Chapter II

Bourdeaux, the Gateway to the LandesBourdeaux, the Gateway to the Landes

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; acafé-glacêcost fifteen sous and aglace à cafétwenty-five on the terrace of the magnificent establishment opposite the Opera.

Pyrenees

Chapter IIA Little Tour In The Pyrenees

We had been touring Franceen automobilefor 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 socommerçantas their Swiss brothers.

In August, 1905, was organized, byLa Vie en Grand AirandLa 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.

The 'Coupe de Pyrénées'The "Coupe de Pyrénées"

Toulouse has many historic sights and monuments, and acuisinewhich is well worth a trip across France. What with truffles and the famouscassouletand thechapons fins de Toulouseone 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 ahygiéniquebedstead (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 thegarçon 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 thecafé au laitat 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 calleddéjeunerin France, but which we learned was here calleddîner, the evening meal (at the fashionable hour of eight) being known assouper, 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 meanla 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 meanla 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 reachla Citéfrom theVille 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 thecommis-voyageurs, who may have taken lunch at the Hôtel du Nord, are dozing over theircaféandpetites verres, and thepatronandpatronneof 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 thepatron(all thoughts of his siesta having vanished), turned out a most excellent lunch,hors d'œuvres, fresh sardines, omelette,cotelette d'agneauwithpommes paille, delicious grapes, and all you wish of the red or whitevin 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 ashygiénique, 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 theapéritif, 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.

Some Snap-shots in the PyreneesSome Snap-shots in the Pyrenees

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IcemenGorges du Pierre LysOn the Road in the Pyrenees

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter IIIIn Languedoc And Old Provence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Tour de la simple et forte,Simbol de glorie et de piété,Tour de pauvres femmes mortesPour leur Dieu et la liberté."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mistral describes it of course:

"On a great branding-day came this throng,A help for the mighty herd-mustering,Li Santo, Aigo Marto, Albaron,And from Faraman, a hundred horses strongCame out into the desert."

Here we were in the midst of the land of fêtes, and if we could not see aferrandein all its savage, unspoiled glory, we would see what we could.

We were in luck, as we learned when we put into St. Gilles for the night, and comfortably enough housed our auto in theremiseof the company, or individual, which has the concession for the stage line across the Camargue, which links up the two loose ends of a toy railway, one of which ends at Aigues-Mortes, and the other at Stes. Maries-de-la-Mer.

Our particular piece of luck was the opportunity to be present at the pilgrimage to the shrine of the three Marys of Judea, which took place on the morrow.

The poet Mistral sets it all out in romantic verse in his epic "Mirèio," and one and all were indeed glad to embrace so fortunate an opportunity of participating in one of the most nearly unique pilgrimages and festivals in all the world.

We entered the little waterside town the next morning soon after sunrise,en auto. Others came by rail, on foot, on horseback, or by the slow-goingroulotte, or caravan; pilgrims from all corners of the earth, the peasant folk of Provence, the Arlésiens and Arlésiennes, and the dwellers of the great Camargue plain.

The picture is quite as "Mirèio" saw it in the poem: the vision of the lone sentinel church by the sea, which rises above the dunes of the Camargue to-day, as it did in the olden time.

"'It looms at last in the distance dim,She sees it grow on the horizon's rim,The Saintes' white tower across the billowy plain,Like vessel homeward bound upon the main."

On the dunes of the Camargue, between the blue of the sky and the blue of the Mediterranean waves, sits the gaunt, grim bourg of fisherfolk and herders of the cattle and sheep of the neighbouring plain. The lone fortress-church rises tall and severe in its outlines, and the whole may be likened to nothing as much as a desert mirage that one sees in his imagination.

At the foot of the crenelated, battlemented walls of the church are the white, pink, and blue walled houses of the huddling population, and the dory-like boats of the fishers.

Officially the town is known as Stes. Maries-de-la-Mer, but thereliquesof the three Marys, who fled from Judea in company with Sts. Lazare, Maxim, and Trophime, and other followers, including their servant Sara, have given it the popular name of "Les Saintes."

The exiles, barely escaping death by drowning, came to shore here, and, thankful for being saved from death, thereupon celebrated the first mass to be said in France, the saints Maxim and Lazare officiating.

Maxim, Lazare, Sidoine, Marthe, and Madeleine immediately set out to spread the Word throughout Provence in the true missionary spirit, but the others, the three Marys, St. Trophime, and Sara, remained behind to do what good they might among the fishers.

