after our 220 Seeing Europe by Automobile dinner, when I asked for the bill, the waiter in- formed me that it was paid — the Herr Baron had attended to that! To my protests the baron re- plied that we were strangers in Frankfort, conse- quently that it was not only his pleasure, but his duty to act as host. Experiences like this, whether with barons or plain democrats, are infrequent enough to be interesting. Baron von S drove with us about Frank- fort and pointed out some of its lions — the Ari- adreum with Dannecker's celebrated statue of Ariadne on the panther, the Palm Garden and the ancient Juden Gasse, which as late as 1806 was closed every evening with lock and key, and the Jews were required under heavy penalty to stay in their homes and not to enter any other part of the city. At No. 158 of this curious old street stands the original home of the Rothschild family; their offices are still near-by, in the house No. 146, on the corner of the Fahr Gasse, but the Roths- childs themselves no longer live in the Juden Gasse; they have "branched out" since those days. Some people calling themselves Christians, forget- ting Christ's teachings, particularly His command to love one another, still hate the Jews, and their hate still has power to hurt, as witness the Drey- fus affair; but the locks and keys of the Juden Gasse were thrown away one hundred and five years ago and from that once despised quarter has The Rhine Country 221 sprung the richest and, financially, the most pow- erful family the world has ever known. When we left Frankfort Baron von S ac- companied us in the Get-There as far as Bingen, 1 ' Fair Bingen on the Rhine. ' ' The distance, forty- two miles, was made in a little more than an hour. Just before reaching Bingen we stopped in a for- est on a hill overlooking the Ehine, and there on the grass under the trees we had a farewell lunch with our new friend ; he had helped plan the menu, and it was typically German as well as appetizing. There was Swiss cheese on rye bread and Frank- furters, which, by the aid of our spirit lamp, were quickly heated. In one Thermos bottle was hot coffee; in another was cold Moselle wine; in a third was clear water. In the basket were lots of other good things, and altogether it was a very jolly picnic party that lunched that day on the banks of the Khine, in full view of Germany's na- tional monument on the hill above Ruedesheim, across the river. Lunch over, the dishes washed with hot water drawn from the Get-There's radiator, the basket strapped in its place on the running board, we de- scended a long, steep road into Bingen and drove to the railway station, where Baron von S took a train back to Frankfort. As the cars pulled out of the station he leaned out of his window and waved to us a last Auf wiedersehen! On our 222 Seeing Europe by Automobile whole trip we met no more agreeable gentleman than this chance acquaintance; we were sorry to part with him. Shortly after passing through Bingen the Get- There climbed a high hill, almost a mountain, then turned abruptly away from the Rhine and for miles spun along a superb road up the Moselle valley — a valley to our notion even more beautiful than that of the Rhine. There may not be so many old castles on the Moselle as on the Rhine, but there is more beauty, more stillness, more dense, solemn woods; then, too, the road winds higher up above the Moselle than the road along the Rhine runs above that river. And the view look- ing down on the Moselle and upon the castles which stand upon the summit of the rocks that jut abruptly out of its waters is finer than anything on the Rhine. What we saw on that ride from Bingen to Bern- castel convinced us that it is a mistake for travel- ers to neglect the Moselle valley. If you are at Bingen and have not time to take both trips you may well omit the Rhine and go up the Moselle, for there you will see just as beautiful scenery, and you will have it at least a little bit to yourself. In the season the Rhine valley is overrun by tour- ists, whereas, comparatively speaking, the Moselle valley is almost deserted. We tarried so long and so often to view the picturesque scenery, night fell The Rhine Country 223 before our day's run was anywhere near ended, but we did not mind ; neither the Get-There nor we were the least bit tired. Our lamps showed the road and a full moon made the river and the hills and the castles and the dense forests seem more beautiful than ever. In the center of a stone bridge spanning the Moselle a man waved a lan- tern and when we stopped he collected eighty-five pfennige toll (about twenty-one cents). We asked this man the way to Treves. "Geradeaus" (straight ahead), was the reply. Half a minute later, at the end of the bridge, the road divided; one branch forked sharply to the left ; the other branch forked to the right — and yet that toll-gate man had told us to go " straight ahead !" I backed the Get-There all the way to the center of the bridge and the toll man came out to collect another eighty-five pfennige, but he got instead a sarcastic question: "When you say straight ahead/ ' I asked, "do you mean turn to the right or turn to the left?" "To the right, of course," replied the toll man. And he never cracked a smile or gave any other token that he saw the absurdity of this method of giving directions. It was ten o'clock at night be- fore the Get-There rolled into Treves and landed us at the Hotel Porta Nigra. When we awoke next morning we saw through the windows of our room the Porta Nigra, that great Roman structure 224* Seeing Europe by Automobile which has stood here for sixteen hundred years, a huge and striking reminder of the vanished glory of a dead empire. The arch, ninety-three feet high and one hundred and fifteen feet long, is built of huge blocks of sandstone fastened together with copper braces instead of mortar; on the inside of the massive walls stone stairs lead to the top. We walked across the street before breakfast and climbed to the summit of that ancient arch; then after breakfast we drove about the quaint and in- teresting city of Treves, visited the ruins of its Eoman amphitheater and palace, then resumed our westward way, entering Luxemburg soon after leaving Treves. We passed out of the duchy into France at Langlaville, forty-five miles from the Hotel Porta Nigra. As we were not to return to Germany the cus- toms officer at Langlaville retained the second sheet of our triptyque and certified on the third sheet that the Get-There had made its final exit from the Kaiser's realms. Then he handed us the third sheet of a triptyque certifying that a certain Herr Arthur M. Tree, of Leamington, England, had left Germany with his Mercedes car, No. 3308, weighing 1,295 kilograms. We did not notice this at the time. In our haste to push on we did not observe the officer closely; we took without ques- tion the paper he returned to us and forwarded it to the treasurer of the Touring Club de France. The Rhine Country 225 Several days later, at Rheims, we received a letter saying the club would be glad to return our Ger- man deposit when the Get-There had left Ger- many, but that the certificate of M. Tree was no proof of that fact; therefore M. Tree's certificate was returned to us. And then for the first time we became aware of the mistake of the customs offi- cer at Langlaville. It was annoying, and for a while it looked as if we were to lose the amount of our German deposit; but in the course of two or three weeks, and after a lot of correspondence, the Langlaville official straightened out his mis- take and sent us our own triptyque, which we in turn forwarded to Paris. A few days later we re- ceived a check to cover the amount of our German deposit. As we crossed the line from the Duchy of Luxemburg at Langlaville into France our speedometer dial registered twenty-five hundred and forty-six miles ; it had registered sixteen hun- dred and twenty miles on leaving France, conse- quently during our fifteen days in Germany the Get-There had traveled nine hundred and twenty- six miles. As a rule, we did not indulge in fast traveling; thirty-one miles was the greatest dis- tance we covered in any consecutive sixty minutes ; that, however, means a greater speed than it seems, for as it included several stops and slowing down in villages, it means that during some of 226 Seeing Europe by Automobile those sixty minutes we were going not less than forty-five or fifty miles per hour. But this was exceptional; such speed was made only on a few occasions. One of those occasions was on this journey back to Eheims. As a rule, we made no special effort to reach any particular place at any particular time; but our sole object in returning to Rheims was to witness the great aviation event held there from August 22d to 29th. It was now the 25th; only four more days of the aviation event remained, hence fast motoring was necessary — likewise it was necessary to make a very long day's run. When night fell Eheims was still eighty miles away, nevertheless we deter- mined to keep on until we got there. After a while, however, we drew up on the roadside, got out of the Get-There and stretched ourselves on a pile of new-mown hay, meaning to relax for a few minutes, then resume the journey. But insomnia is not for motorists in whose faces a gale of fresh air has blown since early morn ; we fell fast asleep and did not awake till disturbed by the sound of chattering voices; then we found day was dawn- ing, and a batch of peasants was about us, won- dering if we were killed or only injured. They thought us the victims of an accident and were much astonished when we leaped to our feet none the worse for our night 's sleep on a bed of hay in the open fields, and bade them Bon jour and re- The Rhine Country 227 sumed our flight to Elieims, wliere we arrived at eight o'clock of the morning of August 26th, in time to attend the day's events at Betheny plain. The "Grande Semaine d 'Aviation" did not end till the following Sunday, and what we saw during those four days well repaid us for the long and hurried flight from Germany. At moments there were hurtling through the air in front of the grandstand as many as a dozen aeroplanes, some at one altitude, some at another; while above the highest of them were huge airships circling as calmly and as majestically in the air as if they had been ships maneuvering on a summer's sea. To witness this extraordinary sight people were come from all parts of Europe, and even from other continents — from America and Australia. In the vehicle field more than a thousand automo- biles were lined up facing the judges' stand, while the grandstand held daily crowds of at least a hundred thousand people of all grades of society, from workingmen with their wives and children to dukes, princes, presidents, English cabinet min- isters and one reigning monarch. The Kaiser was not there — he never steps foot on French soil ; but that he is interested in aviation and would like to have seen the marvelous exploits at Rheims is apparent from the efforts he made to create a sim- ilar exhibition in Berlin. Count Zeppelin's mon- ster airship was at Berlin at the Kaiser's request; 228 Seeing Europe by Automobile so was Wilbur Wright, and his flights over the Tempel Hof were witnessed by a million people. But the world was at Kheims ; so were the world 's most daring aviators, with the exception of the Wright brothers. And when the sun went down on Betheny plain on that last Sunday in August, when the swarm of aeroplanes which for hours had been whizzing over our heads at express-train speed came gently to rest, like a flock of gigantic birds taking roost for the night, not one of the hundred thousand spectators but felt that the event marked an epoch in human affairs. There will be other aviation weeks from now on; other cities will follow Eheims' example. But this was the first! For thousands of years prior to August, 1909, the man who wanted to fly has been regarded with contemptuous pity ; almost up to the first day of the Eheims aviation week learned scientists wrote profound essays which