Chapter XX: The English and Their Institutions 355 (2)

The village of Beaugency, which we passed about midway between Tours and Orleans, is one that will arrest the attention of the casual passerby. It is more reminiscent of the castellated small town of England than one often finds in France. It is overshadowed by a huge Norman keep with sheltered, ivy-grown parapets, the sole remaining portion of an eleventh-century castle. The remainder of the present castle was built as a stronghold against the English, only to be taken by them shortly after its completion. The invaders, however, were driven out by the French army under Joan of Arc in 1429. The bridge at Beaugency is the oldest on the Loire, having spanned the river since the thirteenth century. The town has stood several sieges and was the scene of terrible excesses in the religious wars of the sixteenth century, the abbey having been burned by the Protestants in 1567.

Towards evening we again come to the river bank and ere long the towers of Orleans break on our view. Despite its great antiquity the city appears quite modern, for it has been so rebuilt that but few of its ancient landmarks remain. Even the cathedral is a modern restoration--almost in toto--and there is scarcely a complete building in the town antedating 1500. The main streets are broad and well-paved and electric trams run on many of them. Our hotel, the Grand Aignan, is rather old-fashioned and somewhat dingy, but it is clean and comfortable and its rates are not exorbitant. There is a modern and more fashionable hotel in the city, but we have learned that second-class inns in cities of medium size are often good and much easier on one's purse.

Our first thought, when we begin our after-dinner ramble, is that Orleans should change its name to Jeanne d'Arcville. I know of no other instance where a city of seventy thousand people is so completely dominated by a single name. The statues, the streets, the galleries, museums, churches and shops--all remind one of the immortal Maid who made her first triumphal entry into Orleans in 1429, when the city was hard pressed by the English besiegers. Every postcard and souvenir urged upon the visitor has something to do with the patron saint of the town and, after a little, one falls in with the spirit of the place, rejoicing that the memories of Orleans are only of success and triumph and forgetting Rouen's dark chapter of defeat and death.

In the morning we first go to the cathedral--an ornate and imposing church, though one that the critics have dealt with rather roughly. It faces the wide Rue Jeanne d'Arc--again Orleans' charmed name--and it seems to us that the whole vast structure might well be styled a memorial to the immortal Maid of France. The facade is remarkable for its Late-Gothic towers, nearly three hundred feet high, while between them to the rear rises the central spire, some fifty feet higher. There are three great portals beneath massive arches, rising perhaps one-fourth the height of the towers, and above each of these is an immense rose window. Perhaps the design as a whole is not according to the best architectural tenets, but the cathedral seems grand to such unsophisticated critics as ourselves. Being a rather late restoration, it does not show the wear and tear of the ages, like so many of its ancient rivals, and perhaps loses a little charm on this account. The vast vaultlike interior is quite free from obstructions to one's vision and is lighted by windows of beautifully toned modern glass. These depict scenes in the life of Joan of Arc, beginning with the appearance of her heavenly monitors and ending with her martyrdom at the stake. The designing is of remarkably high order and the color toning is much more effective than one often finds in modern glass. There are a number of paintings and images, many of them referring to the career of the now venerated Maid. The usual gaudy chapels and altars of French cathedrals are in evidence, though none are especially interesting.

Orleans has several other churches and all pay some tribute to the heroine of the town. A small part of St. Peter's dates from the ninth century, one of the few relics of antiquity to be found in Orleans. The Hotel de Ville, built about 1530, has a beautiful marble figure of Joan in the court, and an equestrian statue of the Maid is in the Grand Salon of the building, representing her horse in the act of trampling a mortally wounded Englishman. Both of these statues are the work of Princess Marie of Orleans--a scion of the old royal family of France. The Hotel de Ville also recalls a memory of Mary Stuart; here in 1560 her boy-husband, Francis II., expired in the arms of his wife, and her career was soon transferred from the French court to its no less troubled and cruel contemporary in Scotland. The town possesses an unusually good museum, which includes a large historical collection, and the gallery contains a number of paintings and sculptures of real merit. Of course one will wish to see the house where the patron saint of the town lodged, and this may be found at No. 37 Rue de Tabour. There is also on the same street the Musee Jeanne d'Arc, which contains a number of relics and paintings relating to the heroine and her times.

But for all the worship of Joan of Arc in Orleans, she was not a native of the place and actually spent only a short time within the walls of the old city. The Maid was born in the little village of Domremy in Lorraine, some two hundred miles eastward, where her humble birthplace may still be seen and which we hope to visit when we make our next incursion into France.

