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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Car That Went Abroad, by Albert Bigelow
Paine, Illustrated by Walter Hale
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Car That Went Abroad
Motoring Through the Golden Age
Author: Albert Bigelow Paine
Release Date: January 25, 2011 [eBook #35068]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAR THAT WENT ABROAD***
E-text prepared by Annie McGuire from page images generously made
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See 35068-h.htm or 35068-h.zip:
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http://www.archive.org/details/carthatwentabroa00painuoft
THE CAR THAT WENT ABROAD
* * * * *
BOOKS BY
ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE
_For Grown-ups_
THE CAR THAT WENT ABROAD
THE LURE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
DWELLERS IN ARCADY
FROM VAN-DWELLER TO COMMUTER
MOMENTS WITH MARK TWAIN
MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS
MARK TWAIN: A BIOGRAPHY
PEANUT: THE STORY OF A BOY
SHORT LIFE OF MARK TWAIN
LIFE OF THOMAS NAST
THE TENT-DWELLERS
_For Young Readers_
THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN
HOLLOW TREE NIGHTS AND DAYS
THE HOLLOW TREE AND DEEP-WOODS BOOK
THE HOLLOW TREE SNOWED-IN BOOK
_Small books of several stories each, selected from the above Hollow
Tree books:_
HOW MR. DOG GOT EVEN
HOW MR. RABBIT LOST HIS TAIL
MR. RABBIT'S BIG DINNER
MAKING UP WITH MR. DOG
MR. 'POSSUM'S GREAT BALLOON TRIP
MR RABBIT'S WEDDING
MR. CROW AND THE WHITEWASH
MR. TURTLE'S FLYING ADVENTURE
WHEN JACK RABBIT WAS A LITTLE BOY
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
ESTABLISHED 1817
* * * * *
[Illustration: "THE NORMANDY ROAD TO CHERBOURG IS AS WONDERFUL AS ANY IN
FRANCE"--See p. 226]
THE CAR THAT WENT ABROAD
Motoring Through the Golden Age
by
ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE
Author of
"Dwellers in Arcady," "The Ship Dwellers," etc.
Illustrated from drawings by Walter Hale
[Illustration]
Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York and London
Copyright, 1921, by Harper & Brothers
CONTENTS
Part I
THE CAR THAT WENT ABROAD
CHAPTER PAGE
I. DON'T HURRY THROUGH MARSEILLES 3
II. MOTORING BY TRAM 9
III. ACROSS THE CRAU 19
IV. MISTRAL 27
V. THE ROME OF FRANCE 30
VI. THE WAY THROUGH EDEN 40
VII. TO TARASCON AND BEAUCAIRE 43
VIII. GLIMPSES OF THE PAST 48
IX. IN THE CITADEL OF FAITH 52
X. AN OLD TRADITION AND A NEW EXPERIENCE 58
XI. WAYSIDE ADVENTURES 65
XII. THE LOST NAPOLEON 72
XIII. THE HOUSE OF HEADS 79
XIV. INTO THE HILLS 85
XV. UP THE ISERE 89
XVI. INTO THE HAUTE-SAVOIE 94
XVII. SOME SWISS IMPRESSIONS 101
XVIII. THE LITTLE TOWN OF VEVEY 113
XIX. MASHING A MUD GUARD 123
XX. JUST FRENCH--THAT'S ALL 127
XXI. WE LUGE 131
Part II
MOTORING THROUGH THE GOLDEN AGE
I. THE NEW PLAN 143
II. THE NEW START 146
III. INTO THE JURAS 151
IV. A POEM IN ARCHITECTURE 160
V. VIENNE IN THE RAIN 164
VI. THE CHATEAU I DID NOT RENT 168
VII. AN HOUR AT ORANGE 172
VIII. THE ROAD TO PONT DU GARD 178
IX. THE LUXURY OF NIMES 182
X. THROUGH THE CEVENNES 186
XI. INTO THE AUVERGNE 193
XII. LE PUY 196
XIII. THE CENTER OF FRANCE 200
XIV. BETWEEN BILLY AND BESSEY 205
XV. THE HAUTE-LOIRE 209
XVI. NEARING PARIS 213
XVII. SUMMING UP THE COST 219
XVIII. THE ROAD TO CHERBOURG 223
XIX. BAYEUX, CAEN, AND ROUEN 228
XX. WE COME TO GRIEF 234
XXI. THE DAMAGE REPAIRED--BEAUVAIS AND COMPIEGNE 238
XXII. FROM PARIS TO CHARTRES AND CHATEAUDUN 244
XXIII. WE REACH TOURS 250
XXIV. CHINON, WHERE JOAN MET THE KING, AND AZAY 255
XXV. TOURS 260
XXVI. CHENONCEAUX AND AMBOISE 264
XXVII. CHAMBORD AND CLERY 271
XXVIII. ORLEANS 278
XXIX. FONTAINEBLEAU 283
XXX. RHEIMS 288
XXXI. ALONG THE MARNE 295
XXXII. DOMREMY 299
XXXIII. STRASSBURG AND THE BLACK FOREST 306
XXXIV. A LAND WHERE STORKS LIVE 313
XXXV. BACK TO VEVEY 316
XXXVI. THE GREAT UPHEAVAL 320
XXXVII. THE LONG TRAIL ENDS 336
ILLUSTRATIONS
"THE NORMANDY ROAD TO CHERBOURG IS AS WONDERFUL AS ANY IN
FRANCE" _Frontispiece_
"WHERE ROADS BRANCH OR CROSS THERE ARE SIGNBOARDS....