proved mathematically that man could not possibly fly. To all these "scientific" demonstrations a final and an eternal quietus was given by what we saw those last days of August on the plains of Betheny, four miles out of Eheims. There were no one-mark seats on the grandstand at Eheims. It cost a hundred francs to get a good seat there, and we would have longed for a little dose of German regulation had not the Get-There afforded us an inexpensive way out of the diffi- The Rhine Country 229 culty. Adjacent to the grandstand was a field re- served for automobiles; the entrance fee for a chauffeur with his car was only ten francs. By coming early, and by a judicious gift to a guard, the Get-There was assigned a place in the very front ranks, only a few yards from the low picket fence that separated spectators from aviators. Every morning during the four days of our stay we took our place near that fence, much closer to the aeroplanes than the grandstand; and so from our seats in the Get-There we had a better view at a cost of ten francs than the grandstand people had at a cost of one hundred francs. There were more than a thousand automobiles in the field, and those that came late had to take places in the rear. We brought our lunch basket each day ; had we gone away to get dinner, or for any other purpose, our place in the front row would have been immediately preempted by some one else. For only one automobile was a place re- served, whether it remained or went away; that was the automobile of the mayor of Eheims. It stood in the front row next to us; frequently it went off, when sent for by the mayor, but when it returned its place was always waiting for it — al- ways except once. On that one occasion no sooner did the mayor's big Mercedes pull out of its place than a two-seated roadster rolled forward and occupied the vacant space. Then ensued a scene 230 Seeing Europe by Automobile that would be inconceivable in Germany. A guard stepped to the side of the roadster, touched his cap and said politely: "Pardon, Monsieur, but this place is reserved." "It is not only reserved, it is occupied/ ' replied the driver of the car, calmly. He was a stout man with gray mustache, and keen, steel-blue eyes — evidently the automobile's owner. The guard was puzzled. "But, Monsieur," he said, "it is for M. le Maire that this place is reserved. No one else is per- mitted to rest here." Then the fireworks began. "For M. le Maire?" exclaimed the man with the gray mustache, his steely eyes flashing. * l Who is the mayor! And who am I? Is the mayor a god? Am I a worm that he should tramp upon me? Mon Dieu! This in France, in a republic, in a country which proclaims liberty and equality? Do you hear, Monsieur, equality?" It is possible to give only a faint idea of that man's manner; his eyes actually blazed; his arms, his shoulders, his hands, all took part in the dis- cussion. The guard, overwhelmed, beat a retreat ■ — returning, however, with reinforcements in the person of another guard and of the chief. The latter spoke loftily and positively and seemed to expect that an authoritative air would settle the trouble. The Rhine Country 231 " Pardon, Monsieur, but I inform you that this place is reserved !" So spoke the chief of guards. But the gray-mustached man answered : "You pardon me, Monsieur, but that can not be so." "Pardon, Monsieur, but I tell you it is so !" The chief and his two guards went away and presently returned with several gendarmes, but the only result of their united efforts was to bring the gray-mustached man to his feet: standing up on the seat of his automobile he made an im- passioned speech. He was a democrat; France was a republic ; the mayor, even though he were a king, was no better than a French citizen ; he, the speaker, had paid ten francs to enter that field and he was privileged to place his automobile in any spot that was vacant. The mayor had vacated his place, ergo when the mayor came back he must be content with a place in the rear! It is frightful to contemplate what would have happened had this man acted thus at the Frank- fort Airship Exposition; being in France, not in Germany, it was not frightful, it was only amus- ing. In America a money king or a political boss might succeed in such a stand, but under similar circumstances in America — say, at Sheepshead Bay or Brighton Beach — if an ordinary citizen re- fused to move on and sought to justify his refusal on abstract doctrines of democracy and equality — 232 Seeing Europe by Automobile if that citizen escaped a clubbing I would miss my guess as to the temper of the average American policeman. In the end those French guards and gendarmes were discomfited. After nearly an hour of min- gled threats, commands and entreaties they re- tired, leaving the gray-mustached man in posses- sion of the favored spot which had been reserved for the mayor — a trivial incident, this, but one withal full of significance. The dread of foreign invasion has brought on France the heavy weight of conscription and a huge standing army — two things that do not wear well with democracy, two things which remove France from the list of real republics; yet, in spite of militarism, the lessons of Eousseau and the encyclopedists and the Kevo- lution have been ground so deep into the very bone and fiber of the French people, among them and in their country is a feeling of equality, an atmos- phere of freedom that is not found elsewhere in Europe except in Switzerland and England. Mr. William Bardell, the American consul at Rheims, was with us on the aviation field the day Glenn Curtiss won the international cup. In honor of his presence and of our countryman's great victory we flew two American flags above the Get- There's radiator; ours was the only one so deco- rated, and so far as we know the Get-There was the only American automobile on the grounds; of The Rhine Country 283 the thousand and more machines that came every day none seemed of American make, but they rep- resented every variety of European car — seeing them was like seeing an automobile show in Paris. The return each night to Rheims was interest- ing; everybody left after dark at the same time, just after the aeroplane flights ended, consequently there was such a procession of automobiles as we had never seen before. Their thousands of gas lamps threw a white, vivid stream of light on the road, while the oil lamps twinkled like so many thousand stars. The road on which automobiles returned from Betheny plain to Rheims was re- served for that purpose exclusively. No vehicle was permitted to travel that road in the opposite direction; thus was confusion avoided, and in spite of the tremendous throng of automobiles there was not a single collision or accident during the entire eight days of the aeroplane and airship races. It is also noteworthy that not a single aviator was seriously injured; in the average automobile race of even a single day somebody is apt to be killed — even a horse-race wherein some jockey falls to the ground and breaks his neck is not ex- ceptional. In races through the air in machines weighing half a ton one would expect all sorts of fatalities, yet in the entire eight days at Rheims there was not one serious accident. Unfortu- 234 Seeing Europe by Automobile nately the precedent set at Kheims has not been followed; since that great week of aviation there have been a number of fatal mishaps. M. Dela- grange, whose daring flights at Rheims aroused the wildest enthusiasm, fell from a prodigious height at Paris a few months afterward and was instantly killed. There have been other similar aeroplane tragedies, proving that flying is not the safe sport which the events at Rheims made some people be- lieve it to be. CHAPTER XIII Adventure of the dill pickles. — Brienne — Langres.— Our first puncture. — Besangon. — Into Switzerland. — Lausanne. — Around Lake Geneva. — Motor rules in Switzerland. — A night ride to Goeschenen. jOjN returning to our Rheims hotel Sunday night, ^-^ August 29th, after the close of the last day of the Grande Semaine d 'Aviation, Beamer had an amusing experience: I had gone with the Get- There to the garage while she undertook to ar- range for our lunch basket to be filled, ready for an early start in the morning. All went well until she conceived the notion that dill pickles were neces- sary for the next day's menu; either her French failed her or the gargon had never heard of that particular variety of pickle. At any rate, he de- clared he could not comprehend. "Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Beamer. "N'y-a-t-il per sonne dans cet hotel qui parle Anglais?" (Is there no one in this hotel who speaks English?) "Mais oui, Madame/' ' ' Then bring him here." The waiter vanished, returning presently with a 235 236 Seeing Europe by Automobile man in evening dress who asked in English in what way he could be of service. "You can serve me by getting me some dill pickles," said Beamer. "Dill pickles ?" repeated the man with an air of surprise. "What kind of a pickle is a dill?" It was Beamer 's turn to be surprised. "You mean to say you do not know what a dill pickle is?" she exclaimed. 1 < No. What is a dill pickle ? ' ' "Why, it is — a — why, it's a dill pickle. That's what it is!" "Ah, to be sure," returned the man, courteously, and spoke something in French to the garcon. Then in English he said : "I am sorry to say that at this moment there are no dill pickles in the hotel. But they shall be sent for the first thing in the morning. ' ' "That will be time enough," said Beamer. "It is for luncheon to-morrow that they are wanted. Will you also please ask the cook to fill a Ther- mos bottle with hot chocolate?" "Certainly. Is there anything else I can do for you?" Beamer reflected, but could think of nothing more. "No," she said. "Your garcon has understood my other orders." "Very well. And now, Madame, would you not Into Switzerland 287 like to look at our banquet room? It is artistically decorated. ' ' Her orders having been given and having noth- ing more to do until my return, the invitation was accepted. The man walked across the corridor to the door opening into the hotel banquet room, Beamer following; then the man threw open the door, disclosing to her astonished vision a party of thirty men, all in evening dress, around a big table, partaking of an elaborate dinner. When they saw the man and by whom he was accom- panied they raised their wine-glasses and cried: "Here's to the beautiful lady!" Of course, Beamer retreated instantly and in considerable confusion. "Why did you not tell me a banquet was going on?" she demanded. "Because I feared if I told you that you would not come," was the man's unexpected answer, and there was a twinkle in his eye. Beamer flashed him a quick glance, and the red came to her cheeks as she comprehended. ' ' Oh, then you are not the hotel steward 1 ' ' "No; I am an English guest of this hotel. But that does not matter. I speak French, and I mean to get you those pickles!" 