NEARING PARIS
There are more fine-looking fishing places in France than in any country
I ever saw. There are also more fishermen. In every river town the
water-fronts are lined with them. They are a patient lot. They have been
sitting there for years, I suppose, and if they have ever caught
anything the fact has been concealed. I have talked with numbers of
them, but when I came to the question of their catch they became vague,
not to say taciturn. "_Pas grande chose_" ("No great thing"), has been
the reply, and there was no exhibit. I have never seen one of those
fishermen get a nibble.
But the water is certainly seductive. Following the upper Loire from
Neuvy to Gien, I was convinced that with a good rod I could stop almost
anywhere and fill the car. Such attractive eddies, such fascinating,
foam-flecked pools! Probably it is just as well I did not have the rod.
I like to persuade myself that the fish were there.
Gien on the Loire is an old place, but not much that is old remains.
Joan of Arc stopped there on her way to the king at Chinon, and it was
from Gien, following the delivery of Orleans and the battle of Patay,
that she set out with Charles VII for the coronation at Rheims. But
there are no Joan relics in Gien to-day. There are, however, two
interesting features here: the two-story wells and the hard-working
dogs. The wells have a curb reaching to the second story, with an
opening below for the downstairs tenants. It seems a good idea, and the
result is picturesque. The dogs are hitched to little wagons and the
Giennese--most of whom seem to be large and fat--first load those wagons
and then get in themselves and ride. We saw one great hulk of a man
approaching in what at first seemed to be some sort of a go-cart. It was
not until he got close up that we discovered the dog--a little
sweltering dog, his eyes popping out, his tongue nearly dragging the
ground. I think the people of Gien are lazy and without shame.
[Illustration: "THROUGH HILLSIDE VILLAGES WHERE NEVER A STONE HAD BEEN
MOVED, I THINK, IN CENTURIES"]
We missed the road leaving Gien and wandered off into narrow, solid
little byways that led across fields and along hedges, through hillside
villages where never a stone had been moved, I think, in centuries. Once
we turned into what seemed a beautiful wood road, but it led to a grand
new chateau and a private drive which had a top dressing of deep soft
sand. Fortunately nobody was at home, for we stalled in the sand and the
head of the family and Narcissa and the Joy were obliged to get out and
push while I put on all backing power and made tracks in that new sand
that would have horrified the owner. We are the right sort, however. We
carefully repaired the scars, then made tracks of another kind, for
remoter districts.
Miles away from anywhere, by a pool at the edge of a field of bushes,
we established a luncheon place, and in a seclusion of vines and
shrubbery the Joy set up a kitchen and made coffee and boiled eggs and
potatoes and "kept house" for an hour or so, to her heart's content. We
did not know where we were, or particularly care. We knew that the road
would lead somewhere, and that somewhere would be a wayside village with
a little hotel that had been waiting for us ever so long, with inviting
comforts and generous hospitality. Often we said as we drove along,
"What little hotel do you suppose is waiting for us to-night?" But we
did not worry, for we always knew we should find it.
The "little hotel" this time proved to be at Souppes on the Loing, and
if I had to award a premium to any of the little hotels that thus far
had sheltered us, I think I should give it to the Hotel du Mouton,
Souppes. The name naturally amused us, and we tried to make jokes out of
it, but the dainty rooms and the delicious dinner commanded only our
approval. Also the price; nineteen francs and forty centimes, or less
than four dollars, for our party of four, dinner, lodging, and
breakfast, garage free.
Souppes is a clean town, with a wide central street. Most of the towns
up this way were cleaner than those of the farther south. Also, they had
better buildings, as a rule. I mean the small towns. Villages not large
enough even to be set down on the map have churches that would do credit
in size and luxury to New York City. Take Bonny, for instance. We halted
there briefly to watch some quaintly dressed people who were buying and
selling at a little butter and egg market, and then we noticed a big,
gray, ancient-looking church somewhat farther along. So we went over
there and wandered about in its dim coolness, and looked at its
beautiful treasures--among them the fine marble statue of Joan which one
meets to-day in most of the churches in France. How could Bonny, a mere
village, ever have built a church like that--a church that to-day would
cost a million dollars?
Another thing we noticed up this way was the "sign of the bush." Here
and there along the road and in the villages there would be a house with
an upward-slanting hole in the outside wall, about halfway to the eaves,
and in the hole a branch of a tree, usually evergreen. When we had seen
a few of these we began to wonder as to their meaning. Then we noticed
that houses with those branches were all cafes, and some one suddenly
remembered a proverb which says, "A good wine needs no bush," and how,
in a former day, at least, the sign of the bush had indicated a wine
shop. That it still does so in France became more and more evident as we
went along. Every wine shop had its branch of green. I do not think
there was one along that road that considered its wine superior to the
traditional announcement.
Just outside of Souppes there is a great flinty rock upon which some
prehistoric race used to sharpen knives. I suppose it was back before
Caesar's time, but in that hard stone, so hard that my own knife would
not scratch it, the sharpening grooves and surfaces are as fresh as if
those old fellows had left there only yesterday. I wish I could know
how they looked.
We came to the woods of Fontainebleau and ate our luncheon in its deep
lucent shade. There is romance in the very name of Fontainebleau, but we
would return later to find it. We drove a little through the wide
avenues of that splendid forest that for three centuries or more was a
hunting ground and pleasure park for kings, then we headed away for
Juvisy on the Seine, where we spent the night and ate on a terrace in
the open air, in a company not altogether to our liking--it being rather
noisy, rather flashy, rather unwholesome--in a word, Parisian. We had
left the region of simple customs and unpretentious people. It was not a
pleasant change.
Also, we had left the region of good roads. All that I have said about
the perfection of French roads I wish to retract, so far as those in the
environs of Paris are concerned. Leaving Juvisy, we were soon on what is
called the "pave," a road paved with granite blocks, poorly laid to
begin with, and left unrepaired for years. It is full of holes and humps
and wallows, and is not really a road at all, but a stone quarry on a
jamboree. We jiggled and jumped and bumped, and only by going at the
slowest permissible speed could stand it. Cars passed us going quite
fast, but I could see that their occupants were not enjoying themselves.
They were holding on to the backs of the seats, to the top supports, to
one another. They were also tearing their cars to pieces, though the
average Frenchman does not mind that. I love France, and every Frenchman
is my friend, but I do not wish him to borrow my car. He drives
helter-skelter, lickety-split, and never takes care of his car at all.
When the average Frenchman has owned a car a year it is a rusty,
smoking, clattering box of tinware, ready for the can-heap.