YOU CAN'T ASK A MAN 'QUEL EST LE CHEMIN' FOR ANYWHERE WHEN
YOU ARE IN FRONT OF A SIGNBOARD WHICH IS SHOUTING THE
INFORMATION" _Facing p._ 46
MARK TWAIN'S "LOST NAPOLEON"--"THE COLOSSAL SLEEPING FIGURE
IN ITS SUPREME REPOSE" 80
MARCHE VEVEY--"IN EACH TOWN THERE IS AN OPEN SQUARE, WHICH
TWICE A WEEK IS PICTURESQUELY CROWDED" 108
"YOU CAN SEE SON LOUP FROM THE HOTEL STEPS IN VEVEY, BUT IT
TAKES HOURS TO GET TO IT" 134
DESCENDING THE JURAS 162
THE TOMB OF MARGARET OF AUSTRIA, CHURCH OF BROU 162
"THROUGH HILLSIDE VILLAGES WHERE NEVER A STONE HAD BEEN
MOVED, I THINK, IN CENTURIES" 214
BIRTHPLACE OF JOAN OF ARC 308
STRASSBURG, SHOWING THE CATHEDRAL 308
PREFACE
FELLOW-WANDERER:
The curtain that so long darkened many of the world's happy
places is lifted at last. Quaint villages, old cities,
rolling hills, and velvet valleys once more beckon to the
traveler.
The chapters that follow tell the story of a small family
who went gypsying through that golden age before the war
when the tree-lined highways of France, the cherry-blossom
roads of the Black Forest, and the high trails of
Switzerland offered welcome to the motor nomad.
The impressions set down, while the colors were fresh and
warm with life, are offered now to those who will give a
thought to that time and perhaps go happily wandering
through the new age whose dawn is here.
A. B. P.
_June, 1921._
Part I
THE CAR THAT WENT ABROAD
Chapter I
DON'T HURRY THROUGH MARSEILLES
Originally I began this story with a number of instructive chapters on
shipping an automobile, and I followed with certain others full of
pertinent comment on ocean travel in a day when all the seas were as a
great pleasure pond. They were very good chapters, and I hated to part
with them, but my publisher had quite positive views on the matter. He
said those chapters were about as valuable now as June leaves are in
November, so I swept them aside in the same sad way that one disposes of
the autumn drift and said I would start with Marseilles, where, after
fourteen days of quiet sailing, we landed with our car one late August
afternoon.
Most travelers pass through Marseilles hastily--too hastily, it may be,
for their profit. It has taken some thousands of years to build the
"Pearl of the Mediterranean," and to walk up and down the rue Cannebiere
and drink coffee and fancy-colored liquids at little tables on the
sidewalk, interesting and delightful as that may be, is not to become
acquainted with the "pearl"--not in any large sense.
We had a very good and practical reason for not hurrying through
Marseilles. It would require a week or more to get our car through the
customs and obtain the necessary licenses and memberships for inland
travel. Meantime we would do some sight-seeing. We would begin
immediately.
Besides facing the Old Port (the ancient harbor) our hotel looked on the
end of the Cannebiere, which starts at the Quai and extends, as the
phrase goes, "as far as India," meaning that the nations of the East as
well as those of the West mingle there. We understood the saying as soon
as we got into the kaleidoscope. We were rather sober-hued bits
ourselves, but there were plenty of the other sort. It was the end of
August, and Marseilles is a semi-tropic port. There were plenty of white
costumes, of both men and women, and sprinkled among them the red fezzes
and embroidered coats and sashes of Algiers, Morocco, and the Farther
East. And there were ladies in filmy things, with bright hats and
parasols; and soldiers in uniforms of red and blue, while the wide
pavements of that dazzling street were literally covered with little
tables, almost to the edges. And all those gay people who were not
walking up and down, chatting and laughing, were seated at the little
tables with red and green and yellow drinks before them and pitchers of
ice or tiny cups of coffee, and all the seated people were laughing and
chattering, too, or reading papers and smoking, and nobody seemed to
have a sorrow or a care in the world. It was really an inspiring sight,
after the long, quiet days on the ship, and we loitered to enjoy it. It
was very busy around us. Tramcars jangled, motors honked, truckmen and
cabmen cracked their whips incessantly. Newswomen, their aprons full of
long pockets stuffed with papers, offered us journals in phrases that I
did not recognize as being in my French phonograph; cabmen hailed us in
more or less English and wanted to drive us somewhere; flower sellers'
booths lined both sides of a short street, and pretty girls held up
nosegays for us to see. Now and then a beggar put out a hand.
The pretty drinks and certain ices we saw made us covetous for them, but
we had not yet the courage to mingle with those gay people and try our
new machine-made French right there before everybody. So we slipped into
a dainty place--a _patisserie boulangerie_--and ordered coffee and
chocolate ice cream, and after long explanations on both sides got iced
coffee and hot chocolate, which was doing rather well, we thought, for
the first time, and, anyhow, it was quite delicious and served by a
pretty girl whose French was so limpid that one could make himself
believe he understood it, because it was pure music, which is not a
matter of arbitrary syllables at all.