1 ' Pickles ? ' ' repeated two of the guests who had come out of the banquet room to see what was the 238 Seeing Europe by Automobile matter. ' ' Henry, what on earth do you want with pickles, and who is this lady?" Explanations were made and the two guests swore if Henry did not get those dill pickles that they themselves would act as a committee to pro- cure them. It was at this juncture that I returned from the garage and, as may be imagined, I was no little astonished to find my wife engaged in conversation with three strangers. "Gentlemen," said my wife, "permit me to in- troduce my husband!" The three men were at first too surprised to acknowledge the introduction. "Your husband?" they exclaimed. "You mar- ried — you, who seem like a miss in her teens?" "Do you think, sirs, a miss in her teens would be alone in a hotel lobby at ten o'clock at night?" "Pardon us, Madame, we did not know. We have heard that American girls do unconventional things." "Some unconventional things — yes; but not even an American matron asks a strange gentle- man for dill pickles. It is not complimentary, sir, but you know that I mistook you for the hotel steward." Thereupon the two men laughed and declared the joke was on their friend and introduced them- selves and urged us both to attend their banquet. This invitation, of course, was declined, and we Into Switzerland 239 never saw the Englishmen again; but next morn- ing, when the gargon strapped the basket on the Get-There 's running board, the basket contained a bottle of excellent pickles, to the neck of which was tied a card bearing this line : "To the fair American whom I mistook for a young girl, from the Englishman whom she mistook for a steward." They were not dill pickles ; in France we never saw that particular kind of pickle, but they were good and when we lunched that day on the grass under a tree we ate a pickle and drank a toast to the unknown Englishman. Switzerland was now our objective point, and on the way thither we again passed through the field of Chalons. This time, however, on reaching the obelisk erected to Napoleon III, instead of turning sharply to the east, we continued straight south and after leaving Chalons-sur-Marne, a small city of twenty-eight thousand inhabitants, the Get- There sped along a road which for thirty miles was bordered on each side by a strip of velvety lawn ; the grass was green and closely clipped, and there were two rows of stately trees whose boughs almost met overhead. At one place this road was as straight as an arrow for a distance of five miles, not a fork or a curve. As far as the eye could see there was that highway, smooth as a billiard table, fringed on either side by those mile-long strips of 240 Seeing Europe by Automobile green grass and covered overhead by the foliage of those two rows of stately trees — it was a lovely vista; we seemed to be spinning swiftly along in an endless tunnel of trees. At one point while ascending the beautiful val- ley of the Marne we passed within a few miles of Brienne, where, in the beginning of his life, Napo- leon studied the art of war and where toward the close of his career, in 1814, he fought a bloody bat- tle with the Prussians under Bluecher. In front of the Hotel de Ville in Brienne is a bronze statue of Napoleon at the age of sixteen — the only statue of him as a youth which is anywhere to be seen. Our route took us through Joinville within sight of the Chateau du Grand Jardin, the sixteenth- century home of the Guise family, and through Chaumont, where in 1814 the allied sovereigns met to sign a treaty reducing France to the territory that was hers in 1789, prior to the Revolution, prior to her expansion under Napoleon. From Chaumont we continued on up the valley of the Marne until we reached Langres. It was a stiff up-grade all the way, and the last part of the journey was up a veritable mountain, for Langres, situated on a hill sixteen hundred feet high, is reached only by a long and steep zigzag road from which as one ascends one may look down upon the Marne and its picturesque valley. To climb that zigzag road the Get-There had to fall into second Into Switzerland 241 speed. It was slow work, and as we had covered one hundred and sixty-one miles since leaving Kheims we decided to end the day's run in that town on the mountain. The Get-There entered Langres through its cov- ered gate, and after threading a way through some very narrow and very crooked streets landed us at the Grand Hotel de 1 'Europe. Travelers are warned not to attach significance to the word " Grand" as applied to French hotels, because inns of even the humblest sort have a way of calling themselves ' 1 Grand Hotel. ' ' Our Langres hotel was in truth a modest inn, yet we felt in a way that it was entitled to the grandiloquent name it bore; for certainly, considering it was in a provincial town, perched on top of a lofty hill, the entertain- ment it provides is grand. Our room was grand ; it was twenty-five feet wide and thirty feet long; on the mantel was a big gilt mirror that reached all the way to the high ceiling. Rugs were spread over the polished floor, and on the bed were linen sheets with hand-embroidered initials. For this room, including free housing of the Get- There, we paid six francs; for three francs each we had an excellent dinner, consisting of soup, fish (delicious sauce), roast beef and potatoes, string beans, chicken (very tender), lettuce salad, cheese, cakes, grapes and pears, claret at discre- tion and coffee. I know of no small town in Amer- 242 Seeing Europe by Automobile ica where such a room and such a dinner is to be had at any price, much less for the modest sum charged at Langres — two dollars and forty cents for room and dinner for two persons, including storage of automobile. In old times, not content to be perched on the peak of a sixteen-hundred-foot hill, Langres built a big wall around itself. On the site of that an- cient wall modern ramparts now stand, and a walk around those ramparts affords a superb view of the Eiver Marne, flowing peacefully amid green and yellow fields a thousand feet below. The lion of Langres is its twelfth-century cathedral; al- though it is in a provincial town and was built eight hundred years ago, it is a noble edifice with a choir whose great monolithic columns and paint- ings by Eubens and Corregio would not be out of place in the finest church in France. Continuing our journey south the next morning all went well until we were approaching Besancon, a hundred kilometers from Langres; then from one of the tires came that hissing sound which every motorist knows and dreads, and the next moment the Get-There was halted at one side of the road, and it was u up to me" to fix a puncture — a job that is never agreeable, but under the cir- cumstances we had little right to complain. Our dial registered two thousand eight hundred and sixteen miles, yet this was the first puncture; Into Switzerland 243 moreover, the Get-There 's wheels were supplied with quick detachable tires and rings, so that the operation of removing the deflated tube, putting on a new one and inflating it ready to go, con- sumed barely twenty minutes. Parenthetically, let it be observed here that on the entire trip, ending at Naples after more than iive thousand miles, we had only four punctures, in- cluding this first one between Langres and Besan- qou. Of course, this was largely luck, but it was in part due to the fact that I equipped the Get-There with tires a size larger and heavier than ordinary. At the end of each day's run, before the Get-There was put away for the night, I made a habit of glancing at the tires and frequently found nails embedded in the rubber ; but the nails, which came from the wooden shoes of the peasants, were very short and did not penetrate to the inner tube, as they would have done had the tires been smaller or thinner or less able to support the weight of our automobile. One motorist we met told us he had at least one puncture every day, and that on one occasion he had seven in one day. That motorist saved money by buying under-sized tires, but it proved unwise economy. For every time he picked up a nail it meant delay and trouble; with extra large rims and tires those little nails would not have reached the inner tube and he could have done as we did, wait till the end of the day's run 244 Seeing Europe by Automobile and then pick them out of the rubber in five minutes. Besangon, which we reached at eleven o'clock, is Victor Hugo's birthplace; his statue is in the pub- lic garden. The poet is seated in an armchair; around his shoulder is thrown a toga ; his breast is bare, likewise his feet. That sort of garb looks well on an old Roman, but somehow it seems incon- gruous in the case of a man who has recently lived and walked amongst us. Two thousand years ago when Caesar and Ario- vistus, King of the Suevi, fought each other in these parts, Besangon was the capital of the Se- quani; since then it has belonged to several dif- ferent nations. From 1648 to 1678 it belonged to Spain; it is now a French city of sixty thousand inhabitants, most of whom make clocks and watches. The sole reminder of Besangon's Eoman days is the Port de Mars, an arch erected by Mar- cus Aurelius eighteen centuries ago. The traveler who has seen that arch has seen the "lion" of the place. When Arthur Young rode into Besangon on his blind mare the year before the Revolution he found the town very little to his taste and wrote in his diary : "I do not like the air and the manners of the people here. I would rather see Besangon swallowed up by an earthquake before I would live in it." THE ENTRANCE TO BESANQON, VICTOR HUGO S BIRTH- PLACE, IS A CREVICE IN A HUGE ROCK Into Switzerland 245 At the time of the English squire's visit mobs were overrunning the country roads and setting fire to the chateaux of the nobility. As a striking contrast to the present peaceful, prosperous con- dition of France, the following paragraph from Young's diary is interesting; it was written in Besangon a few weeks after the Bastile was stormed by the Paris mob : "The backwardness of France is beyond credibility in every- thing that pertains to intelligence. From Strasburg hither I have not been able to see a newspaper. When I asked for the Cabinet Literaire — none! The Gazette? At the coffee house. To four coffee houses), and at some no paper at all, not even the Mercure. At the Caf6 Militaire, the Courier, a fortnight old. Well-dressed people are now talking of the news of three weeks past, and plainly, by their discourse, know nothing of what is happening. The whole town of Besangon has not been able to afford me a sight of the Jour- nal de Paris, nor of any paper that gives an account of the States General. Yet Besangon is the capital of a province, large as half a dozen English counties, containing twenty-five thousand souls, with the post coming in but three times a week. . . . For what Besangon knows to the contrary, its deputies are in the Bastile, instead of the Bastile being razed. The mobs plunder, burn and destroy in complete ignorance. Many chateaux have been burned, others plundered, the sei- gneurs hunted down like wild beasts, their wives and daughters ravished, their papers and titles burned, and all their property destroyed." In this day of cables and telephones, with the very ends of the earth seeming almost at our el- bows, it is difficult to realize that a century ago places separated by only a few hundred miles 246 Seeing Europe by Automobile were almost as strange to each other as though they had been on different planets. Napoleon was the first really great European traveler; every country from Gibraltar to Moscow received from him a visit, and upon each he left a lasting mark. Before he set the travel fashion men who jour- neyed a little distance were looked upon almost with awe; that was because they were disappear- ing into the unknown. For in those days nobody knew what was going on a hundred miles away. Nowadays, even in the middle of the ocean, the wireless keeps us in touch with the world, and awe is not felt for even the traveler to the North Pole. In 1789 Besangon, now reached from Paris in a few hours, was so remote from the capital, it knew nothing of the storming of the Bastile until sev- eral weeks after that momentous event had oc- curred. To realize what that means, suppose that a revolution occurs in Washington; that a mob controls the city and destroys the national prison — and that New York and Philadelphia hear noth- ing about it for three weeks ! The thing is incon- ceivable. At five o'clock in the afternoon of Tuesday, the last day of August, just as our dial registered two thousand nine hundred and eighty-four miles, the Get-There crossed the Swiss frontier at Bail- laignes, three kilometers east of a French village, Les Hopitaux-Neufs. The last hour in France was Into Switzerland 247 amid magnificent scenery. The valley contracted until it became a narrow defile between mountains so precipitous, so high, their peaks were lost in the clouds; the road wound up and up and ever up, alongside a foaming torrent, until at length a height was attained which made us get our wraps and robes