III

ORLEANS TO THE GERMAN BORDER

We have no more delightful run in France than our easy jaunt from Orleans to Nevers. We still follow the Loire Valley, though the road only occasionally brings us in sight of the somewhat diminished river. The distance is but ninety-six miles over the most perfect of roads and we proceed leisurely, often pausing to admire the landscapes--beautiful beyond any ability of mine to adequately describe. The roadside resembles a well-kept lawn; it is bordered by endless rows of majestic trees and on either hand are fertile fields which show every evidence of the careful work of the farmer. The silken sheen of bearded wheat and rye is dotted with crimson poppies and starred with pale-blue cornflowers. At times the poppies have gained the mastery and burn like a spot of flame amidst the emerald-green of the fields. Patches of dark-red clover lend another color variation, and here and there are dashes of bright yellow or gleaming white of buttercups and daisies. With such surroundings and on such a clear, exhilarating day our preconceived ideals of the beauty of Summer France suffer no disenchantment.

Cosne is an old river town now rather dominated by manufactories and here Pope Pius VII. sojourned when he came to France upon the neighborly invitation of Napoleon I. He stopped at the Hotel du Cerf, but we try the Moderne for luncheon, which proves unusually good.

About three o'clock we reach Nevers and a sudden thunder shower determines us to stop for the night at the Hotel de France. Outside it is quite unpretending, though queer ornamental panels between the windows and a roof of moss-green tiles redeem it somewhat from the commonplace. We have no reason to repent our decision, for the rambling old inn is scrupulously clean and the service has the personal touch that indicates the watchful eye of a managing proprietor. We are somewhat surprised to see a white-clad chef very much in evidence about the hotel and even taking a lively interest in guests who have suffered a break-down and are wrestling with their car in the stable-yard garage. We learn that this chef is the proprietor, and his wife, an English woman, is the manageress. The combination is an effective one; English-speaking guests are made very much at home and the excellence of the meals is sufficient proof of the competence of the proprietor-chef.

Nevers has a cathedral dating in part from the twelfth century, though the elaborate tower with its host of sculptured prophets, apostles and saints was built some three hundred years later. The most notable relic of mediaevalism in the town is the queer old Port du Croux, a fourteenth-century watch-tower which one time formed part of the fortifications. It is a noble example of mediaeval defense--a tall gateway tower with long lancet openings and two pointed turrets flanking the steep, tile-covered roof. The ducal palace and the Hotel de Ville are also interesting old-time structures, though neither is of great historic importance. The history of Nevers is in sharp contrast with the checkered career of its neighbor, Orleans, being quite uneventful and prosaic. It is a quiet place to-day, its chief industry being the potteries, which have been in existence some centuries.

The next day, thirty miles on the road to Autun, we experience our first break-down in eighteen thousand miles of motoring in Europe--that is, a break-down that means we must abandon the car for the time. Near the little village of Tamnay-Chatillon an axle-rod breaks and a new one must be made before we can proceed. Our objective point, Dijon, is the nearest place where we will be likely to find facilities for repair and we resolve to go thither by train. We have been so delayed that train-time is past and we shall have to pass the night at the village inn. It is extremely annoying at the time, though in retrospect we are glad of our experience with at least one very small country road-house in France. The inn people spare no effort to make us as comfortable as possible and we have had many worse meals in good-sized cities than is served to us this evening. Our beds, though apparently clean, are not very restful, but we are too weary to be excessively critical. The next morning, leaving the crippled car in the stable-yard, we take the train for Dijon. The Captain carries the broken axle-rod as a pattern and soon after our arrival a workman is shaping a new one from a steel bar. And in this connection I might remark that we found the average French mechanic quick and intelligent, with almost an intuitive understanding of a piece of machinery. Our job proves slower than we anticipated; the work can be done by only one man at a time and it is not completed before midnight of the following day.

In the meanwhile we have established ourselves at the Grand Hotel de la Cloche, a pretentious--and, as it proves, a very expensive stopping-place. We have large, well-furnished rooms which afford an outlook upon a small park fronting the hotel. Our enforced leisure allows us considerably more time to look about Dijon than we have been giving to such towns and we endeavor to make the most of it. The town is one of the military centers of France, being defended by no fewer than eight detached forts, and we see numerous companies of soldiers on the streets.

The museum, we are assured, is the greatest "object of interest" in the city and, indeed, it comes up to the claims made for it. The municipal art gallery contains possibly the best provincial collection of paintings in France--an endless array of pictures of priceless value, representing the greatest names of French art. There is also a splendid showing of sculpture, occupying five separate rooms. The marble tombs of Philip the Brave and John the Fearless, old-time dukes of Burgundy, are wonderful creations. They were originally in the Church of Chartreuse, destroyed in 1793, when the tombs were removed to the cathedral in a somewhat damaged condition. They were later placed in the museum and restored as nearly as possible to their original state. Both have a multitude of marble statuettes, every one a distinct artistic study--some representing mourners for the deceased--and each little face has some peculiar and characteristic expression of grief. The strong contrast of white and black marbles is relieved by judicious gilding and, altogether, we count these the most elaborate and artistic mediaeval tombs we have seen, if we except the Percy monument at Beverly in England. The museum also has an important archaeological collection, including a number of historical relics found in the vicinity, for the city dates back to Roman times. The showing of coins, gems, vases, ivory, cabinets and jewelry would do credit to any metropolitan museum. And all this in a town of but seventy-five thousand people--which shows how far the French municipalities have advanced in such matters. Dijon is no exception in this regard, though other cities of the class may not quite equal this collection, which I have described in merest outline.