The pilgrimage to thisbasiliqueof "Les Saintes" has ever been one of great devotion. In 1347 the Bishops of Paris and of Coutances, in Normandy, accorded their communicants many and varied indulgences for having made "la feste S. Mari Cléophée qui est le XXVe Mai, et la feste S. Marie Salomé, XXIIe Octobre, festeront, O l'histoire d'elles prescherent, liront ou escouteront attentilment et devotement."

In the fourteenth century three thousand or more souls drew a livelihood from the industries of "Les Saintes" and the neighbourhood, and its civic affairs were administered by three consuls, who were assisted in their duties by three classes of citizen office-holders—divities,mediocres, andpaupers, the latter doubtless the "povres gens" mentioned in the testament of Louis I. of Provence, he who bequeathed the guardianship of his soul to "Saintes Maries Jacobé et Salomé, Catherine, Madeleine et Marthe."

The first day's celebration was devoted to the further gathering of the throng and the "Grand Mess." At the first note of the "Magnificat" thereliqueswere brought forth from the upper chapel and the crowd from within and without broke into a thunderous "Vivent les Saintes Maries!" Then was sung the "Cantique des Saintes:"

"O grandes Saintes MariesSi chériesDe notre divin Sauveur," etc.

On the second day a procession formed outside the church for the descent to the historic sands, upon which the holy exiles first made their landing, the men bearing on their shoulders a representation of the barque which brought the saints thither. There were prelates and plebeians and tourists and vagabond gipsies in line, and one and all they entered into the ceremony with an enthusiasm—in spite of the sweltering sun—which made up for any apparent lack of devoutness, for, alas! most holy pilgrimages are anything but holy when taken in their entirety.

The church at "Les Saintes" is a wonder-work. As at Assisi, in Italy, there are three superimposed churches, a symbol of the three states of religion; the crypt, called the catacombs, and suggestive of persecution; the fortified nave, a symbol of the body which prays, but is not afraid to fight; and thechapelle supérieure, the holy place of the saints of heaven, the Christian counsellors in whose care man has been confided. This, at any rate, is the professional description of the symbolism, and whether one be churchman or not he is bound to see the logic of it all.

Deep down in the darkened crypt are thereliquesof the dusky Sara, the servant of the holy Marys. She herself has been elevated to sainthood as thepatronneof the vagabond gipsies of all the world. On the occasion of the Fête of Les Saintes Maries the nomads, Bohemians, and Gitanos from all corners of the globe, who have been able to make the pilgrimage thither, pass the night before the shrine of their saintedpatronne, as a preliminary act to the election of their queen for the coming year.

The gipsy of tradition is supposed to be a miserly, wealthy, sacrilegious fellow who goes about stealing children and dogs and anything else he can lay his hands upon. He may have his faults, but to see him kneeling before the shrine of his "patronne reine Sara," ragged and travel-worn and yet burning costly candles and saying hisAvesas piously and incessantly as a praying-machine of the East, one can hardly question but that they have as much devoutness as most others.

The hotels of "Les Saintes" offer practically nothing in the way of accommodation, and what there is, which costs usually thirty sous a night, has, during the fête, an inflated value of thirty or even fifty francs, and, if you are an automobilist, driving the most decrepit out-of-date old crock that ever was, they will want to charge you a hundred. You will, of course, refuse to pay it, for you can eat up the roadway at almost any speed you like,—there is no one to say you nay on these lonesome roads,—and so, after paying fifty centimes a pailful for some rather muddy water to refresh the water circulation of your automobile, you pull out for some other place—at least we did. One must either do this, or become a real nomad and sleep in the open, with the stars for candles, and a bunch of beach-grass for a pillow. If you were aRomany cheilyou would sleep in, or under, your ownroulotte, on a mattress, which, in the daytime, is neatly folded away in the rear of your wagon, or hung in full view, temptingly spread with a lace coverlet. This in the hope that some passing pilgrim will take a fancy to the lace spread and want to buy it; when will come a trading and bargaining which will put horse-selling quite in the shade, for it is here that the woman of the establishment comes in, and the gipsy woman on a trade is a Tartar.

Finally, on the last day, came the "Grande Entrée des Tauraux," which, it would seem, was the chief event which drew the Camargue population thither. They came in couples, a man and a woman on the back of a single Camargue pony, whole families in a Provençal cart, on foot, on bicycles, and in automobiles.

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