and forget that the month was August. The moment the Get-There crossed the imagi- nary line between France and Switzerland we were made aware of the fact by the marked change in the character of the road. Compared with American highways Swiss roads are excellent, but compared with the French they are poor. We felt the difference; also we missed the ever-present signboard which in France makes it unnecessary to ask for directions. After crossing that imaginary line at Baillaignes we saw few signs, and the few we did see were inaccurate and misleading. At one point where there were three equally well- traveled roads leading in different directions and no signpost, we waited ten minutes for some one to come along and tell us which of those three roads went to Lausanne. Finally a man in a cart passed and said, ' ' Take the middle road. ' ' We did so. A quarter of an hour later, meeting a man coming down the steep road up which the Get-There was climbing, we said : "Is this the way to Lausanne V 248 Seeing Europe by Automobile The man looked at us in surprise. "It is the way from Lausanne," he answered. And this turned out to be true. The first man was either ignorant or malicious ; at any rate, he had told us to take a direction the exact opposite of that which we should have taken. It was annoy- ing, not only because of the delay, but because that mountain road was so narrow. It was flanked on both sides by such deep ravines that to turn the Get-There in it was dangerous, if not impossible. The man said that for miles ahead of us the road continued too narrow to turn, so we had to bach down that steep incline for a distance of nearly two miles. This delicate, not to say dangerous, maneuver occupied so much time that, instead of reaching Lausanne in time for dinner, as expected, we did not arrive there until ten o'clock at night. On my last visit to Lausanne, twenty-five years ago, I put up at the Hotel Gibbon, in the garden of which the English writer wrote his monumental history of Rome. The Hotel Gibbon is still one of Lausanne's leading hotels, but this time we went to the Hotel Eoyal, a new establishment nearer the water, looking out over Lake Geneva. On clear mornings we could see on the other side of the lake the town of Evian, whither Madame de Warrens went to throw herself at the feet of King Victor Amadee that time she abandoned her home and stole away from Lausanne in a boat loaded with Into Switzerland 249 her husband's goods and chattels. From Evian Madame de Warrens went to Chambery, where Rousseau found her and made her famous. Over the front door of the house adjoining the garage where the Get-There stopped we saw a small tablet which recites the fact that Byron oc- cupied that house in 1816 and wrote there some of his immortal poetry. The shores of the Leman Lake are replete with such personal, historical associations, for on those shores have lived and wrought many famous men and women — Madame de Stael, Voltaire, Madame Recamier, Byron, Rousseau, Gibbon and a host of others. We made Lausanne our headquarters five days, and each morning of our stay we visited some town or house which possessed the double charm of a magnificent scenic setting and the human interest of historical associations. One morning we motored forty miles to Geneva, stopping on the way at Copet to visit the house where Madame de Stael lived and Madame Re- camier died. So beautiful was Madame Recamier, when she attended the fete given by the Directory to Napoleon on his return from Italy, she divided honors even with the future emperor ; men turned from him to gaze at her — a fact which Napoleon, who, in spite of his genius, was too little to be above jealousy, never forgave. Being banished by Napoleon, Madame Recamier went to Madame de 250 Seeing Europe by Automobile StaePs home at Copet and there in that mansion which we visited that September morning she was madly loved by Prince August of Prussia. The prince urged her to divorce her husband and marry him. This she refused to do ; nevertheless, the prince remained devoted to her until his death forty years later. During those forty years an- other man also loved her devotedly — Chateau- briand, who, when his wife died in 1846, begged Madame Becamier to marry him. But both were then over seventy, and Madame Eecamier very sen- sibly declined. Chateaubriand wrote letters to her for forty years, until his death in 1849. At Ferney we saw Voltaire's home, and at Geneva we saw the statue of Eousseau; then we motored back to Lausanne. Next day we took the opposite direction to Chillon, of which Byron sang, and to Vevey, whose beauties Eousseau so elo- quently described in the "Nouvelle Heloise." In a little church on a height above Vevey are buried two men whose names recall an interesting page in English history — Ludlow and Broughton, the regicides. It was Broughton who read the death- warrant to Charles I ; an inscription in Latin over his tomb in the little church above Vevey says it was that act which caused him to be classed as a regicide and to die an exile from his native land. When Cromwell was gone and Charles II ascended the throne Ludlow and Broughton fled to Switzer- x 5 Into Switzerland 251 land and Charles demanded their extradition; but the Swiss government resolutely refused to give them up, and on their death they were buried in the Church of St. Martin, back of Vevey, where their bodies repose to this day. On Sunday morning, September 5th, the Get- There began the hundred-and-twenty-mile run from Lausanne to Lucerne, and it was uphill work from the very beginning. At the door of the Hotel Eoyal we started up a steep hill on the main street, leading up to upper Lausanne. An hour later we were on a height from which we looked back upon one of the loveliest sights in Switzerland. Spread below us was Lake Geneva, its shores dotted for many miles with vineyards and villas ; beyond the lake was the magnificent monarch of mountains — Mor)t Blanc, wrapped in his eternal mantle of snow! We were loth to leave so entrancing a scene, but the journey ahead of us, although not long in distance, was up and down mountains all the way, hence we dared not tarry too long ; after a quarter of an hour on the summit of that pass we descended its northern slope and Lake Leman van- ished from our view. Twenty-four miles from Lausanne we passed the little town of Eomont perched above a river on a hill; its castle was built in 910, just a thou- sand years ago. Sixteen miles beyond Romont the Get-There rolled onto a suspension bridge eight 252 Seeing Europe by Automobile hundred feet long, spanning a profound gorge on the edge of which stands the town of Fribourg. We stopped in the center of the bridge, a hundred and sixty-eight feet above the foaming torrent in the bottom of the gorge ; then on to Berne, where we arrived at noon and remained long enough to lunch and buy gasoline and drive through the street of the queer little fountains to the state bear-pits. Just beyond the pits our road turned sharply to the right and zigzagged up a steep hill ; after that hill there was fairly level traveling, and the Get-There drew up in front of the Schweitzer- hof in Lucerne at three in the afternoon. As usual when in Lucerne we revisited Thor- waldsen's lion. Verily a masterpiece, but I have never seen this work without the reflection occur- ring to me that the soldiers it commemorates would have ended their lives peacefully in the bosoms of their families instead of having their throats cut in Paris, had they not left democracy at home in order to defend tyranny abroad. We spent what remained of the afternoon and all of Monday forenoon in renewing acquaintance with lovely Lucerne; then we started on our trip over the St. Gothard Pass. And straightway we learned that motoring in Switzerland is subject to unusual restrictions. The shortest and best road from Lucerne to the St. Gothard is that which closely follows the north shore of the lake, and Into Switzerland 253 naturally that was the road we took. But we had not gone far when a policeman cried "Halt!" and demanded what we meant by motoring on that road? "Don't you know it is after one o'clock ?" he said severely. We were aware of that fact: what then? The relevancy of his remark was not apparent, but the policeman made it so. Until one p.m. it was lawful to motor along the lake shore. After one p.m. mo- toring on that road meant a fine and imprison- ment. ' ' But what, then, are we to do T ' we said. * ' We want to go to the St. Gothard." "In that case you have no need to hurry," re- plied the policeman. "Even if you reach the St. Gothard to-day you will have to wait there till to-morrow, for no one is permitted to cross the pass except early in the morning." We turned back from that alluring road along Lake Lucerne, went north to Zug, rode around the shores of Lake Zug to Arth, back of the Eigi Kulm, and so on to Brunnen; there we were again on Lake Lucerne, at the beginning of the celebrated Axen Strasse. Years ago, oh my Tramp Trip, it took me several hours to walk on the Axen Strasse from Brunnen to Fluelen; the Get-There was al- most as long in making the same nine miles. The lake, hemmed in on every side by prodigious moun- 254s Seeing Europe by Automobile tains, their snowy peaks towering into the very heavens, is so smiling, so friendly, so beautiful, it is impossible for even the most blase traveler to view it without emotion. To indulge in speed on such a road, amid such surroundings, would be sacrilege; the Get-There crept along and every little while stopped altogether. And the time passed so quickly that before we knew it the sun had sunk behind the mountains and we were in for a night journey. In some of the villages through which we passed were notices announcing that motorists who trav- eled faster than ten kilometers (six miles) an hour would be subject to an " amende' ' of three francs (sixty cents). These warnings were not responsible for our modest pace; the steep grade deserves credit for that. From Amsteg to Gurtnellen is only a trifle over a mile, but in that mile the road ascends twelve hundred feet, which, of course, means a grade too steep for speeding. From our seats in the Get-There on the right bank of the Eeuss we heard engines puffing and saw flames belching from their smokestacks on the opposite side of the narrow river as they pulled a long train up the mountain. From the lighted car- windows we saw the passengers leaning out to look at the Get-There. The Eeuss at that point was so narrow, and we were so close, the train passen- gers shouted to us, but they could not see us ; the Into Switzerland 255 glare of our lamps fell on the road ahead and all back of the Get-There 's radiator was as black as night. It was nine o'clock before the ride up this wild gorge ended, and we found ourselves at supper before a cheerful fire in a quaint old German inn at Goeschenen. That morning in Lucerne I had set my pocket barometer at zero; at nine p.m. it registered two thousand three hundred and sev- enty-nine feet, a fairly accurate register, for the official difference between the elevation of Lucerne and Goeschenen is six hundred and seventy meters, or two thousand three hundred and sixty-six feet. The distance, via Zug and the road we had fol- lowed, was sixty-seven miles. In covering that distance and in climbing that height the Get-There consumed twenty liters of gasoline. CHAPTER XIV The "Curly" Pass.— A short cut that was very long.— The Get- There climbs the Simplon. — To Martigny and Geneva. — Chamonix. — The Grande Chartreuse. — Grenoble to Nice.