Dijon has several churches of the first order, though none of them has any notable distinguishing feature. The Cathedral of St. Benigne is the oldest, dating in its present form from about 1280, though there are portions which go back still farther. It was originally built as an abbey church, but the remainder of the abbatial buildings have disappeared. St. Michael's Church is some four hundred years later than the cathedral, and has, according to the guide-books, a Renaissance facade, though it seems to us to be better described as a Moorish adaptation of the Gothic style. At any rate, it is an inartistic and unattractive structure and illustrates the poor results often attained in too great an effort after the unusual. Notre Dame is about the same date as the cathedral, though it has been so extensively restored as to have quite a new appearance. Its most remarkable feature is its queer statuettes--nearly a hundred little figures contorted into endless expressions and attitudes--which serve as gargoyles. The churches of Dijon are not particularly noteworthy for their interiors and none has especially good windows. Our extended sojourn in the city enables us to visit a number of shops, for which we have heretofore found little time. These are well-stocked and attractive and quite in keeping with a city of the size of Dijon. According to Herr Baedeker, the town is famous "for wine and corn, and its mustard and gingerbread enjoy a wide reputation."

The Captain and myself take an early train for Tamnay-Chatillon and have the satisfaction of finding the new axle-rod a perfect fit. We enjoy the open car and the fine road more than ever after our enforced experience with the railway train. The country between Tamnay and Dijon is rolling and the road often winds up or down a great hill for two or three miles at a stretch, always with even and well-engineered gradients that insure an easy climb or a long exhilarating coast. There are many glorious panoramas from the hill-crests--wide reaches of hill and valley, with groves and vineyards and red-tiled villages nestling in wooded vales or lying on the sunny slopes. Most of the towns remain unknown to us by name, but the Captain points out Chateau Chinon clinging to a rather steep hillside and overshadowed by the vast ruined castle which once defended it. A portion of the old wall with three watch-towers still stands--the whole effect being very grim and ancient. Near the town of Pommard the hills are literally "vine-clad,"--vineyards everywhere running up to the very edge of the town.

The Hotel St. Louis et de la Poste at Autun does not present a very attractive exterior, but it proves a pleasant surprise and we are hungry enough to do justice to an excellent luncheon, having breakfasted in Dijon at five o'clock. Autun has an unusual cathedral--"a curious building of the transition period"--some parts of which go back as far as the tenth century. The beautiful Gothic spire--the first object to greet our eyes when approaching the town--was built about 1470. Portions of the old fortifications still remain. St. Andrew's Gate, partly a restoration, is an imposing portal pierced by four archways and forms one of the main entrances. There is also the usual museum and Hotel de Ville to be found in all enterprising provincial towns of France.

Beyond Autun the character of the country changes again; we come into a less prosperous section, intersected by stone fences which cut the rocky hillsides into small irregular fields. We pass an occasional bare-looking village and one or two ruined chateaus and we remark on the scarcity of ruins in France, so far as we have seen it, as compared with England. A more fertile and thriving country surrounds Dijon, which we reach in the late afternoon.

We have had quite enough of Dijon, but we shall remain until morning; an early start should carry us well toward the German frontier before night. We find some terribly rough roads to Gray and Vesoul--macadam which has begun to disintegrate. The country grows quite hilly and while, in the words of the old hymn, "every prospect pleases," we are indeed tempted to add that "only man is vile." For the filthiness of some of the villages and people can only be designated as unspeakable; if I should describe in plain language the conditions we behold, my book might be excluded from the mails! The houses of these miserable little hamlets stretch in single file along both sides of the broad highway. In one end of the house lives the family and in the other the domestic animals--pigs, cows and donkeys. Along the road on each side the muck-piles are almost continuous and reach to the windows of the cottages. Recent rains have flooded the streets with seepage, which covers the road to a depth of two or three inches, and the odors may be imagined--if one feels adequate to such a task. The muck is drained into pools and cisterns from which huge wooden or iron pumps tower above the street. By means of these the malodorous liquid is elevated into wagon-tanks to be hauled away to the fields. And this work is usually done by the women! In fact, women are accorded equal privileges with a vengeance in this part of rural France--they outnumber the men in the fields and no occupation appears too heavy or degraded for them to engage in. We see many of the older ones herding domestic animals--or even geese and ducks--by the roadside. Sometimes it is only a single animal--a cow, donkey, goat or pig--that engages the old crone, who is usually knitting as well. The pigs, no doubt because of their headstrong proclivities, are usually confined by a cord held by their keepers, and with one of these we have an amusing adventure. The pig becomes unruly, heading straight for our car, and only a vigorous application of the brakes prevents disaster to the obstreperous brute. But the guardian of his hogship--who has been hauled around pretty roughly while hanging to the cord--is in a towering rage and screams no end of scathing language at us. "You, too, are pigs," is one of her compliments which the Captain translates, and he says it is just as well to let some of her remarks stand in the original!