We came out and blended with the panaroma once more. It was all so
entirely French, I said; no suggestion of America anywhere. But
Narcissa, aged fifteen, just then pointed to a flaming handbill over the
entrance of a cinematograph show. The poster was foreign, too, in its
phrasing, but the title, "_L'aventures d'Arizona Bill_" certainly had a
flavor of home. The Joy, who was ten, was for going in and putting
other things by, but we overruled her. Other signs attracted us--the
window cards and announcements were easy lessons in French and always
interesting.
By and by bouquets of lights breaking out along the streets reminded us
that it was evening and that we were hungry. There were plenty of
hotels, including our own, but the dining rooms looked big and warm and
expensive and we were dusty and economical and already warm enough. We
would stop at some open-air place, we said, and have something dainty
and modest and not heating to the blood. We thought it would be easy to
find such a place, for there were perfect seas of sidewalk tables,
thronged with people, who at first glance seemed to be dining. But we
discovered that they were only drinking, as before, and perhaps nibbling
at little cakes or rolls. When we made timid and rudimentary inquiries
of the busy waiters, they pointed toward the hotels or explained things
in words so glued together we could not sort them out. How different it
all was from New York, we said. Narcissa openly sighed to be back on
"old rue de Broadway," where there were restaurants big and little every
twenty steps.
We wandered into side streets and by and by found an open place with a
tiny green inclosure, where a few people certainly seemed to be eating.
We were not entirely satisfied with the look of the patrons, but they
were orderly, and some of them of good appearance. The little tables had
neat white cloths on them, and the glassware shone brightly in the
electric glow. So we took a corner position and studied the rather
elaborate and obscure bill of fare. It was written, and the few things
we could decipher did not seem cheap. We had heard about food being
reasonable in France, but single portions of fish or cutlets at ".45"
and broiled chicken at "1.20" could hardly be called cheap in this
retired and unpretentious corner. One might as well be in a better
place--in New York. We wondered how these unfashionable people about us
could look so contented and afford to order such liberal supplies. Then
suddenly a great light came. The price amounts were not in dollars and
cents, but in francs and centimes. The decimals were the same, only you
divided by five to get American values. There is ever so much
difference.[1]
The bill of fare suddenly took on a halo. It became almost unbelievable.
We were tempted to go--it was too cheap to be decent. But we were weary
and hungry, and we stayed. Later we were glad. We had those things which
the French make so well, no matter how humble the place--"_pot au feu,
bouillabaisse_" (the fish soup which is the pride of Marseilles--our
first introduction to it), lamb chops, a crisp salad, Gruyere cheese,
with a pint of red wine; and we paid--I try to blush when I tell it--a
total for our four of less than five francs--that is to say, something
under a dollar, including the tip, which was certainly large enough, if
one could judge from the lavish acknowledgment of the busy person who
served us.
We lingered while I smoked, observing some curious things. The place
filled up with a democratic crowd, including, as it did, what were
evidently well-to-do tradesmen and their families, clerks with their
young wives or sweethearts, single derelicts of both sexes, soldiers,
even workmen in blouses. Many of them seemed to be regular customers,
for they greeted the waiters and chatted with them during the serving.
Then we discovered a peculiar proof that these were in fact steady
patrons. In the inner restaurant were rows of hooks along the walls, and
at the corners some racks with other hooks. Upon these were hanging, not
hats or garments, but dozens of knotted white cloths which we discovered
presently to be table napkins, large white serviettes like our own.
While we were trying to make out why they should be variously knotted
and hung about in that way a man and woman went in and, after a brief
survey of the hooks, took down two of the napkins and carried them to a
table. We understood then. The bill of fare stated that napkins were
charged for at the rate of five centimes (one cent) each. These were
individual leaseholdings, as it were, of those who came regularly--a
fine example of French economy. We did not hang up our napkins when we
went away. We might not come back, and, besides, there were no empty
hooks.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The old rates of exchange are used in this book.
Chapter II
MOTORING BY TRAM
A little book says: "Thanks to a unique system of tramways, Marseilles
may be visited rapidly and without fatigue." They do not know the word
"trolley" in Europe, and "tramway" is not a French word, but the French
have adopted it, even with its "w," a letter not in their alphabet. The
Marseilles trams did seem to run everywhere, and they were cheap. Ten
centimes (two cents) was the fare for each "zone" or division, and a
division long enough for the average passenger. Being sight-seers, we
generally paid more than once, but even so the aggregate was modest
enough. The circular trip around the Corniche, or shore, road has four
of these divisions, with a special rate for the trip, which is very long
and very beautiful.
We took the Corniche trip toward evening for the sake of the sunset. The
tram starts at the rue de Rome and winds through the city first, across
shaded courts, along streets of varying widths (some of them so old and
ever so foreign, but always clean), past beautiful public buildings
always with deep open spaces or broad streets in front of them, for the
French do not hide their fine public architectures and monuments, but
plant them as a landscape gardener plants his trellises and trees. Then
all at once we were at the shore--the Mediterranean no longer blue, but
crimson and gold with evening, the sun still drifting, as it seemed,
among the harbor islands--the towers of Chateau d'If outlined on the
sky. On one side the sea, breaking against the rocks and beaches,
washing into little sheltered bays--on the other the abrupt or terraced
cliff, with fair villas set in gardens of palm and mimosa and the rose
trees of the south. Here and there among the villas were palace-like
hotels, with wide balconies that overlooked the sea, and down along the
shore were tea houses and restaurants where one could sit at little
tables on pretty terraces just above the water's edge.