— Sospello and the deserted town. T7* ARLY next morning we went to the custodian -■— ^ of the St. Gothard Pass and paid two francs to motor over the pass. Another American, who was there for a permit for his big six-cylinder car to cross the pass, looked condescendingly at the Get-There. "You don't expect to cross the St. Gothard in thatt" he said. We modestly replied that we did. "Well," continued the owner of the Big Six, "there is one consolation: when you find you can't do it, you can at least coast back down to Goe- schenen and railroad it through the tunnel." The event showed that our countryman's sym- pathy was sadly misplaced. True, the Get-There did not bound up that steep mountain like a deer, nor did it make any record for speed, but we did not mind that. Amid such sublime scenes speed was the last thing we wanted. We drove slowly, 256 Over the Alps 257 pausing on the Devil's Bridge, also in Andermatt; then we commenced a zigzag climb to the summit of the pass, six thousand nine hundred and thirty- five feet above the sea and three thousand two hun- dred and ninety-five feet above our hotel in Goe- schenen. Just before reaching the summit we saw the American, him of the Big Six, and the fall which follows pride had now come to him. His motor would not work and he was waiting for horses to tow him to the divide. "If you can't make it," I said, as the Get-There drew alongside the Big Six, "you can, at any rate, coast back to Goeschenen and take a train through the tunnel. ' ' The American saw the point and apologized handsomely. "I had no idea you could do it in that little car," he said. ' ' But I see your motor is a peach. I take my hat off to it; I salute it!" In my turn, to show that the Get-There har- bored no resentment, I offered to give him a lift. The spot where the Big Six had broken down was within a hundred yards of the divide and the grade up that last hundred yards was not overly steep. Had it been farther or steeper maybe the Get- There could not have pulled the big fellow up ; as it was, it succeeded easily and the situation was a distinct triumph for our modest, low-priced car: had one of its agents appeared at that moment I 258 Seeing Europe by Automobile think he could have made a sale to that stranded, disgusted American in just about a minute and a half. The descent of the St. Gothard was even slower than the ascent, for more caution was necessary in making short turns and in preventing the Get- There from gaining speed. Failure to negotiate the sharp zigzags was a thing to be avoided, as in places it was a couple of thousand feet from the edge of the road to the bottom of the adjacent canyon. Fortunately the Get-There 's brakes were as staunch and true as its motor, and the only ill result that followed the terrific tests to which they were put on this and on the other Swiss passes was that the brake linings and blocks burned and had to be replaced on arriving in Geneva. Had I thrown the motor into low gear and gone down the mountain on compression even this small repair — the only one on the entire trip — might not have been needed, and the Get-There would have fin- ished its European journey with a perfect score. The Italian side of the St. Gothard is even more magnificent than the gorge of the northern ap- proach; the road descends in steep zigzags blasted out of the face of a stupendous precipice. "While still several thousand feet above the valley you suddenly emerge from the defile onto a table rock under which a sheer half-mile below you is Airola, with tile roofs and frescoed walls that look more Over the Alps 259 like the walls and roofs of the painted houses of a picture city on a theater stage than like real houses of stone and mortar. While we stood on that table rock looking down at Airola — so picturesque, so Italian, so different from German Goeschenen which we had left only a few hours before — we saw a puff of smoke emerge a thousand feet below us from what looked like a round rock. In a few moments the smoke was followed by what sounded like a peal of thun- der ; there was another puff of smoke, another peal of thunder, and presently our ears were deafened by the roar and rumble of those reverberating peals which crashed against the mile-high crags of that gorge and echoed back and forth, making the roar continuous, new shots being fired before the echoes of the old ones died away. That round- looking rock was the dome of a casement and the men in the fort were having artillery practice, greatly to our delight, for that cannonading, al- though mock, seemed as fierce as the real thing and was a fine climax to our glorious ride over the Alps. Beyond Airola the road stretched down the val- ley like a white band between two green walls, for the sides of the mountain were covered with grass and they gradually retreated from us until after a while, instead of our being in a narrow gorge, we 260 Seeing Europe by Automobile found ourselves in a broad and beautiful valley through which we motored to Bellinzona and thence along the northern shore of Lake Maggiore to Locarno. We were bound for Domo d'Osola; thence we intended starting early in the morning across the Simplon. As the hour was late, instead of taking the main route via Pallanza, we made a cut-off which nearly proved our undoing; for while that cut-off was a success in the matter of scenery, as a road for automobiles it was a failure — it was not meant for them. Ours was probably the first motor that ever disturbed the solemn stillness of that wild canyon. Such a succession of twists and turns, of curves and curls, we had never seen before ; Beamer calls it to this day the ' ' Curly Pass. ' ' It was so narrow that when we met an ox cart we were delayed an hour; there was no room to pass and we had to bach for a quarter of a mile. On a road like the letter S, with a mountain rising sheer up in the air on your right and a canyon half a mile deep on your left, even to go forward is no easy mat- ter. To motor backward over such a road is posi- tively dangerous. I made Beamer wait on the roadside, so there might be some one to explain matters if the Get-There failed to turn quickly enough and plunged into the gorge ; then I backed the automobile around curves and up and down Over the Alps 261 hill until a spot was reached wide enough to let the ox cart pass. This maneuver was both delicate and dangerous and took a long time to execute; manifestly, if many ox carts were encountered, this was going to be the longest short-cut ever heard of. But it was too late to take the main road ; where we then were it was impossible to turn around, nor did we come to a place wide enough to make a turn for some miles. Fortunately, no more ox carts were met, but after a while a new difficulty occurred — when we crossed a bridge over a narrow but profound gorge, a soldier halted us. It was the Italian fron- tier, and alas! the customs officer at the end of that bridge had never seen a triptyque and refused to let us pass. The duty on the Get-There was some six hundred lire (about one hundred and twenty dollars), and we did not have so much Ital- ian money. What, then, were we to do? There was not room enough to turn around and go back into Switzerland : it was either go forward or stay where we were. The customs officer was puzzled ; he could not permit an automobile to remain in that narrow mountain road, blocking it up, yet he did not like to let us enter Italy without paying the tariff. At length, he sent a soldier for a man who could speak English; the man, a contractor who had lived in Australia, was engaged hard-by 262 Seeing Europe by Automobile in building a stone house for the customs officers. He spoke good English, and greeted us enthusi- astically. Although he know nothing of triptyques, after examining ours he assured the officer that it was all right — that he had seen hundreds of them, and that we were entitled to pass. "I know Englishman," he said to us in our own tongue. "Englishman never tell lie, so I stand by him and I tell lie for him. I tell because you are in one bad fix." Even with this man ready to lie for us the cus- toms officer was not convinced ; finally, however, he consented to send a soldier with us to the next town : if we were all right we could then proceed ; if we were all wrong the authorities in that town would deal with us as our crime deserved. So pres- ently a soldier in natty uniform, a plume in his hat and a rifle in his hand, mounted the Get- There 's running-board, and once more we started up that curly road along a sort of continuous let- ter S, with rugged crags towering above us on one hand and on the other hand a profound gorge with a cataract of water leaping and tumbling in its depths far below. After seven miles, just as night was falling, we came to a collection of a dozen or two houses built on the edge of the canyon and stopped in front of a stone house indicated by the soldier. It was a Over the Alps 263 Dogana (customs house), and after referring to a book of instructions, the official in charged viseed our triptyque and permitted us to depart. There was no hotel in that hamlet, but seven kilometers distant was a little town called Ste. Maria. We stopped there till morning, not deeming it prudent to travel in the dark over a road so tortuous and narrow. It was a splendid route for a pedestrian, but no matter how often the future may favor us with automobile trips in Europe, one road we cer- tainly shall never motor over again is that cut-off between Locarno and Domo d'Ossola. Leaving Ste. Maria early next morning we reached Domo d'Ossola in half an hour. We stopped to replenish our supply of gasoline (at a cost of fifty cents a gallon), and then started across the Simplon on the same road over which I tramped twenty-five years ago. Since that time a great hole has been made in the mountain — the Simplon tunnel, completed in 1905 — but otherwise everything was precisely as it was a quarter of a century before; even a little inn, where on my Tramp I spent a night, was there unchanged, ex- cept that it had a different proprietor. As the Get-There halted in front of that inn the sight of it brought back memories of an incident that oc- curred there twenty-five years ago — an incident re- lated in my Tramp Trip. Garbed in tramp attire, 264? Seeing Europe by Automobile a workman's blouse and hobnailed shoes, I was standing in front of that inn when the stage drove up from Brieg. "The only passengers were an Englishman and his daugh- ter. The Englishman remained sitting, but the young lady got out and entered the hotel to get a cup of coffee. She was the first English-speaking girl I had seen for some time; more- over, she was very pretty, and when on her return she expe- rienced a slight difficulty in climbing up the stage steps I sprang forward and assisted her. I forgot that I was a 'tramp,' a workingman — not a gentleman. " 'Thank you, my good man,' she said, in tolerable Italian, handing me a copper coin. Then to her father, in English: 'I suppose one must give money if one is only looked at by these poor Italians.' "There was a genuine lout of a peasant lounging at the door, who, of course, did not understand a word of English. Nevertheless, I addressd him in my mother tongue, at the same time tossing him two coppers: " 'The signorina wishes you to drink her health, and you may also drink mine.' "The face of that young girl was a study. It turned pale, then red. I bowed, and walked off, leaving both father and daughter in a curious state of perplexity." As we sat there in front of the same inn reading that paragraph from my "Tramp Trip" (page 104), the stage from Brieg drove up and again did a man and woman descend and enter the inn to get a cup of coffee. And they were English ! What a coincidence if they should be the couple of twenty- five years ago ! But, of course, they were not ; out- side the pages of fiction people do not meet again Over the Alps 265 in that romantic way. In actual life it is as the poet says: "Like as a plank of driftwood, Tossed on the watery main, Another plank encounters, Meets, touches, parts again. So, tossed and drifting ever, On Life's unresting sea, Men meet and greet and sever, Parting eternally!" Beyond Domo d'Ossola the Get-There for ten miles sped up a narrow but beautiful valley, green with vineyards and fig trees; then near a town called Iselle the Italian frontier was crossed, and we were back again in Switzerland. A little farther on, at Gondo, a village in the bottom of a gloomy gorge, a Swiss customs official viseed our triptyque and charged us five francs for a permit to cross the Simplon. On the