The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-06-19
a CALIFORNIAN
ABROAD.
By Thomas Fitch
SOUTHERN FRANCE
Copyright 1904.l



for his birthplace-at least that is
what the guide in his wretched hybrid
French-English tongue told US.
There is a cathedral-de st. Bre-
agne-commence thirteen hundred
year ago, and finish six hundred year
ago. 1t take seven hundred year to
build him. said the guide.
well, it isn't much of a job. L
could find plenty of Chicago mechanics
who would contract to duplicate it in
ninety days." 1 replied.
He shrugged his shoulders
''See here" said I, the spire of this
cathedral is of wood; to you mean to
tell me that the steeple has stood there
six hundred years."
"Oui," replied he, ALI fneesh, steeple
ana all, six hundred year"
But I demonstrated, lin that time
the water which would fall upon the
spire would generate sufficient pyro-
Iigneous acid to decay the fibres of the
wood, and without constant repairs,
to continuous reproduction,
it would have fallen long SINCE
He shrugged his shoulders.
MY friend 1 remarked, Il hired
you at the rate of two francs an hour
to act as guide, and not as an impro-
visature. Understand me, do not de-
sign to reflect in the slightest manner
upon your veracity. but your state
ments with regard to this steeple have
impaired your sphere of usefulness as
a relator of facts. You have been here
fifteen minutes. Here is a franc. We
will excuse you from further service"
MATS, monsieur has not yet the
palace of the Duke of Burgundy see,
nor the Castle of the Louis the eleven
tines
Il will hunt them up myself" said /
eff l have any doubt about which is
which can, by guessing, come nearer
the truth than your enthusiasm of dis
position will permit you to do
And so we parted, lit may be for
years and it may be forever"
AAA
Dion was once the capital of Bur-
gundy, and it may be truthfully re-
marked that it's Burgundy is still capt.
tai. CNo diminution in price to temper
ance subscribers on account of this
joke.)
Louis the Eleventh. whose dying in
junction to his son was Honor the
church, but give it nothing" built a
castle here which still stands. There
is a library of 10000 volumes, of which
about eleven of the inhabitants occa-
sionally avail themselves; but Gabriel's
trumpet alone could wake the old town
from its somnolence, and even that
could not induce the baggage master
to take less than three maps while
funlbling and pretending to deliver your
trunk.
OF o. I,A
morning, we reached Lyons at in the
afternoon and were again in modern
France. I hate an inapt quotation, and
1 remember now with notification how.
when l was in the callow, and the veal
of me was dominant, I used to predict
for Charleston, South Carolina, such a
future OF utter and continuous destruc-
ton and ruin as I imagined had be-
fallen Lyons. l recollect how I did
often unctuOusly quote and adapt the
bombastic rhetorical fusilade of one of
the French revolutionary orators, "Ly-
ons made war upon the republic; Lyons
is no more" On the contrary. Lyons
is the second in population and the first
in prosperity of all the cities of France,
and there is no place more beautiful
Why Claude Melnotte wasted his time
describing an Italian fish pond, when
Pauline and himself were environed by
lovely Lyons, / cannot comprehend
You ascend the heights of Fourriers
to the steep hill which is crowned
by the church of Notre Dame. Lyons
is at your feet with the gIistening wa
ters of the Rhone and the Saone
threading her villas and warehouses.
Westward, rolling hills, covered to their
SUBMITS with variegated fields and
vines, and shrubbery, and white cha
teaux, stretch as far as the eye can
reach. Eastward a vast emerald plain
with forests of whispering drapery and
lawns of velvet is bounded by the hi;i=,
of Savoy, beyond which a white pres
ence uprears itself to the sky, and
without the aid of guide book you
can recognize the monarch of all the
of Europe-Mont Blanc
If the reader of these lines ever visits
Lyons, let him examine her museums
and factories, and art galleries first,
elsewise he will not feel like looking
upon the work of man after viewing the
grand panorama 1 have in vain at
to depict, and yet the interior
of Lyons may well repay many days of
examination.
Eighteen hundred and sixty-two years
ago, Censor Claudius moved in the Ro-
man Senate that the people of Gallia
Comata should be admitted to the pri- |
vileges of Roman citizenship. He adj |
dressed the Senate so eloquently in be- |
half of his motion, that it was carried |
amid & storm of plaUdits, and even the /,
reporters were affected. CAS- if a re- /
porter had not as good a right to be J
affected as anybody Nothing like it |
has been heard since in any land up !
TO the time of Mark Smiths great effort !
IN behalf of the admission of Arizona. !
There was no Congressional Record in
those days in which to quietly inurn
great efforts. and accordingly the
speech of Claudius was engraved on
bronze tablets-probably at the ex-
oense of the custom house ring of Ly- .
,ns. There these tablets may be seen /
1t this day. They are in a wonderful
state of preservation. and the letters
ire so sharply and beautifully cut, that
,oTx- I1oJ;