As we approach Remiremont, where we propose to stop for the night, we enter the great range of hills which form the boundary between France and Germany and which afford many fine vistas. Endless pine forests clothe the hillsides and deep narrow valleys slope away from the road which winds upward along the edges of the hills. Remiremont is a pleasant old frontier town lying along the Moselle River at the base of a fortified hill two thousand feet in height. It is cleaner than the average French town of ten thousand and clear streams of mountain water run alongside many of its streets. The Hotel du Cheval de Bronze seems a solid, comfortable old inn and we turn into the courtyard for our nightly stop. The courtyard immediately adjoins the hotel apartments on the rear and is not entirely free from objectionable odors--our only complaint against the Cheval de Bronze. Our rooms front on the street, the noise being decidedly preferable to the assortment of smells in the rear. The town has nothing to detain one, and is rather unattractive, despite its pleasing appearance from a distance. On the main street near our hotel are the arcades, which have a considerable resemblance to the famous rows of Chester.

We are awakened early in the morning by the tramp of a large company of soldiers along the street, for Remiremont, being so near the frontier, is heavily garrisoned. These French soldiers we have seen everywhere, in the towns and on the roads, enough of them to remind us that the country is really a vast military camp. They are rather undersized, as a rule, and their attire is often slouchy and worse for wear. Their bearing seems to us anything but soldierly as they shuffle along the streets. Perhaps we remember this the more because of the contrast we see in Germany a little later. A good authority, however, tells us that the French army is in a fine state of preparedness and would give a good account of itself if called into action.

We are early away from Remiremont on a fine road winding among the pine-clad hills. Some sixteen miles out of the town we find a splendid hotel at Gerardmer on a beautiful little lake of the same name in the Vosges Forest, where we should no doubt have had quite different service from the Cheval de Bronze. We have no regrets, however, since Remiremont is worth seeing as a typical small frontier town. At Gerardmer we begin the long climb over the mountain pass which crosses the German border; there are several miles of the ascent and in some places the grades are steep enough to seriously heat the motor. We stop many times on the way and there is a clear little stream by the roadside from which we replenish the water in the heated engine. The air grows cooler and more bracing as we ascend and though it is a fine June day, we see banks of snow along the road. On either side are great pine trees, through which we catch occasional glimpses of wooded hills and verdant valleys lying far beneath us. Despite the cool air, flowers bloom along the road and the ascent, though rather strenuous, is a delightful one.

At the summit we come to the customs offices of the two countries, a few yards apart. Here we bid farewell to France and slip across the border into the Fatherland, as its natives so love to call it. A wonderful old official, who seems to embody all the dignity and power of the empire he serves, comes out of the customs house. His flowing gray beard is a full yard long and the stem of his mighty porcelain pipe is still longer. He is clad in a faultless uniform and wears a military cap bespangled with appropriate emblems--altogether, a marvel of that official glory in which the Germans so delight. His functions, however, do not correspond with his personal splendor, for he only officially countersigns our Royal Automobile Club passport, delivers us a pair of number plates and, lastly, collects a fee of some fifteen marks. He gives us a certificate showing that we are now entitled to travel the highways of the empire for two weeks, and should we remain longer we shall have to pay an additional fee on leaving the country. The Captain waves an approved military adieu, to which the official solemnly responds and we set out in search of adventure in the land of the Kaiser.

IV

COLMAR TO OBERAMMERGAU

Had we crossed a sea instead of an imaginary dividing line we could hardly have found a more abrupt change in the characteristics of people and country than we discover when we descend into the broad green valley of the Rhine. We have a series of fine views as we glide down the easy grades and around the sweeping curves of the splendid road that leads from the crest to the wide plain along the river--glimpses of towns and villages lying far beneath, beyond long stretches of wooded hills. On our way we meet peasants driving teams of huge horses hitched to heavy logging wagons. The horses go into a panic at the sight of the car and the drivers seem even more panicky than the brutes; it is quite apparent that the motor is not so common in Germany as in England and France.

The province of Alsace, by which we enter Germany, was held by France from the time of Napoleon until 1871, but it never entirely lost its German peculiarities during the French occupation. Its villages and farmhouses are distinctly Teutonic, though the larger towns show more traces of French influence. Colmar, some twenty miles from the border, is the first city--a place of about forty thousand people and interesting to Americans as the birthplace of the sculptor, Bartholdi, who designed the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. It is a substantially built town with an enormous Gothic church and its museum has a famous collection of pictures by early German masters.

