MY CHAUFFEUR SUMMONED BY THE GOVERNMENT--THE NEW MAN--YAMA's
OPINION OF PARIS--SPEED OF AUTOS IN PARIS.
While I am dressing for dinner, Jean comes in with a flaming face and
a telegram. He has been summoned for military service, and though it
will last but two weeks it must be performed at Gap, near the Italian
frontier, and what shall I do in the meantime? Certainly I do not
propose to pay for an idle auto car, and can another chauffeur be
gotten? Jean has wired to Nice and thinks that "George" may be sent,
and if so, I will be all right as he states that George is a better
chauffeur than he himself.
All this is very annoying but cannot be helped, and one does not desire
to growl at the government of a country where one receives so much
kindness, especially when all this is for a very necessary service.
Still, to lose a chauffeur that one knows, and can trust, is a serious
business, and I am almost tempted to end the tour now, but the idea of
foregoing the Vosges and the Black Forest, to say nothing of what may
follow, is not any more acceptable, so I decide to see what can be done
in Nice, and await the reply to Jean's telegram to the owner of the
auto, Monsieur le Jeunne. It comes promptly and states that George is
already _en route_ to us, and will arrive that night on the express.
In the interval I take my last ride with Jean, rambling all over old
Paris, which he seems to know and love, and he is so delighted that it
interests me.
Yama still insists that the capital does not look respectable. That
from one _of a nation_ which maintains the Yoshawarra, as a national
institution and which does not know the meaning of the word morality,
is severe. Still, I doubt whether Japan could be considered as immoral
as that great Yoshawarra called Paris; rather they are _un_moral. The
order of things is certainly reversed in the two countries. In France,
a girl is shut up in a convent until she marries, but after that, well
the less said the better (I do not hold that this is the case in the
provinces); whereas in Japan there is no morality, as we understand
that word, before marriage, while there certainly is, after that
ceremony. The Jap women are faithful wives and faithful mistresses.
We consider Japan as a semi-barbarous nation and do not judge her
people by our standards but France is another so-called Christian
nation, yet I think _that_ slave market in the hotel is worse than
any our Southern States knew of in their darkest days. I asked Yama
which city he liked the better, New York or Paris. "Why certainly,
New York, sir. Here there are such funny-looking men talking to
disreputable-looking women at those dirty tables all over the street;
the place is not respectable and you ought to go home."
I quite agree with him but I do not go; but then to him the other
side, the fair side of Paris, is a closed book. All its beauty, all
its intense historical interest he does not see and cannot comprehend,
but it is difficult to understand how any living being can fail to
see and feel the beauty of Paris, when the horse-chestnuts are in
bloom, when the trees in the Bois are of that tender green which seems
peculiar to France, when the Seine dances and sparkles in the sun,
and all the world goes for an outing. For my part, I most intensely
enjoy the actual living when my carriage rolls between the horses of
Marly up the Avenue of the Champs-Élysées past the arch and into that
fairy-land beyond it. And yet I never pass the Place de la Concord
that I do not remember its terrible history, see in my mind's eye the
white-robed queen moving to her death, or the shrieking tumultuous mob
which carried Robespierre to justice. The prancing stone horses from
Marly which the gay world passes every day looked down upon both those
scenes. Those old houses in the Rue St. Honoré saw the passing of both
King and Queen and the saintly Madame Elizabeth. What were even French
brutes made of to destroy a woman like that?
George arrives at six o'clock in the evening, and Jean brings him to
my rooms and then departs, with regret, as one can tell by the catch
in his voice. Escorted by George and Yama he disappears into the
"underground," and is gone to serve his country. As it turns out, that
is the end of his service with me, though I have agreed to have him
back when his time expires at Gap.
But I anticipate--George seems to know his business and the first run
through these crowded streets places my mind at rest on that score.
Motor cars in Paris are lords of the way,--the police pay no attention
to them, and just why each day is not marked by fatal accidents all
over the city passes my comprehension. Apparently there is no limit
placed upon their speed. Yesterday I saw one enter the city and fly up
the Avenue of the Grand Army at certainly fifty miles an hour. That
wide thoroughfare was crowded, yet no accident happened, and the car,
rounding the arch, fled away down the avenue of the Champs-Élysées at
the same furious pace. In the old days, Paris was considered dangerous
for pedestrians, because of its cabs and carriages. To-day one waves
them aside as one would a fly and pauses only for an auto car, for _it_
will not pause for you and it is very heavy. I confess my first ride
down this Avenue in the car of one living in Paris tested my nerve. I
held on for dear life, and fairly shrieked two or three times at what I
thought was wilful murder. When we reached the Hôtel Ritz I descended
in a shaking condition, and I had been used to a high rate of progress
for two solid months.
Personally, I do not care for such speeding and will not permit it
with my car for many reasons aside from the danger, but most of these
people have taken as their motto, "A short life and a merry one,"--all
of which may have one good result, it will save tremendous funeral
expenses, for there will be little left to bury.