So we left the tram at the end of a zone and made our way down to one of
those places, and sat in a little garden and had fish, freshly caught,
and a cutlet, and some ripe grapes, and such things; and we watched the
sun set, and stayed until the dark came and the Corniche shore turned
into a necklace of twinkling lights. Then the tram carried us still
farther, and back into the city at last, by way of the Prado, a broad
residential avenue, with trees rising dark on either side.
At the end of a week in Marseilles we had learned a number of
things--made some observations--drawn some conclusions. It is a very old
city--old when the Greeks settled there twenty-five hundred years
ago--but it has been ravaged and rebuilt too often through the ages for
any of its original antiquity to remain. Some of the buildings have
stood five or six hundred years, perhaps, and are quaint and
interesting, with their queer roofs and moldering walls which have
known siege and battle and have seen men in gaudy trappings and armor go
clanking by, stopping to let their horses drink at the scarred fountains
where to-day women wash their vegetables and their clothing. We were
glad to have looked on those ancient relics, for they, too, would soon
be gone. The spirit of great building and progress is abroad in
Marseilles--the old clusters of houses will come down--the hoary
fountains worn smooth by the hands of women and the noses of thirsty
beasts will be replaced by new ones--fine and beautiful, for the French
build always for art, let the race for commercial supremacy be ever so
swift. Fifty or one hundred years from now it will be as hard to find
one of these landmarks as it is to-day relics of the Greek and Roman
times, and of the latter we found none at all. Tradition has it that
Lazarus and his family came to Marseilles after his resuscitation, but
the house he occupied is not shown. Indeed, there is probably not a
thing above ground that Lucian the Greek saw when he lived here in the
second century.
The harbor he sailed into remains. Its borders have changed, but it is
the same inclosed port that sheltered those early galleys and triremes
of commerce and of war. We looked down upon it from our balcony, and
sometimes in the dim morning, or in the first dusk of evening when its
sails were idle and its docks deserted, it seemed still to have
something of the past about it, something that was not quite reality.
Certain of its craft were old in fashion and quaint in form, and if even
one trireme had lain at anchor there, or had come drifting in, we might
easily have fancied this to be the port that somewhere is said to harbor
the missing ships.
It is a busy place by day. Its quays are full of trucks and trams and
teams, and a great traffic going on. Lucian would hardly recognize any
of it at all. The noise would appall him, the smoking steamers would
terrify him, the _transbordeur_--an aerial bridge suspended between two
Eiffel towers, with a hanging car that travels back and forth like a
cash railway--would set him praying to the gods. Possibly the fishwives,
sorting out sea food and bait under little awnings, might strike him as
more or less familiar. At least he would recognize their occupation.
They were strung along the east quay, and I had never dreamed that the
sea contained so many strange things to eat as they carried in stock.
They had oysters and clams, and several varieties of mussels, and some
things that looked like tide-worn lumps of terra cotta, and other things
that resembled nothing else under heaven, so that words have not been
invented to describe them.
Then they had _oursins_. I don't know whether an _oursin_ is a bivalve
or not. It does not look like one. The word "_oursin_" means hedgehog,
but this _oursin_ looked a great deal more like an old, black,
sea-soaked chestnut bur--that is, before they opened it. When the
_oursin_ is split open--
But I cannot describe an opened _oursin_ and preserve the proprieties.
It is too--physiological. And the Marseillais eat those things--eat them
raw! Narcissa and I, who had rather more limb and wind than the others,
wandered along the quay a good deal, and often stood spellbound watching
this performance. Once we saw two women having some of them for early
breakfast with a bottle of wine--fancy!
By the way, we finally discovered the restaurants in Marseilles. At
first we thought that the Marseillais never ate in public, but only
drank. This was premature. There are restaurant districts. The rue
Colbert is one of them. The quay is another, and of the restaurants in
that precinct there is one that no traveler should miss. It is Pascal's,
established a hundred years ago, and descended from father to son to the
present moment. Pascal's is famous for its fish, and especially for its
_bouillabaisse_. If I were to be in Marseilles only a brief time, I
might be willing to miss the Palais Longchamps or a cathedral or two,
but not Pascal's and _bouillabaisse_. It is a glorified fish chowder. I
will say no more than that, for I should only dull its bloom. I started
to write a poem on it. It began:
Oh, bouillabaisse, I sing thy praise.
But Narcissa said that the rhyme was bad, and I gave it up. Besides, I
remembered that Thackeray had written a poem on the same subject.
One must go early to get a seat at Pascal's. There are rooms and rooms,
and waiters hurrying about, and you must give your order, or point at
the bill of fare, without much delay. Sea food is the thing, and it
comes hot and delicious, and at the end you can have melon--from
paradise, I suppose, for it is pure nectar--a kind of liquid cantaloupe
such as I have seen nowhere else in this world.[2] You have wine if you
want it, at a franc a bottle, and when you are through you have spent
about half a dollar for everything and feel that life is a song and the
future made of peace. There came moments after we found Pascal's when,
like the lotus eaters, we felt moved to say: "We will roam no more. This
at last is the port where dreams come true."