A few miles from Colmar we come to the Rhine, so famed in German song and story, a green, rushing flood that seems momentarily to threaten the destruction of the pontoon bridge which bears us across. Beyond the river the level but poorly surfaced road leads to Freiburg, a handsome city of about seventy-five thousand people. It is a noted manufacturing town and has an ancient university with about two thousand students. Its cathedral is one of the finest Gothic structures in Germany, the great tower, three hundred and eighty feet in height, being the earliest and most perfect of its kind. The windows of fourteenth-century glass are particularly fine and there are many remarkable paintings of a little later date. The city has other important churches and many beautiful public buildings and monuments. Indeed, Freiburg is a good example of the neatness, cleanliness and civic pride that prevails in most of the larger German cities. It has many excellent hotels and we have a well-served luncheon at the Victoria. We should stop for the day at Freiburg were it not for our unexpected delay at Dijon; we must hasten if we are to reach Oberammergau in time for our reservations. In the three remaining daylight hours we make a swift run to Tuttlingen, some sixty miles eastward, passing several small villages and two good-sized towns, Neustadt and Donaueschingen, on the way. The latter is near the head waters of the Danube, and from here we follow the river to Tuttlingen. We pass through a beautifully wooded country and several inns along the way indicate that this section is a frequented pleasure resort. There are many charming panoramas from the road, which in places swings around the hillsides some distance above the river.

Had we known the fate in store for us at Tuttlingen, we should surely have stopped at one of the hotels which we hastily passed in our dash for that town. But we reach it just at dusk--a place of about fifteen thousand people--and turn in rather dubiously at the unattractive Post Hotel. If the Post is a fair sample of the country inns of Germany, the tourist should keep clear of country inns when possible. On entering we meet an assortment of odors not especially conducive to good appetite for the evening meal, and this proves of the kind that requires a good appetite. We are hungry, but not hungry enough to eat the Post's fare with anything like relish and we are haunted by considerable misgivings about the little we do consume. The Post, however, does not lack patronage, though it seems to come mainly from German commercial men who are seeking trade in the thriving town.

We are away early in the morning, following a rough, neglected road some dozen miles to Ludwigshaven at the head of Lake Constance, or the Boden See, as the Germans style it. A new highway leading down to the lake shore is not yet open, though nearly ready, and we descend over a temporary road which winds among tree stumps and drops down twenty per cent grades for a couple of miles. We are thankful that we have only the descent to make; I doubt whether our forty-horse engine would ever have pulled us up the "bank," as a Yorkshire man would describe it.

But having reached the level of the lake, we find a splendid road closely following the shore for forty miles and affording views of some of the finest and most famous scenery in Europe. In all our journeyings we have had few more glorious runs. The clear balmy June day floods everything with light and color. The lake lies still and blue as the heavens above, and beyond its shining expanse rise the snow-capped forms of the Swiss Alps, their rugged ranks standing sharply against the silvery horizon. At their feet stretches the green line of the shore and above it the dense shadows of the pines that cover the slopes to the snow line. It is a scene of inspiring beauty that one sees to best advantage from the open road. Near at hand green fields stretch to the hills, no great distance away, and the belated fruit-tree blossoms load the air with perfume. Hay-making is in progress in the little fields--women swing the scythes or handle the rakes and pitchforks while staid old cows draw the heavy, awkward carts. There are several pleasant little towns along the shore, rather neater and cleaner than the average German village, though even these are not free from occasional touches of filthiness. Near the center of the lake is Friedrichshafen, a popular resort with numerous hotels. There is a beautiful drive along the lake, bordered with shrubs and trees, and fronting on this is the comfortable-looking Deutsches Haus, surrounded by gardens which extend to the shore. We remember the Deutsches Haus particularly, since on its glass-enclosed veranda we are served with an excellent luncheon. As we resume our journey, feeling at peace with the world, and open up a little on the smooth lakeside road, the Captain exclaims:

"If I had all the money I could possibly want, do you know what I'd do? I'd just buy a motor, don't you know, and do nothing on earth but tour about Europe!"

And we all agree that under such conditions and on such a day his proposed vocation seems an ideal one.

Friedrichshafen, I should have said, was the home of Count Zeppelin of airship fame, and as we passed through the town his immense craft was being made ready for an experimental trip. It was then attracting much attention in Germany and was the precourser of the only line of commercial airships now in existence.

Lindau, a small resort built on an island about three hundred yards from the shore, marks the point of our departure from Lake Constance. We enter the town over a narrow causeway which connects it with the main road, but find little to detain us. We climb the steep winding road leading out of the valley and for the remainder of the day our course wends among the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. It proves a delightful run; we witness constantly changing displays of color and glorious effects of light and shadow. Thunder storms are raging in the mountains and at intervals they sweep down and envelop our road in a dash of summer rain. Above us tower the majestic Alps; in places the dazzling whiteness of the snow still lies against the barren rocks or amidst the dense green of the pines, while above the summits roll blue-gray cumulus clouds glowing with vivid lightning or brilliant with occasional bursts of sunshine. Near at hand stretch green meadows of the foothills, variegated with great splashes of blue or yellow flowers as though some giant painter had swept his brush across the landscape. The effect is shown with striking fidelity in the picture by the late John MacWhirter R. A. which I have reproduced, though it is quite impossible on so small a scale to give an adequate idea of the original canvas--much less of the enchanting scene itself.