permit was stamped the hour and minute of our departure from Gondo, and we were told to occupy at least four and a half hours in crossing the pass. We might take as much more time as we wished, but if we arrived at Brieg before four o'clock (it was half -past eleven a.m. when we left Gondo) we would be subject to a heavy fine. We obeyed this injunction — not from fear of the fine, but because, as in the case of the St. Gothard, the scenery was altogether too mag- nificent to permit a sane man to hurry. The Italian approach to the Simplon is through 266 Seeing Europe by Automobile one of the wildest gorges in the Alps; the stu- pendous walls of the canyon actually overhang the road, and at one point almost span the brawling stream which rushes through the depths of the defile. From a little distance you wonder how it is possible to get around or over that huge granite wall which reaches across the canyon. But on approaching you perceive that a tunnel has been pierced through that mass of rock ; you enter that tunnel and seven hundred and fifty feet farther on you emerge into the bottom of the gorge, whose precipitous walls rise on all sides to a height of several thousand feet. Half-way up the mountain we entered a cloud which remained with us until we had scaled the summit and began the descent of the northern side of the Simplon ; then we passed out of the cloud as one passes out of a room, and in an instant, where a moment before we had been unable to see a dozen yards, we now beheld a magnificent panorama — the great amphitheater of the Alps around and behind and above us, while below and in front of us stretched out for a hundred miles the beautiful valley of the Khone. The transition from seeing nothing at all except a thick mist, to seeing all of a sudden one of the finest views in the world, was startling; it was as if nature, coy at first and heav- ily veiled, had suddenly grown bold and with a Over the Alps 267 single motion exposed her unrivaled beauties to our gaze ! It was only forty-nine and seven-tenths miles from Ste. Maria to Brieg; we had started very early in the morning — and yet it was after four o'clock before the Get-There halted in front of the Brieg post to surrender our Simplon permit — so often and so long had we tarried to enjoy the grandeur of the mountains. Thirty-two miles from Brieg down the Eli one valley on the peak of an isolated hill we saw Sion, an ancient town with several massive old castles ; we stopped in that hill town over night and next morning drove to Martigny, intending to go thence over the Tete Noire to Chamonix, but on reaching Martigny we found that automobiles were not al- lowed to cross the Tete Noire on their own power. A man offered to tow us over for forty francs, but one look at his horses showed that they were not strong enough to pull an automobile up so steep a mountain — a fact which the man frankly icknowledged. "What good, then, would your horses do us?" we asked. "Why, it's like this," answered the man; "when we get to the steep places you can turn on your power. The police won't complain as long as horses are nominally towing you." We found this was a common practice, but we 208 Seeing Europe by Automobile did not submit to such silly graft; while it was longer to go via Geneva, that route lay along Lake Leman's beautiful southern shore, so we refused to pay forty francs to be towed (nominally) over the Tete Noire. A few minutes after leaving Mar- tigny the Get-There passed through St. Maurice and from that town all the way to Geneva, a dis- tance of fifty-five miles, our route lay close by the lake. Just before entering Evian, the lake town where Madame de Warrens threw herself at King Victor Amadee's feet and was by him sent to Chambery, there later to meet Eousseau, we lunched under a tree on the edge of a bluff over- hanging the water. On the opposite side of the lake lay Lausanne ; with our fieldglasses we could see the Hotel Royal, which we had left the Sunday before on this trip through Switzerland. In Geneva, while we waited for the Get-There 's brakes to be relined, the Hotel de la Poste gave us excellent accommodations at reasonable prices. Our room, comfortable and clean, cost a dollar and twenty cents ; a good dinner with wine was served for seventy cents. The road from Geneva to Chamonix was so full of ruts and bumps that we did not make the entire run to Chamonix in one day ; we went only as far as Salanches the afternoon we left Geneva, and there spent the night in an old inn where Byron stopped on August 29th, 1816, when he and his Over the Alps 269 friend Hobhouse were traveling in a carriage over the road which the Get-There was now traversing. A few weeks before Byron's stay at that inn, Shelley was there; under Shelley's autograph in the hotel register some one wrote in Greek: "Atheist and Philosopher !" Byron, who understood Greek perfectly, indig- nant at what he deemed an affront to his brother poet, erased with his penknife the offensive words, declaring that it was scandalous to attach epithets to a man's name on a hotel register. On leaving Salanches next morning twenty miles of motoring up a valley that grew narrower and narrower, until finally it became a mere defile, brought us to Chamonix and we paid sixteen francs for two tickets up the mountain railway to the Montavert. It was the first time we had been in a railway train since landing at Havre. From the Montavert a guide conducted us across the Mer de Glace and by the Mauvais Pas to Le Chapeau, whence we returned to Chamonix on foot. We spent two days in exploring Chamonix's nearer beauties, then we returned to Geneva and motored to Les Charmettes ; that trip has been de- scribed in a previous chapter. On finishing our day with Rousseau and Madame de Warrens we returned to Chambery and next morning on the road to Les Eschelles we saw at the entrance of a tunnel a sign warning automo- 270 Seeing Europe by Automobile bilists to light their lamps. It was broad daylight and the tunnel was perfectly straight; we could see clear through it — evidently a case of French over-caution. So we did not light our lamps. But presently, when we had gone in a little way, we wished we had heeded that sign's admonition. We saw a cart as it entered the tunnel's farther end, we heard it approaching, but after it was fairly in the tunnel we could see it no longer. It was com- jDletely swallowed up in inky darkness. Beamer sounded the siren, producing in that long cavern the most unearthly noise, to give warning of our position, while I hurriedly climbed down from my seat and lighted the Get-There 's lamps. A few miles beyond Les Eschelles we passed Saint Laurent and began a two-thousand-foot climb up a road hewn out of the face of a narrow canyon; this road led to the now deserted monas- tery of the Grande Chartreuse. Every bit of the climb was up an unusually steep grade, but the last hundred yards of ascent were so rapid, there was a sign warning motorists to leave their cars below. The Get-There had always proved so worthy of its name, we paid no attention to that sign; we kept right on. And then two minutes later our motor "went dead," and we would have rolled backward down the mountain had not the new brakes worked so well. Had our trusty automobile failed us at last? Over the Alps 271 Had it found a road too steep for it to climb % Was this, in truth, its Waterloo! We were loth to be- lieve it; and it gave us a pleasure which only a motorist who loves his car can understand to learn that there was nothing at all the matter with tho motor. Owing to the excessively steep grade our machine was tilting backward, like a horse standing on its hind legs, and the gasoline had ceased to flow forward to the carburettor ; the mo- ment our emergency tank of gasoline was emptied into the Get-There 's tank the trouble ended. A single turn of the crank started the motor, and in another moment the gallant Get-There had scaled that difficult crest and landed us at the very threshold of the monastery door. It was a gloomy place into which that door opened, empty now, but until recently a place that was, and for eight hundred years had been, the living tomb of generation after generation of pious men. Not satisfied with the isolation of this monastery at the head of a remote and uninhabited gorge, the Carthusian monks sought individual isolation. The interior of their great building is honeycombed with so-called cells, each con- sisting of a vestibule, two small rooms and a patch of garden ten yards square. Here the monks, each locked up in his cell alone, prayed and worked and tortured themselves hoping, as Byron said, to merit heaven by making earth a hell! Food and 272 Seeing Europe by Automobile water were pushed into the ceils through little trap-doors, by lay-brothers whose shoes had felt soles so as to make no noise as they passed through the corridors — for the stillness as well as the soli- tude of the monks inside the cells had to be pre- served. As we stood inside one of those apartments and observed its cramped, cheerless surroundings, its small wooden bed, the one poor little stool and the stone floor, worn by the bare feet of generations of self-immured prisoners, the knowledge that during nearly a thousand years men had volun- tarily chosen to live their lives in these gloomy cells made us reflect upon what a wonderful thing is the human brain, and upon the curious phan- tasies which sometimes seize and obsess it. St. Bruno, the founder of the Carthusian order, first went to Molesmes, near Langres, but as that was not lonesome enough for him, in the year 1084 he came to St. Laurent du Pont and, looking about for a desert, he finally discovered this spot. In those days the gorge was well-nigh impassable. There was no road up it, nor was a road built until the sixteenth century ; nevertheless, men were not lacking to scramble up that gorge and bury them- selves in solitary cells. So finally St. Bruno thought the place no longer lonely enough, and he retired to a remote corner of Calabria, in south Over the Alps 273 Italy, where lie founded a second monastery. He died there in 1101. The celebrated liqueur which has made the name " Grande Chartreuse' ' known all over the world was — and still is — distilled in a building in the lower part of the gorge a mile below the monas- tery. Shakespeare says there is nothing in a name, but the name " Grande Chartreuse' ' was worth three million francs to the Carthusian monks; that sum, after their expulsion from France in April, 1903, was paid to them by a syn- dicate for the trade-mark and for the secret of distilling their liqueur. The syndicate makes an- nually seven hundred thousand bottles of Grande Chartreuse, which it sells for one million and fifty thousand dollars. A custodian conducted us through the distillery and showed us the almost fifty-seven varieties of herbs and plants from which the liqueur is distilled. We accepted the sample bottles of yellow and green Chartreuse which the custodian offered us as souvenirs to take back to America, but we did not venture to sample the drink on the premises. For Chartreuse, while indeed a delicious liqueur, is pungent and heady and not the best thing to drink just before one drives an automobile down a precipitous mountain road. The visit up the gorge to the Grande Chartreuse occupied several hours. It was two o'clock in the 274 Seeing Europe by Automobile afternoon before we came down from the moun- tain and started for Grenoble; arrived there, we stopped only long enough to buy two studded Michelin tires for our rear wheels, then we pushed on as far as Mono stir de Clermont, where we passed the first really uncomfortable night of our trip. The village was mean and dirty looking, and the inn was in keeping with its surroundings ; but we had no choice. South of Monestir there was not a single good town for a hundred miles. The run from Grenoble to Nice was one of the surprises of our trip. The distance is two hun- dred and fifteen miles, and for a good part of the way the country is as wild and desolate as the mesas of Arizona. On that run we