New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-10-05
DUST CLOUDS OBSCURE
GREAT FRENCH ROADS
Tremendous Motor Car Traffic
Has Ruined World Famous
Highways.
ARE NOT EQUAL TO BURDEN
Germany, Great Britain and the
United States Fast Gaining
Better Reputation Among
Auto Tourists.

The glory Of France as an elysium Tor
touring automobilsts is evidently a thing
OF the past. No longer are the wide
smooth national routes an actuality-
rather is the contrary the case. If reports
are to be believed. In the past the bud
ding motorist has selected his car In the
more or less dim hope that some day he
could have II Grated and labelled for
Havre or one Of the other French ports
as a preliminary TO a fascinating run
over the worlds best roads. where speed
was unrestricted and the pedestrian no
more than blur on the landscape.
Never again-unless France wakes up
To-day it's Germany and Great Britain
and, If you please, the United States. that
boast the nearly perfect highways. Ana
what is more. these are the countries
that are going ahead To secure more ard
be tier roads. Witness the energy that is
certain to bring into existence the Lin
coin H!ghway-a brown and gray band
that will surely link the Atlantic and
Pacific for motor car users within the
next five years.
France blames the automobile Tor the
decadence OF its highways, and probably
the blame is well placed. No road was
ever built that would withstand unlimited
speed. and that IS virtually what was
allowed on the superb national routes
Now they are only reminder OF what
used TO be.
II do not suppose that worse highway
exists at this moment than the famous
old road from Paris to Bordeaux. The
potholes are indescribable; the very foun-
dations OF the track appear TO have per-
ished. and the whole journey, when USED
TO be so delightful. has become some
thing in the nature of a penance,' says a
writer
EVERYWHERE in France We hear the
same story The roads were not built ior
fast motor traffic. and they have not
been equal to the burdens put upon them
The French government itself il unwlll-
ing to act in the matter, and the local au-
thorities are sufficiently socialistic to de-
test the car There is no longer any
pride In the routes nationaleS. The good
fellow who used to tend kilOmetre as
shepherd tends his sheep curses the pass
ing motor and does not care scud'
what is said OF his work. Meanwhile the
stream of traffic increases and has be-
come amazin6.
.J remember an occasion, some Ten
wears ago, when between Tours ana An
pouleme we ran for twenty miles ana saw
no human being save an old abDe' VINO
was reading his breviary on the border Oh
q wood. Not a cart did we pass upon all
those stupendous straiShts. III there were
houses we took no account OF them; IL
seemed as though we had entered vast
so,,tude which knew not man. NO such
fallacy is possible to-day. The stream OIL
cars seems almost unbroken, even In the
ancient wilderness. Dust cloud after DUST
cloud is encountered here.
1--WE hap upon a merry crowd OF Amer
icans pursuing Diana Of Poictiers with a
relentless fury unknown to Francis ana
that ilk. We pass very small sports
man i'm a very large racing car going ne
knows not whittier, and coming he hardly
trows whence. There follows the French
family in the stuffy limousine, It's win
DOUG closed. It's pace unnecessarily furi-
nc II is a panorama OF the wheeled life,
and the countryman halls 1t with curses.
"The result OF all this Is seen In the
condition OF the roads. SO bad are they
that | venture 10 prophesy the desertioh
Of France by all those who have not Inc
courage TO penetrate her byroads. Here
much of her ancient glory survives. Ihere
is a months good touring to be had III
Normandy and Brittany. to the west or
IN the Vosges, to the east. But. even as
arteries TO a distant Arcadia, the great
national routes are no longer possible.
oAIen must be enthusiasts indeed to
sue,er the sings and arrows of that out
raeeous fortune they will find to-day. say.
rnor the way to Lyons and the Ester
Giles. The delights of the famous journey
from Toulouse to Perpignan are only to
he pursued by the man whose real object
is the Pyrenees, and who would do much
hotter anyway to ship his car to Bor-
dooux These are the truths OF French
,onring as the year 1919 has written them.
II is vain to pretend that they are other
wise"
CLOSE TO RECORD RUN.