Among the foothills and often well up the mountainsides are the characteristic chalets of Tyrol and an occasional ruined castle crowns some seemingly inaccessible rock. We pass several quaint little towns and many isolated houses, all very different from any we have seen elsewhere. The houses are mostly of plaster and often ornamented with queer designs and pictures in brilliant colors. The people are picturesque, too; the women and girls dress in the peculiar costume of the country; the men wear knitted jackets and knee pants with silver buckles and their peaked hats are often decorated with a feather or two.

Our road averages fair, though a few short stretches are desperately bad--this unevenness we have noted in German roads generally. In one place where the rain has been especially heavy we plunge through a veritable quagmire, and we find spots so rough and stony as to make very uncomfortable going. We finally strike the fine highway which follows the River Lech and brings us into the mountain town of Fussen. It is a snug little place of some five thousand people, nestling in a narrow valley through which rushes a swift, emerald-green river. The Bayerischer-Hof proves a pleasant surprise; one of the cleanest, brightest and best-conducted inns we have found anywhere. Our large, well-lighted rooms afford a magnificent view of the snow-capped mountains, which seem only a little distance away. The landlord, a fine-looking, full-bearded native who speaks English fluently, gives the touch of personal attention that one so much appreciates in the often monotonous round of hotel life. To the rear of the hotel is a beer-garden where brilliant lights and good music in the evening attract the guests and townspeople in considerable numbers. Several other American motor parties stop at the hotel and we especially notice one French car because it carries nine people--and it is not a large car, either! The Bayerischer-Hof is first-class in every particular, and we find when we come to depart that the charges are first-class, too. The Captain is exasperated when we are asked sixty cents per gallon for "benzin" and says we will chance doing better on the way--a decision which, as it happens, causes us no little grief and some expense.

Fussen has an impressive Gothic castle--a vast, turreted, towered, battlemented affair with gray walls and red-tiled roof which looms over the town from the slope above the river. I fear, though, that the castle is a good deal of a sham, for there are spots where the stucco has fallen from the walls, revealing wooden lath beneath, and while in Fussen they call it a "thirteenth-century" building, Baedeker gives its date as two or three hundred years later. It was never intended as a defensive structure, being originally built as the residence of the Bishop of Augsburg. It is now occupied by the district court and the interior is hardly worth a visit.

Oberammergau lies over the mountain to the east of Fussen, scarcely ten miles away in a direct line, but to reach it we are compelled to go by the way of Schongau, about four times as far. We pursue a narrow, sinuous mountain road, very muddy in places. We have been warned of one exceptionally bad hill--a twenty-five per cent grade, according to the Royal Automobile Club itinerary--but we give the matter little thought. It proves a straight incline of half a mile and about midway the sharp ascent our motor gasps and comes to a sudden stop. We soon ascertain that the angle is too great for the gasoline to flow from the nearly empty tank, and we regret the Captain's economy at Fussen. A number of peasants gather about us to stare at our predicament, but they show nothing of the amusement that an American crowd would find in such a situation. A woman engages the Captain in conversation and informs us that she is the owner of a good team of horses, which will be the best solution of our difficulties. "Wie viel?" Seventy-five marks, or about eighteen dollars, looks right to her and she sticks to her price, too. Her only response to the Captain's indignant protests is that she keeps a road-house at the top of the hill, where he can find her if he decides we need her services. And she departs in the lordly manner of one who has delivered an ultimatum from which there is no appeal. A peasant tells us that the woman makes a good income fleecing stranded motorists and that the German automobile clubs have published warnings against her. He says that a farmer near by will help us out for the modest sum of ten marks and offers to bring him to the scene; he also consoles us by telling us that five cars besides our own have stalled on the hill during the day. The farmer arrives before long with a spanking big team, which gives us the needed lift, and the grade soon permits the motor to get in its work.

We reach Oberammergau about two o'clock, only to find another instance where the Captain's economical tendency has worked to our disadvantage. He had declined to pay the price asked by Cook's agency in London for reservation of rooms and seats for the Passion Play and had arranged for these with a German firm, Shenker & Co. at Freiburg. On inquiring at the office of the concern in the village we find no record of our reservations and no tickets to be had. "Shenker is surely a 'rotter,'" says the Captain, immensely disgusted, and it requires no small effort to find quarters, but we at last secure tiny rooms in a peasant's cottage in the outskirts of the village. Tickets we finally obtain by an earnest appeal at Cook's offices, though at considerable premium.

Our quarters are almost primitive in their plainness, but they are tolerably clean; the meals, served in a large dining-hall not far away, are only fair. The people of Oberammergau, our landlord says, face a difficult problem in caring for the Passion Play crowds. These come but once in ten years and during the intervening time visitors to the town are comparatively few. Yet the villagers must care for the great throngs of play years, though many apartments and lodging-houses must stand empty during the interval and the only wonder is that charges are so moderate.