Our motor clearance required a full ten days, but we did not regret the
time. We made some further trips by tram, and one by water--to Chateau
d'If, on the little ferry that runs every hour or so to that historic
island fortress. To many persons Chateau d'If is a semi-mythical island
prison from which, in Dumas' novel, Edmond Dantes escapes to become the
Count of Monte Cristo, with fabulous wealth and an avenging sword. But
it is real enough; a prison fortress which crowns a barren rock, twenty
minutes from the harbor entrance, in plain view from the Corniche road.
Francois I laid its corner stone in 1524 and construction continued
during the next seventy years. It is a place of grim, stubby towers,
with an inner court opening to the cells--two ranges of them, one above
the other. The furniture of the court is a stone stairway and a well.
Chateau d'If is about as solid and enduring as the rock it stands on,
and it is not the kind of place one would expect to go away from alive,
if he were invited there for permanent residence. There appears to be no
record of any escapes except that of Edmond Dantes, which is in a novel.
When prisoners left that island it was by consent of the authorities. I
am not saying that Dumas invented his story. In fact, I insist on
believing it. I am only saying that it was a remarkable exception to the
general habit of the guests in Chateau d'If. Of course it happened, for
we saw cell B where Dantes was confined, a rayless place; also cell A
adjoining, where the Abbe Faria was, and even the hole between, through
which the Abbe counseled Dantes and confided the secret of the treasure
that would make Dantes the master of the world. All of the cells have
tablets at their entrances bearing the names of their most notable
occupants, and that of Edmond Dantes is prominently displayed. It was
good enough evidence for us.
Those cells are on the lower level, and are merely black, damp holes,
without windows, and with no floors except the unleveled surface of the
rock. Prisoners were expected to die there and they generally did it
with little delay. One Bernadot, a rich Marseilles merchant, starved
himself, and so found release at the end of the twelfth day; but
another, a sailor named Jean Paul, survived in that horrible darkness
for thirty-one years. His crime was striking his commander. Many of the
offenses were even more trifling; the mere utterance of a word offensive
to some one in power was enough to secure lodging in Chateau d'If. It
was even dangerous to have a pretty daughter or wife that a person of
influence coveted. Chateau d'If had an open door for husbands and
fathers not inclined to be reasonable in such matters.
The second-story prisons are larger and lighter, but hardly less
interesting. In No. 5 Count Mirabeau lodged for nearly a year, by
suggestion of his father, who did not approve of his son's wild ways and
thought Chateau d'If would tame him. But Mirabeau put in his time
writing an essay on despotism and planning revolution. Later, one of the
neighboring apartments, No. 7, a large one, became the seat of the
_tribunal revolutionnaire_ which condemned there sixty-six to the
guillotine.
Many notables were sent to Chateau d'If on the charge of disloyalty to
the sovereign. In one of the larger cells two brothers were imprisoned
for having shared the exile of one Chevalier Glendeves who was obliged
to flee from France because he refused to go down on his knees to Louis
XIV. Royalty itself has enjoyed the hospitality of Chateau d'If. Louis
Philippe of Orleans occupied the same large apartment later, which is
really quite a grand one for a prison, with a fireplace and space to
move about. Another commodious room on this floor was for a time the
home of the mysterious Man of the Iron Mask.
These are but a few--one can only touch on the more interesting names.
"Dead after ten years of captivity"; "Dead after sixteen years of
captivity"; such memoranda close many of the records. Some of the
prisoners were released at last, racked with disease and enfeebled in
mind. Some went forth to the block, perhaps willingly enough. It is not
a place in which one wishes to linger. You walk a little way into the
blackest of the dungeons, stumbling over the rocks of the damp,
unleveled floor, and hurry out. You hesitate a moment in the larger,
lighter cells and try to picture a king there, and the Iron Mask; you
try to imagine the weird figure of Mirabeau raging and writing, and
then, a step away, the grim tribunal sorting from the nobility of France
material for the guillotine. It is the kind of thing you cannot make
seem real. You can see a picture, but it is always away somewhere--never
quite there, in the very place.
Outside it was sunny, the sea blue, the cliffs high and sharp, with
water always breaking and foaming at their feet. The Joy insisted on
being shown the exact place where Dantes was flung over, but I was
afraid to try to find it. I was afraid that there would be no place
where he could be flung into the water without hitting the sharp rocks
below, and that would end the story before he got the treasure. I said
it was probably on the other side of the island, and besides it was
getting late. We sailed home in the evening light, this time into the
ancient harbor, and landed about where Lucian used to land, I should
think, such a long time ago.
It was our last night in Marseilles. We had been there a full ten days,
altogether, and time had not hung upon our hands. We would still have
lingered, but there was no longer an excuse. Even the car could not
furnish one. Released from its prison, refreshed with a few liters of
gasoline--_essence_, they call it--and awakened with a gentle hitch or
two of the crank, it began its sweet old murmur, just as if it had not
been across some thousands of miles of tossing water. Then, the clutch
released, it slipped noiselessly out of the docks, through the narrow
streets, to a garage, where it acquired its new numbers and a bath, and
maybe a French lesson or two, so that to-morrow it might carry us
farther into France.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Our honey-dew melon is a mild approach to it.
