Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-10-16

innate the autos hired at Tours, Anglers.
Orleans and other railway starting
places?
Alpine climbing in automobiles has be-
come famous sport. When ! wrote the
Magazin for October. 1905. it was
thought a breakneck venture. Wen.
again this summer, as last. l have been
astonished at the great number of Ameri-
can parties have met over the passes
into Spain, Italy. Switzerland and Ger
many.
But enough: one might make a story
by itself of the public auto-cars packed
with tourists on every picturesque road
VoSges: Of the numberless horse-drawn
vehicles following In their wake TO profit
by the improved hotels and Increased
general knowledge of off-railway France:
of scorchers on the. great trunk roads
who hire swift autos to Berlin Tor Rome)
on the pretext Of seeing a lot while get
ting open air in limited time.
Americans are apt TO attribute those
speedy old truck roads to Napoleon /. or
tine ancient Romans mo wonder the
French have good roads," they say; they
found them ready made.
1t is an error. Ancient Rome, true.
kept in repair $1,000 miles OF magnificent
rock. cement, small cobbles-in-chalk. NOR
tar and surface-blocks-b bound with-cement
went to foundation of three feet deep
One such great road--the Aurelian-w
the first highway of France. At Genoa
it can be picked up and followed across
the actual frontier; but at Mentone 1t
becomes COMPOUNDED with the Napoleonic
Corniche--which followed the Aurelian to
Nice. At Cannes this old Roman high
way follows the Estrel by the new por-
phyry Corniche of the Touring Club and
reaches Marseille where 1t turns to the
north; but all traces OF it are lost before
Aries.
The Romans had 1900 miles of other
great roads in France: but. apart from
certain tracings over the Alps-like the
Great st. Bernard-nothing Of them re-
mained in the middle ages.
The barbarous Huns. Visigoths and
Franks, raiding on horseback. despising
carriages. destroyed them from pure bad
ness, tearing up their surface blocks for
building. So when Charlemagne attempt
ed to reconstruct the Roman empire. he
had to build new trunk roads to Germany,
Spain and Italy. But they were the work
of one great man. and disappeared with
him. In the tenth century nothing OF
them was left. France was cut into TWEEN
ty-nine little Kingdoms; and the seigneurs
took toll on the local roads. barricaded
and even destroyed them!
No vehicles with wheels are found in
middle age book Examinations or even
the earlier fifteenth century prints. In
1853 the newfangled Tuscan gala-carosses
could only circulate in Paris by
reason of bad roads outside: whence
parliament voted them a nuisance. y
The. catalogue of French roads Of 1867
shows all of them In a state of natural
soil" Henri II-who has a bad name
appointed tax-farmers to improve them;
constructed the first paved highway since
Charlemagne. and in 1859 made clean
sweep Of the seigneurial tolls. Why was
he SO interested in roads? Because Of the
coming in of artillery!
1t was only under Henri w that there
began to be real highways and real Sc
curity on them. Sully was the first grand
road surveyor. and the first code Of the
road is an edict Of 1907. Under Louis XIV
Colbert created numerous paved roads.
Something new had come into the world
carriage springs!
Carriage springs were invented by a
lady. wife Of a Paris druggist named
Sauval, in the year 1000. Little did she
dream that she was bringing about the
bloody French revolutions!
Now we are getting to the real creators
Of the great trunk roads Of France. With
the invention of carriage springs stage.
coaching-that had languished from 1887