The regular population of Oberammergau is less than two thousand, though during the play it presents the appearance of a much larger place. The houses are nearly all of the prevailing Bavarian style, with wide, overhanging eaves and white walls often decorated with brightly colored frescoes. Through the center of the village rushes the Ammer, a clear, swift mountain stream which sometimes works havoc when flooded. The church is modern, but its Moorish tower and rococo decorations do not impress us as especially harmonious and there is little artistic or pleasing in the angular lines of the new theatre. The shops keep open on every day of the week, including Sunday, until nearly midnight. These are filled with carvings, pottery, postcards and endless trinkets for the souvenir-seeking tourist and perhaps yield more profit to the town than the play itself. There are several good-sized inns, but one has no chance of lodging in one of them unless quarters have been engaged months in advance--not very practicable when coming by motor.

One will best appreciate the magnificent situation of the village from a vantage-point on one of the mountains which encompass the wide green valley on every side. On the loftiest crag of all gleams a tall white cross--surely a fit emblem to first greet the stranger who comes to Oberammergau. In the center of the vale is the village, the clean white-walled houses grouped irregularly about the huge church, which forms the social center of the place. The dense green of the trees, the brighter green of the window-shutters, the red and gray-tile roofs and the swift river cleaving its way through the town, afford a pleasing variety of color to complete the picture. The surrounding green pastures with the herds of cattle are the property of the villagers--nearly every family of this thrifty community is a landholder. The scene is a quiet, peaceful one, such as suits the character of the people who inhabit this lovely vale.

And these same villagers, simple and unpretentious as they are, will hardly fail to favorably impress the stranger. The Tyrolese costume is everywhere in evidence and there is a large predominance of full-bearded men, for the play-actors are not allowed to resort to wigs and false whiskers. They exhibit the peculiarities of the Swiss rather than the Germans and their manners and customs are simple and democratic in the extreme. While the head of the community is nominally the burgomaster, the real government is vested in the householders. The freedom from envy and strife is indeed remarkable; quarrels are unknown and very few of the inhabitants are so selfish as to seek for honor or wealth. The greatest distinction that can come to any of them is an important part in the play; yet there is never any contention or bitterness over the allotments. It would be hard to find elsewhere a community more seriously happy, more healthful or morally better than Oberammergau.

I shall not write at length of the world-famous play. It has been so well and widely described that I could add but little new. It is interesting as the sole survival of a vast number of mediaeval miracle plays, though it has cast off the coarser features and progressed into a really artistic production. I must first of all plead my own ignorance of the true spirit and marvelous beauty of the play ere I saw it. I thought it the crude production of a community of ignorant peasants who were shrewd enough to turn their religion into a money-making scheme and I freely declared that I would scarcely cross the street to witness it. But when the great chorus of three hundred singers appeared in the prelude that glorious Sunday morning, I began to realize how mistaken I had been. And as the play progressed I was more and more impressed with its solemn sincerity, its artistic staging and its studied harmony of coloring. Indeed, in the last named particular it brought vividly to mind the rich yet subdued tones of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and the effect of the rare old tapestries one occasionally finds in the museums. The tableaux in many cases closely followed some famous picture--as Leonardo DaVinci's "Last Supper" or Rubens' "Descent from the Cross,"--all perfectly carried out in coloring and spirit. The costumes were rich and carefully studied, giving doubtless a true picture of the times of Christ. The acting was the perfection of naturalness and the crude and ridiculous features of the early miracle plays--and, not so very long ago, of the Passion Play itself--have been gradually dropped until scarce a trace of them remains. The devil no longer serves the purpose of the clown, having altogether disappeared; and even the tableau of Jonah and the whale, though given in the printed programs, was omitted, evidently from a sense of its ridiculousness. I found myself strangely affected by the simple story of the play. One indeed might imagine that he saw a real bit of the ancient world were it not for the great steel arches bending above him and the telephone wires stretching across the blue sky over the stage.

But I think the best proof of the real human interest of the play is that it held the undivided attention of five thousand spectators for eight long hours on a spring day whose perfect beauty was a strong lure to the open sky. And it did this not only for one day but for weeks, later in the summer requiring an almost continuous daily performance. And, having seen it once, I have no doubt the greater number of spectators would gladly witness it again, for so great a work of art cannot be grasped from a single performance.

Of course Oberammergau has not escaped the critics, but I fancy the majority of them are, like myself before our visit to the town, quite ignorant of the facts as well as the true spirit of the people. The commonest charge is that the play is a money-making scheme on the part of the promoters, but the fact is that the people are poor and remain poor. The actual profits from the play are not large and these are devoted to some public work, as the new theatre, the hospital and the good cause of public roads. The salaries paid the players are merely nominal, in no case exceeding a few hundred marks. The only source of private profit comes from the sale of souvenirs and the entertaining of visitors, but this can not be great, considering that the harvest comes only once in a decade. The play is "commercialized" only to the extent of placing it on a paying basis and if this were not the case there could be no performance. The very fear of this charge kept the villagers up to 1910 from placing their tickets and reservations in the hands of Cook and other tourist agencies, though they were finally persuaded to yield in this as an accommodation to the public. The most effective answer to the assertion that the chief end of the play is money-making may be found in the constant refusal of the villagers to produce it elsewhere than in Oberammergau. Offers of fabulous sums from promoters in England and the United States for the production of the play in the large centers of these countries have been steadily refused, and the actors have pursued their humble avocations in their quiet little town quite content with their meager earnings. Nor have they yielded to the temptation to give the play oftener, though it would be immensely profitable if presented every year or even every alternate year.