Chapter III
ACROSS THE CRAU
There are at least two ways to leave Marseilles for the open plain of
the Provence, and we had hardly started before I wished I had chosen the
other one. We were climbing the rue de la Republique, or one of its
connections, when we met, coming down on the wrong side of the tram
line, one of the heaviest vehicles in France, loaded with iron castings.
It was a fairly crowded street, too, and I hesitated a moment too long
in deciding to switch to the wrong side, myself, and so sneak around the
obstruction. In that moment the monstrous thing decided to cross to its
own side of the road, which seemed to solve the problem. I brought the
car to a standstill to wait.
But that was another mistake; I should have backed. The obstruction
refused to cross the tram track. Evidently the rails were slippery and
when the enormous wheels met the iron they slipped--slipped toward
us--ponderously, slowly, as inevitable as doomsday. I was willing to
back then, but when I shifted the lever I forgot something else and our
engine stopped. There was not enough gravity to carry us back without
it; neither was there room, or time, to crank.[3] So there we were,
with that mountain closing in upon us like a wall of Poe's collapsing
room.
It was fascinating. I don't think one of us thought of jumping out and
leaving the car to its fate. The truck driver was frantically urging his
team forward, hoping the wheels would catch, but only making them slide
a little quicker in our direction. They were six inches away, now--five
inches--three inches--one inch--the end of the hub was touching our mud
guard. What we _might_ have done then--what _might_ have happened
remains guesswork. What did happen was that the huge steel tire reached
a joint in the tram rail and unhurriedly lifted itself over, just as if
that was what it had been intending to do all the time. I had strength
enough left to get out and crank up, then, but none to spare. A little
more paint off the front end of the mud guard, but that was nothing. I
had whetted those guards on a variety of things, including a cow, in my
time. At home I had a real passion for scraping them against the door
casing of the garage, backing out.
Still, we were pretty thoughtful for several miles and missed a road
that turns off to Arles, and were on the way to Aix, which we had
already visited by tram. Never mind; Aix was on the way to Arles, too,
and when all the roads are good roads a few miles of motor travel more
or less do not count. Only it is such a dusty way to Aix, and we were
anxious to get into the cleaner and more inviting byways.
We were at the outskirts, presently, and when we saw a military-looking
gentleman standing before a little house marked "_L'Octroi_" we stopped.
I had learned enough French to know that _l'octroi_ means a local
custom house, and it is not considered good form to pass one of them
unnoticed. It hurts the _l'octroi_ man's feelings and he is backed by
the _gendarmerie_ of France. He will let you pass, and then in his
sorrow he will telephone to the police station, just ahead. There you
will be stopped with a bayonet, or a club, or something, and brought
back to the _l'octroi_, where you will pay an _amend_ of six francs;
also costs; also for the revenue stamp attached to your bill of
particulars; also for any little thing which you may happen to have upon
which duty may be levied; also for other things; and you will stand
facing a half-open cell at the end of the corridor while your account is
being made up--all of which things happened to a friend of mine who
thought that because an _octroi_ man looked sleepy he was partly dead.
Being warned in this way, we said we would stop for an _octroi_ man even
if he were entirely dead; so we pulled up and nodded politely, and
smiled, and said, "Bon joor, messoor," and waited his pleasure.
You never saw a politer man. He made a sweeping salute and said--well,
it doesn't matter just what he said--I took it to be complimentary and
Narcissa thought it was something about vegetables. Whatever it was, we
all smiled again, while he merely glanced in the car fore and aft, gave
another fine salute and said, "_Allay_" whereupon we understood, and
_allayed_, with counter-salutes and further smiles--all of which seemed
pleasanter than to be brought back by a _gendarme_ and stood up in front
of a cell during the reckoning process.
Inquiring in Aix for the road to Arles we made a discovery, to wit: they
do not always pronounce it "Arl" in the French way, but "Arlah," which
is Provencal, I suppose, the remains of the old name "Arlate." One young
man did not seem even to recognize the name Arles, though curiously it
happened that he spoke English--enough, at least, to direct us when he
found that it was his Provencal "Arlah" that we wanted.
So we left Aix behind us, and with it the dust, the trams, and about the
last traces of those modern innovations which make life so comfortable
when you need them and so unpeaceful when you prefer something else. The
one great modern innovation which bore us silently along those level
roads fell into the cosmic rhythm without a jar--becoming, as it seemed,
a sort of superhuman activity, such as we shall know, perhaps, when we
get our lost wings again.
I don't know whether Provence roads are modern or not. I suspect they
were begun by the Roman armies a good while ago; but in any case they
are not neglected now. They are boulevards--no, not exactly that, for
the word "boulevard" suggests great width. They are avenues, then, ample
as to width, and smooth and hard, and planted on both sides with exactly
spaced and carefully kept trees. Leaving Aix, we entered one of these
highways running straight into the open country. Naturally we did not
expect it to continue far, not in that perfectly ordered fashion, but
when with mile after mile it varied only to become more beautiful, we
were filled with wonder. The country was not thickly settled; the road
was sparsely traveled. Now and then we passed a heavy team drawing a
load of hay or grain or wine barrels, and occasionally, very
occasionally, we saw an automobile.