had for the first time in Europe the novel experience of riding for hours at a time without passing through a town, or even seeing a farmhouse; only once or twice did we meet other travelers. For many miles the country was bleak and barren — no trees on the mountain slopes, no vines, no vegetation in the valleys; yet amid all this desolation the road was as smooth and well kept as the drives in Central Park. One hundred and twenty miles from Grenoble the Get-There rolled into Digne and stopped at a garage for gasoline, but as the price demanded was fifty centimes per liter (about fifty cents a gallon) we concluded we would look farther before g w o « H H H 6 Over the Alps 275 buying. We wanted to drive through the quaint old town, anyway; so to the garage-keeper's dis- gust we threw in the clutch and started off. As we started a man jumped on the Get-There 's run- ning board : "I heard, Monsieur,' ' he said. "It is men like that who give France the name of being extortion^ ate. If Monsieur will permit I will show where essence is sold at a reasonable figure.' ' Of course, Monsieur permitted, and a few min> utes later the Get-There halted in front of a gro- cery and supply store — the Epicerie Marseilles — . where we bought fifty liters of gasoline for fifteen and a half francs. At the garage the same quan- tity would have cost twenty-five francs, so that our saving in this one instance was a dollar and ninety cents. Europe can not be seen on fifty cents a day in an automobile, but the cost of motoring may be materially reduced by letting cha?afYeurs alone and by buying tires and other supplies at ordinary stores instead of at garages. On March 4th, 1815, Napoleon, who had left Elba five days before, arrived in Digne. The splendid road to Grenoble over which we had just traveled was not then in existence, so on leaving Digne Na- poleon turned a little to the east, went thirty miles to Gap and made his way thence by way of Bour- goin to Grenoble. It was just before reaching Grenoble over the road we traversed as far as 276 Seeing Europe by Automobile Monestir that, alone, with only a riding whip in his hand, Napoleon approached the serried ranks of the army sent to capture him. The royalist officers gave the order: "Fire!" But the officers' voices were the only sounds that broke the solemn stillness. The soldiers stood silent as death. Napoleon, disappointed — he had expected a cheer — stepped closer still and opened that gray overcoat so well known to every soldier in France. Baring his breast, he said: * i What, my children, do you not know me 1 It is your emperor. If there be one among you who would kill him, he can do it. Here lam!" Among those thousands, had there been only one to discharge his musket the end would have come then instead of a hundred days later at Waterloo, and the Bourbon king would have heaped honors and riches upon the man who fired the shot. But not a soldier in the whole army was willing to do it. When they saw that cocked hat, when they looked on that old gray coat, when they heard that voice which had called them to victory upon a hun- dred battlefields, they rushed forward, they fell on their knees, they nearly smothered Napoleon with embraces and kisses! A year or two later when Metternich was deprecating Napoleon's genius in a circle at Vienna, where, all being his enemies, Metternich supposed they would natural- ly speak ill of him, he appealed to John William Over the Alps 277 Ward if Bonaparte's genius had not been greatly overrated. "Sir," replied Ward, "Napoleon has rendered past glory doubtful and future fame impossible !" Grandiloquent praise, but who can say it was undeserved by a man who, merely by baring his breast and making a twenty-word speech, could capture an army and march without further oppo- sition to the throne of a great nation? Leaving Digne and its associations with Napo- leon during the week after his return from Elba, we entered a wild, rugged canyon. The road, how- ever, continued as smooth and as firm as if it were in a city park. Fifty miles from Digne we emerged from that wild canyon through the gap at its south end and halted outside the gates of Entrevaux, a curious old town on the Eiver Var; a narrow branch of the river half encircles the town: the sole entrance is through a gate and across a stone bridge which spans this arm of the Var. Neither the gate nor the bridge is wide enough for an auto- mobile, so we explored on foot Entrevaux's laby- rinth of narrow streets, then we recrossed the bridge and resumed the journey to Nice ; as it was downhill all the way we made excellent time and just at dusk, after a run of two hundred and fifteen miles, the longest distance covered in any one day of the entire trip, the Get-There rolled into the beautiful city of Nice. 278 Seeing Europe by Automobile This ride through that wild canyon between Digne and Nice we reckon as one of the most in- teresting in France; second only to it were our excursions out of Nice to Sospello, to Mentone over the upper Corniche, and to Monte Carlo over the road along the Mediterranean. The prodigious mountains which rise close to France's southern coast are pierced by innumerable ravines which afford opportunities for glorious outings. Turn- ing at random into one of these ravines, the Get- There rolled up a steep zigzag road until our barometer indicated an elevation of two thousand one hundred feet. The village, which we had seen through fleldglasses from the valley and which had prompted us to turn into this picturesque canyon was still far above us, but it was not pos- sible to go farther in an automobile, so we left the Get-There on the roadside with brakes tightly set and wheels blocked by rocks. Then we scrambled up on foot to the top and, arrived at the summit, we were no little surprised to find that not a single human being was in the town. Why people should have built the town on such a difficult peak was a mystery, but having committed that folly we did not understand why the place should be abandoned just as aeroplanes and airships were being per- fected ; with an aeroplane one might not mind liv- ing in a house on top of a crag three thousand feet above the sea. 4 X Over the Alps 279 We rambled about the deserted streets and into the empty houses, took some pictures, enjoyed the grand panorama spread thousands of feet below us — Nice and Monte Carlo with their lovely villas and gardens and the blue waters of the Mediter- ranean dotted with the white sails of yachts and fisher-boats; then we scrambled down the rocks to where the Get-There was waiting, and motored back to Nice, where we learned that the place we had visited was called Castillon, that its official height above the sea was two thousand five hun- dred and thirty feet and that its inhabitants had moved away in a body in the year 1887. CHAPTER XV An excursion to the smallest republic in the world.— On mule- back through Andorra. — One hundred miles in a "Torture" wagon. — We step back into the time of Charlemagne. IN the southwest corner of Europe is a very *- curious and very ancient little republic that is seldom visited by travelers, not because it is un- worthy of a visit, but because it is unknown and off the beaten track, and troublesome to get at. The name of this place is Andorra ; with the pos- sible exception of San Marino, it is the world's oldest as well as smallest republic. We had planned to visit this curious place, but our time was now too limited to reach it by motor, so we stored our faithful Get-There in a garage at Nice, took a train to Toulouse, slept there over night and next morning took another railroad ride, this time to Ax, a French city seventy-seven miles from Tou- louse and two thousand feet higher up among the foothills of the Pyrenees. Ax was a fashionable bathing resort as long ago as when Julius Caesar was dividing "All Gaul into three parts" — to the great discomfort of countless generations of schoolboys who have struggled with 280 The Smallest Republic 281 Caesar's Commentaries ever since. Ax is still a watering resort, though not now a place of fashion as in the time of the Romans. From Ax a military road runs to the Andorran frontier, and over this road we traveled in a cart drawn by a donkey; it was a sad change from the Get-There, but not many hours later, when astride a couple of bony mules toiling up a tremendously steep and rocky path, we looked back upon that cart and longed for it as though, in the matter of comfort, it were a veritable Pullman sleeper. Shortly after leaving Ax the valley of the Ariege River contracts into a gorge which, wooded at first, soon becomes bleak and bare, a vast solitude of huge crags and boulders ; in the valley it was warm, even hot, but by the time we reached the little ham- let of L'Hospitalet the altitude and the mountain winds made us glad to warm ourselves before a log fire in the dining-room of M. Soule, the town's one innkeeper, and, by the way, the last innkeeper we were destined to see until we passed into Spain; for Andorra, having few visitors, has little need of hotels. Such voyagers as penetrate into that iso- lated republic depend upon the hospitality of pri- vate citizens, a hospitality that is usually extended without question as long as the traveler is of de- cent appearance and respectable mien. At M. Soule 's house we met a citizen of the little republic, named Francois Pons, who had arrived 282 Seeing Europe by Automobile that day with his mule, Aguinaldo, and for the modest sum of six pesetas ($1.10) Senor Pons agreed to rope our luggage on Aguinaldo 's back and carry it as far as Andorra la Veille, the re- public's capital city. M. Soule supplied mules for Beamer and me and we started next morning at six o'clock on our trip through the republic. Passing through L'Hospitalet's one steep, crooked street into the Andorra trail, a rough, rocky path up the side of the Pyrenees, we stopped only once before reaching the summit of the pass nine thousand feet above the sea. That one stop was on a bridge over a ravine that marks the boundary line between Europe's greatest and smallest republic; never were such near neighbors so unlike as Andorra and France — both are repub- lics, but France is big and great and powerful, while Andorra is weak and small and insignificant, except as to age. In that one particular it over- shadows its big neighbor by more than a thousand years, for Andorra has been a republic since Charlemagne gave it a charter in the year 801, while the French republic was born only a few decades ago. As our mules picked a painful way up that rocky trail, ever and anon stumbling over big boulders and almost throwing us over their heads, we began to understand why Andorra is not overrun by tour- ists. As far as the eye could reach the country A STREET IN ANCIENT AX : NOTE THE STAIRS The Smallest Republic 283 was one vast jumble of rugged rocks and towering mountains. Nowhere was there any sign of hu- man life, but Senor Pons assured us that by and by we would see fine towns — Canillo, Escaldas, En- camp — all with stone houses and shops and churches a thousand years old. Later on we did find some of these things, but not all of them ; Se- nor Pons' patriotism led him to exaggerate his little country's attractions. About noon we reached the summit of the Pass, nine thousand feet above sea-level, and from that lofty point we paused to survey the marvelous panorama below us ; looking back we saw the trail up which we had been so wearily climbing, and be- yond the trail L'Hospitalet's stone houses and the military road winding down the Ariege's valley to Ax. It was a wonderful view, but still more won- derful was the view to the west, the view of the iso- lated and historic valley of Andorra — a valley which may be likened to the bottom of a prodigious punch bowl. To get into that bowl one must climb over its side nine thousand feet high, then descend to the bottom of the bowl nearly a mile lower than its rim of stupendous mountains. In one side of this giant bowl, the side looking toward Spain, is a crack, a gorge that winds through the mountains from