We leave the little mountain-girdled valley with a new conception of its Passion Play and its unique, happy people. The majestic spectacle we have witnessed during our stay will linger with us so long as life shall last and it can never be otherwise than a pleasant and inspiring memory.

V

BAVARIA AND THE RHINE

Munich is sixty miles north of Oberammergau and the road is better than the average of German highways. For some distance out of the village we pursue a winding course among the mountains, which affords some glorious vistas of wooded vales and snow-capped Alps while we descend to the wide plain surrounding Munich. We pass through several sleepy-looking villages, though they prove sufficiently wide-awake to collect a toll of two or three marks for the privilege of traversing their streets. A well-surfaced highway bordered by trees leads us into the broad streets of Munich, where we repair to the Continental Hotel.

We remain here several days and have the opportunity of closely observing the Bavarian capital. We unhesitatingly pronounce it the cleanest, most artistic and most substantial city we have ever seen. A number of drives through the main streets and environs reveal little in the nature of slums; even the poorest quarters of the city are solidly built and clean, and next to its beautiful buildings and artistic monuments the cleanliness of Munich seems to us most noteworthy. Perhaps the ladies should be given credit for this--not the members of the women's clubs, who are often supposed to influence civic affairs for the better, but the old women who do the sweeping and scrubbing of the streets, for we see them in every part of the city. This spick-and-span cleanliness of the larger German cities forms a sharp contrast to the filth and squalor of the villages, some of which are even worse than anything we saw in France--but of this more anon.

Munich has a population of more than a half million, and having been built within the last century, is essentially modern. It has many notable public buildings, mainly in the German Gothic style--the Rathhaus, with its queer clock which sets a number of life-size automatons in motion every time it strikes the hour, being the most familiar to tourists. The Royal Palace and the National Theatre are splendid structures and the latter is famous for grand opera, in which the Germans take great delight. Munich ranks as an important art capital, having several galleries and museums, among which the Bavarian National and German Museum are the most notable. There are numerous public gardens and parks, all kept with the trim neatness that characterizes the entire city. And one must not forget the beer-gardens, which play so large a part in German life; the whole population frequents these open-air drinking-places, where beer and other refreshments are served at small tables underneath the trees. The best feature of these is the excellent music which is an invariable accompaniment and Munich is famous for its musicians. The most proficient of these think it no detraction to perform in the beer-gardens, which are attended by the best people of all classes; students, artists, professors, business and military men make up a large proportion of the patrons of these resorts. The gardens are conducted by the big brewers and Munich beer is famous the world over. There is comparatively little manufacturing in the city, though we noted one exceptionally large iron foundry and a great engine works.

During our stay we took occasion to have our car overhauled at a public garage and were impressed with the intelligence and efficiency of the German mechanics. They were usually large, fine-looking fellows, always good-natured and accommodating. The wages paid them are quite small as compared with those of American mechanics, being about one-third as much. At four o'clock in the afternoon everything stops for a quarter of an hour while the workmen indulge in a pot of beer and a slice or two of black bread. We saw this in a large foundry, where several hundred men were employed and were told that the custom is universal.

The Captain, while admitting that most of the German workmen were very good fellows, often treated them in a supercilious manner that I fear sometimes worked against our interests. In fact, the Captain's dislike of everything German was decidedly pronounced and the sight of a company of soldiers usually put him in an ill humor. "I'll have to take a crack at those fellows some time, myself," he would say, in the firm conviction that war between England and Germany was inevitable.

He was not put in a better state of feeling towards our Teutonic hosts when he came to pay the bill at the Continental. Through carelessness unusual on his part, he neglected to have an iron-clad understanding when he engaged accommodations and we had to suffer in consequence. He made a vigorous protest without appreciable effect on the suave clerk, who assured us that the rates of the Continental were quite like the laws of the Medes and the Persians. They were high--yes; but only persons of quality were received. Indeed, a princess and a baroness were among the guests at that moment and he hinted that many applicants were turned away because their appearance did not meet the requirements of the Continental. "We just look them over," said the clerk, "and if we don't like them we tell them we are full." All of which the Captain translated to us, though I should judge from his vehemence in replying to the clerk that he used some language which he did not repeat--perhaps it had no equivalent in English. But it was all to no purpose; we paid the bill and were free to get whatever comfort we could from the reflection that we had been fellow-guests with a princess. "I saw her one day," said the Captain. "She was smoking a cigarette in the parlor and I offered her one of mine, which she declined, though she talked with me very civilly for a few minutes."