The Automobilist Abroad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter II

A Little Tour In The Pyrenees

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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