It was a fair, fertile land at first. There were rich, sloping fields,
vineyards, olive gardens, and plumy poplars; also, an occasional stone
farmhouse that looked ancient and mossy and picturesque, and made us
wish we could know something of the life inside its heavy walls. We said
that sometime we would stop at such a place and ask them to take us in
for the night.
Now and then we passed through a village, where the streets became
narrow and winding, and were not specially clean. They were interesting
places enough, for they were old and queer, but they did not invite us
to linger. They were neither older nor more queer than corners of
Marseilles we had seen. Once we saw a kind of fair going on and the
people in holiday dress.
At Salon, a still larger and cleaner place, we stopped to buy something
for our wayside luncheon. Near the corner of a little shaded square a
man was selling those delectable melons such as we had eaten in
Marseilles; at a shop across the way was a window full of
attractions--little cheeses, preserved meats, and the like. I gathered
up an assortment, then went into a _boulangerie_ for bread. There was
another customer ahead of me, and I learned something, watching his
transaction. Bread, it seemed, was not sold by the loaf there, but by
exact weight. The man said some words and the woman who waited on him
laid two loaves, each about a yard long, on the scales. Evidently they
exceeded his order, for she cut off a foot or so from one loaf. Still
the weight was too much, and she cut off a slice. He took what was left,
laid down his money, and walked out. I had a feeling that the end and
slice would lie around and get shopworn if I did not take them. I
pointed at them, and she put them on the scales. Then I laid down a
franc, and she gave me half a gill of copper change. It made the family
envious when they saw how exactly I had transacted my purchase. There is
nothing like knowing the language. We pushed on into the country again,
stopped in a shady, green place, and picnicked on those good things for
which we had spent nearly four francs. There were some things left over,
too; we could have done without the extra slice of bread.
There were always mountains in view, but where we were the land had
become a level plain, once, ages ago, washed by the sea. We realized
this when the fertile expanse became, little by little, a barren--a mere
waste, at length, of flat smooth stones like cobble, a floor left by the
departing tides. "La Crau" it is called, and here there were no homes.
No harvest could grow in that land--nothing but a little tough grass,
and the artificially set trees on either side of the perfectly smooth,
perfectly straight road that kept on and on, mile after mile, until it
seemed that it must be a band around the world. How can they afford to
maintain such a road through that sterile land?
The sun was dropping to the western horizon, but we did not hurry. I set
the throttle to a point where the speedometer registered fifteen miles
an hour. So level was the road that the figures on the dial seemed fixed
there. There was nothing to see but the unbroken barren, the perfectly
regular rows of sycamore or cypress, and the evening sky; yet I have
seldom known a drive more inspiring. Steadily, unvaryingly, and silently
heading straight into the sunset, we seemed somehow a part of the
planetary system, little brother to the stars.
It was dusk when we reached the outskirts of Arles and stopped to light
the lamps. The wide street led us into the business region, and we hoped
it might carry us to the hotels. But this was too much to expect in an
old French, Provencal, Roman city. Pausing, we pronounced the word
"hotel," and were directed toward narrower and darker ways. We had
entered one of these when a man stepped out of the shadow and took
charge of us. I concluded that we were arrested then, and probably would
not need a hotel. But he also said "hotel," and, stepping on the
running-board, pointed, while I steered, under his direction. I have no
idea as to the way we went, but we came out into a semi-lighted square
directly in front of a most friendly-looking hostelry. Then I went in
and aired some of my phonograph French, inquiring about rooms on the
different _etages_ and the cost of _diners_ and _dejeuners_, and the
landlady spoke so slowly and distinctly that it made one vain of his
understanding.
So we unloaded, and our guide, who seemed to be an _attache_ of the
place, directed me to the garage. I gathered from some of the sounds he
made that the main garage was _complet_--that is to say, full--and we
were going to an annex. It was an interesting excursion, but I should
have preferred to make it on foot and by daylight. We crossed the square
and entered a cobbled street--no, a passage--between ancient walls, lost
in the blackness above, and so close together below that I hesitated. It
was a place for armored men on horseback, not for automobiles. We crept
slowly through and then we came to an uphill corner that I was sure no
car without a hinge in the middle could turn. But my guard--guide, I
mean, signified that it could be done, and inch by inch we crawled
through. The annex--it was really a stable of the Middle Ages--was at
the end of the tunnel, and when we came away and left the car there I
was persuaded that I should never see it again.
Back at the hotel, however, it was cheerful enough. It seemed an ancient
place of stone stairways and thick walls. Here and there in niches were
Roman vases and fragments found during the excavations. Somewhere
underneath us were said to be catacombs. Attractive things, all of them,
but the dinner we had--hot, fine and French, with _vin compris_ two
colors--was even more attractive to travelers who had been drinking in
oxygen under the wide sky all those steady miles across the Crau.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The reader is reminded that this was in a day when few cars cranked
otherwise than by hand.
