THE GREAT COURSE OF BELMONT--DIFFICULT STEERING--THE "CUP GORDON
BENNETT"--DOWN THE MOUNTAINS TO CLERMONT-FERRAND
The day opens cloudy, cold, and threatening and, as our way to Clermont
lies over the high lands, good weather was to be desired. However, the
fortunes of war vary. The entire journey is amongst the hills, mounting
higher and higher, until the snow appears on the large peaks and it is
cold, but no rain falls.
We move forward very briskly; the weather must have instilled new
life into the car though it was not needed. At Bourg we strike the
great circuit, a circle from Clermont of some ninety kilos considered
very fine for autos, though why I cannot understand. The road-bed is
good and there are no trees on the side, but it is very circuitous
and dangerous for fast machines. I am forced to call a halt on Jean
as we are moving at a mile per minute down grade. That's not bad on
a straightaway course such as we have found many times, but on these
curves it is another thing. To my mind we have passed dozens of roads
to be preferred to this for speeding.
We reach Rochefort at half past twelve and after racing through the
wind since half past eight are too cold to go farther without something
to eat, and so we stop at a wretched little inn where, however, the
welcome makes up for its appearance. Two Angora cats immediately adopt
me as their father, and decline to leave my chair. While the food is
simple it is good, and much better than one would find in such places
in our land.
This is the land of prunes. You do not know how delicious they can be
until you come here, and I must say that the "dirty little inn" has put
up a very good meal for us. Pity we can't have that cheese at home,
though I am almost ill because of it.
The route from here on leads over the high mountain table-lands until
the valley of Clermont-Ferrand comes in view far below us. From this
point the descent is rapid, circuitous, and zigzaggy. I cannot imagine
a worse one for high speed. It must have been selected because of
the difficulty it presents in handling the great cars. Certainly the
chauffeur who succeeds in driving such machines at a speed approaching
the rapid, should receive a gold medal, and I doubt not that in the
coming contest in July for the "Coupe Gordon Bennett" there will be
numerous accidents, and I fear fatal ones. I should not care to be in
a machine on that occasion.[1] While all this is in consideration we
reach the brow of the hill from whence the view down into the Valley of
Clermont-Ferrand is superb. From its centre rises the city on a hill
with its cathedral in the midst and the whole surrounded by an extended
plain, encompassed by a circle of domes, all craters whose life died
out almost before time began.
[1] Strange to relate there were no casualties and few accidents.
Our flight down the mountains is swift and we soon arrive at the
excellent little Hôtel de l'Univers. As it has begun to rain, the
shelter is very acceptable, and I am cold with my ride of two hundred
kilos from Tulle. We left there at nine o'clock and reached here at
three, with an hour's stoppage for luncheon, curving up and down the
mountains most of the route. That's about forty miles an hour, quite
fast enough. On reaching Clermont we learn that already, to-day, there
has been a smash-up on the circle. A big auto, with three men, crashed
into a tree and then over a bank. Result, three men in the hospital
and one expensive ninety horse-power machine a total wreck, loss up in
the thousands. The owner had brought the auto here to try the course
before the races come on, and yesterday departed for Italy, leaving it
in charge of a young man of fifteen. Said young man took two of his
friends out in it to-day and essayed the zigzags, with the result above
mentioned.
Clermont-Ferrand, the ancient capital of Auvergne, is now a city
of some fifty thousand people,--a city on a hill in the midst of
encircling mountains rising to some five thousand feet above, extinct
volcanoes all of them. The city possesses a stately cathedral,
surrounded by a maze of narrow crooked streets where the lover of the
artistic finds many a bit of beauty to delight the eye,--both beauty in
stone and beauty in flesh and blood, for the maidens of Clermont are
pleasant to look upon, and also in all her streets and almost every
court you will come across some ancient façade or delicate staircase of
stone most beautifully carved and mellow with age, and you will spend
many hours wandering at will until darkness drives you within doors.