the republic's capital to Sao de Urgel in Spain. Through this profound gorge a few days later we made our way out of the republic to the 284 Seeing Europe by Automobile nearest Spanish railway, a hundred miles from the Andorran frontier. Shut off from the world by this giant wall, with no railroad, nor even wagon-road, approached only by a rocky trail, there is small cause for wonder that Andorra escapes the flood of travel which flows over the rest of Europe. Yet, in a way, the little republic is as interesting as Europe's show places, for it is a fossilized slice of the tenth cen- tury handed down intact, unchanged, for twentieth century inspection. Seemingly as unreal, as fan- tastic as Anthony Hope's imaginary kingdoms, it is yet a solid reality and has been so for a thousand years. We think of England's Magna Charta as a venerable document; it is old, but Andorra's Magna Charta is four hundred years older; it dates from 801, while it was not until June 5, 1215, that the Barons met King John at Runymede and laid the foundations of England's democratic monarchy. The parchment with Charlemagne's "mark" (the great Charles did not deign to write) is said to be preserved in the archives at Andorra la Veille, but travelers can not vouch for this since the archives are seldom, if ever, opened. The iron- bound chest containing state papers is fastened with six locks, the six keys of which are kept by six state counselors who are rarely all at the capital The Smallest Republic 285 at the same time, consequently one or more keys are missing and the chest can not be opened. A century ago the Spanish Government insisted on ascertaining just what were Andorra's rights and privileges, and demanded to know what was inside of the mysterious six-keyed box. The little republic had to yield to its big neighbor's demand ; the six counselors were summoned and the chest was opened for the first time in centuries. The Spanish commission which made the investigation reported that the charter of A. D. 1278 was in the iron-bound chest ; the Commission said nothing one way or the other as to the earlier parchment of A. D. 801, hence no one can say positively if the older parchment still exists. On one point, how- ere, all agree, viz., that charter or no charter, An- dorra's independence dates from the year 801, hav- ing been conferred in that year by Charlemagne in recognition of the hardy mountaineers whose valor rolled back the Moorish invasion and saved Europe from Mohammedanism. The lofty pass where we paused that September day marks the limit of the Moorish flood of twelve hundred years ago. Those wild crags, and still wilder men, of Andorra were too much even for the fierce Mohammedans. From this height the Moorish flood steadily ebbed until it left Spain forever, eight hundred years later, at Almeria and Granada. After a last look down into the gorge leading to 286 Seeing Europe by Automobile France we turned our faces westward and began the descent into Andorra. For some miles the trail zigzagged through a wilderness of boulders, then as we got deeper down into the bottom of the " Punch Bowl" we saw flocks of sheep tended by shepherds clad in skins ; and finally we reached the town of Soldeu — a collection of some sixty stone houses ranged on either side of a narrow lane paved with cobblestones. Half-way up this rocky lane, Senor Pons turned to the left, passed through an arched doorway and hailed an elderly man in the courtyard, feeding pigs and chickens. The man wore knee-breeches, flannel shirt and short jacket; on his head was a red Phrygian cap — a rough, uncouth fellow whom we took to be a hired man, but who proved to be Senor Z , the pro- prietor of the estate. On Wall Street our host of Soldeu would scarcely excite attention because of a scant hundred thousand pesetas — less than $20,000; but in Andorra, with its tenth century standards, its sublime ignorance of trusts, monopo- lies, franchises and frenzied finance, twenty thou- sand dollars is deemed an enormous sum, conse- quently Senor Z is reckoned by his country- men as a man of inordinate wealth. Senor Z 's home in Soldeu has a balcony overhanging a deep ravine ; we passed through the house onto this balcony and found there a dozen or more farmhands seated around a table eating The Smallest Republic 287 bread and cheese and drinking wine. They were dressed like their employer, knee-breeches, flannel shirts, jackets or blouse, red Phrygian caps; and like their employer, they greeted us with friendly cordiality. When we asked them to pose for a group photograph they smilingly complied; then they crowded about us to ask who we were and what we wanted in Andorra. "We come from the world's youngest and big- gest republic to see the world's oldest and smallest republic. We are Americans." This was not literally correct; Andorra is sev- eral centuries younger than the republic of San Marino. But those peasants overlooked that error in their amazement at seeing in their midst travel- ers from so remote a place as America. They stared at us as if we had said we came from the moon, and one of them asked where was America? Another asked if America was as big as Spain? When we said it was bigger, they did not believe us ; Andorrans do not travel ; Spain and France are the only countries they know. It is not conceivable to them that any country can be bigger or greater than their French and Spanish neighbors. The mules we had hired from M. Soule limped so badly that we left them at Soldeu and made the rest of the way on foot. An hour's tramp brought us to the town of Canillo and there we saw an an- cient church in which was an odd kind of stove 288 Seeing Europe by Automobile that served as the base, or foundation, of the pulpit as well as a heating apparatus for the congrega- tion. As some one observed, upon the degree of heat in the stove depends whether this novel idea is a luxury or a torture to the preacher. Beyond Canillo the trail entered a narrow defile, with precipices on either side that reached up into the clouds. In the bottom of the defile, close by the trail, was a leaping torrent of ice-cold water, crossed every now and then by stone bridges, with wonderful arches. Although very high and very frail, in reality those arches are strongly built and have been standing there for centuries. In this de- file it is dark and gloomy even at midday; at dusk, when we traversed it, the deafening roar of the waters, the frowning cliffs, the frail-looking old bridges made this narrow canyon look like a Dore illustration of Dante's Inferno. The distance through the defile to the town of Encamp was several miles, and before we emerged from the gloomy gorge the sun had set behind the towering mountains and the blackness of night was upon us, and Beamer wondered what would happen were Senor Pons to shove us into the torrent. "We would get wet," I answered, but the sar- casm was wasted on Beamer; she had read an article in Belgravia in which it was said that every- body in Andorra carried a stiletto and that brig- andage was the people's favorite pastime. Declar- The Smallest Republic 289 ing that she felt sure Senor Pons was a brigand, Beamer sat clown on a rock so as to let the muleteer get ahead of us. In the clear light of day our sturdy guide had seemed a decent enough sort of chap, but as the twilight deepened into dark shad- ows that red Phrygian cap with its long hanging tassels assumed a fantastic aspect. And after a while, when there was only the dim light of the moon and stars, imagination converted Senor Pons into a veritable monster of iniquity, and Beamer refused to budge for an hour. "I am tired, anyway," she said, "and by stop- ping here we can rest up a bit and at the same time let that man get so far ahead that he can't turn around and murder us." In the course of several trips to out-of-the-way places (Egypt, Syria, Bulgaria and Montenegro) I never was molested and never felt the need of arms ; it has seemed safer to me in the wild moun- tains of Albania than in certain quarters of Paris or New York. Naturally, therefore, I did not share Beamer 's fears about our muleteer. Being in a lonely gorge in a remote corner of southwestern Europe did not necessarily mean that we were in any danger from man. But I did think there was some danger of making a misstep and falling into that boiling torrent ; hence I was willing that my wife should rest and steady her nerves before re- suming the tramp. 290 Seeing Europe by Automobile After nearly an hour's stop in the bottom of that dark defile, the torrent of water boiling and bub- bling by us, we set forth again, feeling our way cautiously at every step. So slowly did we go, it was ten o'clock before we reached Encamp. In the outskirts of the town, coming toward us with a lantern, was Senor Pons. Alarmed at our absence, he had started back on the trail to look for us. "Ah, Monsieur and Madame !" he exclaimed, as we approached, "you lift a mountain from my bosom ! It is I, Francois Pons, who feared you had fallen in the waters !" This speech made Beamer sorry she had had any suspicions, and her regret was all the keener when presently it became apparent that but for this man, whom she suspected of being a brigand, we would have been obliged to sleep out of doors. For Encamp had no hotel and all the inhabitants were abed, excepting the Pons family. These good people, knowing we were coming, were waiting with a hot supper, relished none the less that it was eaten in a room over a stable. Leading the way with his lantern, Senor Pons of a sudden turned into a doorway that opened into an earth-floored room, surrounded by stalls in which stood mules and oxen. In a corner of this room was a ladder; we followed Senor Pons up this ladder into a room thirty feet long by twenty feet wide. At one end of the room was a balcony The Smallest Republic 291 overlooking the narrow street. At the room's other end was a huge chimney with a bench on either side. We sat on one of these benches warm- ing ourselves before the brushwood fire. The chimney was large enough to spit an ox and turn it over the fire. But we had no ox, nor any other kind of meat, for supper, only a kettle of soup, bread and beans — which, however, thanks to our long tramp and the mountain air, tasted to us bet- ter than any chef's dinner had ever tasted in New York or Paris. Senor Pons' wife was a comely, dark-eyed woman, Spanish in type and exceedingly amiable. Not one word did she know of any languge we un- derstood, nevertheless by signs and pantomime she managed to make our stay instructive as well as pleasant. Around the walls, hanging from hooks near the ceiling, were a lot of big bags filled with the family's clothing. In the Greek islands I once saw similar bags on the walls, but those Greek bags contained the daughter's trousseau, a collection of articles begun from the day the first daughter was born and continued until the day of her marriage. The Andorran bags were not trousseaux, they were merely hanging wardrobes. The room which Senora Pons gave us after we had finished our supper was the biggest surprise of all, for it was both clean and comfortable — two things one does not expect to find in a peasant's 292 Seeing Europe by Automobile home over a stable. Expecting to sleep on corn shucks, we foundla neat iron bedstead (brought on muleback from France) laid with snowy, hand- made linen, edged with lace, the pillow slips with hand-embroidered monograms which Senora Pons said had been in the family for generations. Our only fear in that clean, inviting little room was lest certain winged and crawling visitors might intrude upon us from the stable below; happily, this fear proved groundless, and next morning we set forth greatly refreshed by the night's sleep at Encamp. After miles of tramping through deep defiles, alongside that foaming torrent of water, across rickety old bridges, past magnificent waterfalls — scenery as grand as anything in Switzerland — a sudden turn in the trail brought us upon a ledge of rock that looked down upon a valley a thousand feet below. At the base of the cliff upon which we s