Chapter IV
MISTRAL
(From my notes, September 10, 1913)
Adjoining our hotel--almost a part of it, in fact, is a remnant of the
ancient Roman forum of Arles. Some columns, a piece of the heavy wall,
sections of lintel, pediment, and cornice still stand. It is a portion
of the Corinthian entrance to what was the superb assembly place of
Roman Arles. The square is called Place du Forum, and sometimes now
Place Mistral--the latter name because a bronze statue of the "Homer of
the Provence" has been erected there, just across from the forum
entrance.
Frederic Mistral, still alive at eighty-three, is the light of the
modern Provence.[4] We had begun to realize something of this when we
saw his photographs and various editions of his poems in the windows of
Marseilles and Aix, and handbills announcing the celebration at St. Remy
of the fiftieth anniversary of Gounod's score of Mistral's great poem,
"Mireille." But we did not at all realize the fullness of the Provencal
reverence for "the Master," as they call him, until we reached Arles. To
the Provence Mistral is a god--an Apollo--the "central sun from which
other Provencal singers are as diverging rays." Whatever Mistral
touches is glorified. Provencal women talk with a new grace because
Mistral has sung of them. Green slopes and mossy ruins are viewed
through the light of Mistral's song. A Mistral anniversary is celebrated
like a Declaration of Independence or a Louisiana Purchase. They have
even named a wind after him. Or perhaps he was named after the wind.
Whichever way it was, the wind has taken second place and the people
smile tenderly now, remembering the Master, when its name is mentioned.
I believe Mistral does not sing in these later days. He does not need
to. The songs he sang in youth go on singing for him, and are always
young. Outside of France they are not widely known; their bloom and
fragrance shrink under translation. George Meredith, writing to Janet
Ross in 1861, said: "Mistral I have read. He is really a fine poet." But
to Meredith the euphonies of France were not strange.
And Mistral has loved the Provence. Not only has he sung of it, but he
has given his labor and substance to preserve its memories. When the
Academy voted him an award of three thousand francs he devoted it to the
needs of his fellow poets;[5] when he was awarded the Nobel prize he
forgot that he might spend it on himself, and bought and restored an old
palace, and converted it into a museum for Arles. Then he devoted his
time and energies to collecting Provencal relics, and to-day, with its
treasures and associations, the place has become a shrine. Everything
relating to the life and traditions of the Provence is there--Roman
sculpture, sarcophagi, ceramics, frescoes, furnishings, implements--the
place is crowded with precious things. Lately a room of honor has been
devoted to the poet himself. In it are cases filled with his personal
treasures; the walls are hung with illustrations used in his books. On
the mantel is a fine bust of the poet, and in a handsome reliquary one
finds a lock of hair, a little dress, and the cradle of the infant
Mistral. In the cradle lies the manuscript of Mistral's first and
greatest work, the "Mireille." The Provence has produced other noted
men--among them Alphonse Daudet, who was born just over at Nimes, and
celebrated the town of Tarascon with his Tartarin. But Daudet went to
Paris, which is, perhaps, a sin. The Provence is proud of Daudet, and
he, too, has a statue, at Nimes; but the Provence worships Mistral.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Written in 1913. Mistral died March 24th of the following year.
[5] Daudet in his _Lettres de Mon Moulin_ says:
"_II y a quatre ans, lorsque l'Academie donna a l'auteur de 'Mireille'
le prix de trois mille francs. Mme. Mistral [sa mere] eut une idee._
"'_Si nous faisons tapisser et plafonner ta chambre?' dit elle a son
fils._
"'_Non! non!' repondit Mistral. 'Ca c'est l'argent des poetes, on n'y
touche pas._'"
Chapter V
THE ROME OF FRANCE
There is no record of a time when there was not a city at Arles. The
Rhone divides to form its delta there--loses its swiftness and becomes a
smooth highway to the sea.
"As at Arles, where the Rhone stagnates," wrote Dante, who probably
visited the place on a journey he made to Paris. There the flat
barrenness of the Crau becomes fertile slopes and watered fields. It is
a place for men to congregate and it was already important when Julius
Caesar established a Roman colony and built a fleet there, after which it
became still more important--finally, with its one hundred thousand
inhabitants, rivaling even Marseilles. It was during those earlier
years--along through the first and second centuries--that most of the
great building was done, remnants of which survive to this day.
Prosperity continued even into the fourth century, when the Christian
Emperor Constantine established a noble palace there and contemplated
making it the capital of his kingdom.
But then the decline set in. In the next century or two clouds of
so-called barbarians swept down from the north and east, conquering,
plundering, and establishing new kingdoms. Gauls, Goths, Saracens, and
Francs each had their turn at it.
Following came the parlous years of the middle period. For a brief time
it was an independent republic; then a monarchy. By the end of the
fifteenth century it was ready to be annexed to France. Always a battle
ground, raided and sacked so often that the count is lost, the wonder is
that any of its ancient glories survive at all. But the Romans built
well; their massive construction has withstood the wild ravage of
succeeding wars, the sun and storm of millennial years.
We knew little of Arles except that it was the place where there was the
ruin of a Roman arena, and we expected not much from that. The Romans
had occupied France and had doubtless built amusement places, but if we
gave the matter any further thought it was to conclude that such
provincial circus rings would be small affairs of which only a few
vestiges, like those of the ruined Forum, would remain. We would visit
the fragments, of course, and meantime we drifted along one side of the