Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-08-15
BY STERLING HELLO.

|
Correspondence Of The Star.
GRENOBEE, France. August 4, 1920
}"HE French Office National du
Tourisme, under Georges
Famechon is opening up the
romance and the beauties of
old France.
| Across the French Alps ESQ little
known to tourists. yet more grandiose
than Switzerland, it facilitates the
rush Of powerful auto cars that take
all grades, in services as regular as
that Of railroad trains. Nothing is
inaccessible, and smart hotels have
sprung up in full operation. They
have even their own pastry cooks A
dozen of US went on a kind Of inau-
guration with Comic Raoul d'Arnaud
Of the Touring Club de france and M.
Charles Lafaurie of the French for
eign Office.
| Among other things, we saw the
antique palace in the clouds. the
greatest and Oldest thing In all the
Alps. Also, we saw the fair sex
crowdine to it, in a rush of natural
! curiosity-because their feet mad oeen cen
forbidden the whole territory for 1'ooo
years.
1t is the Grande Chartreuse.
| 1t is the Desert Land-high up.
On dizzy Alpine heights, there is
| this vast deserted palace, so old. SO
\ old! In a chaos Of gigantic rocks
and lightning struck pine forests.
above the clouds, it's hundred pointed
towers swim in silent sky.
+ y \ =
For 1000 years no woman was per-
mitted to set foot inside the House
Of Silence guarding the snow line,
under it's 5000 square yards of
roofs and covering fourteen acres:
principally was forbidden the ap-
proach of women-whose society sum
med up for them the perils and the
vanities of the world which the great
men inhabiting the palace OF the
They were great men. Among
them, in all ages, could be found il
lustrous names of Europe princes,
statesmen. field marshals, generals
and men Of arts and sciences. living
lives of celibates. anchorites and
vegetarians, dead to all human con-
versation-the aristocratic Fathers
of the Grande Chartreuse.
The peculiar curiosity Of women.
in all ages, has been (thusly) stirred
all other monasteries. The order
owned practically the whole massif,
the whole highland territory. The
French revolution. by conf1edating
the desert and surrounding forests
below it as state property, legally
opened the lower reaches to femin-
! unity. So, when male tourists came
| to pass night of salutary medita-
tion amid the white clad figures that
glided down the great cloister to sing
tho OF he ~
woman folks at a Ladies' Inn. tole-
rated by the Carthusians far down
the mountain road. By common
courtesy to their hosts, such male
guests were on honor not to abet in
precincts. No peeking petticoat
got within sight Of the outer walls.
So life passed for 1000 years on
the heights of the Grande Chartreuse.
st. Bruno, their founder. was a great
are an example Of extreme contem-
platives, ascetics and vegetarians.
They took up wild places. Yet, while
keeping the world at a distance, they
became necessarily the providence of
all the humble populations for fifty
miles around.
In 1903 the vast property was taken
over by the French state in the sup
preston of the religious associations.
Since that date the palace has been
deserted of its white clad fathers and
brown clad brothers. All were per-
France as individuals but as a col
lectivity they moved to Italy and
Spain.
Thus before the war tho Grande
Chartreuse, classed as a historic
monument" wos kept by government
appointed curators, who received
such visitors as might come. But, as
remember it, there was a kind of
feeling Of constraint on all sides.
Since the war, the sacred union-that
drawing together of all French
classes and opinions which has tao
past-seems to have sweetened the
whole atmosphere in a kind of gay
optimism. Nobody knows what may
or may not happen; but personally
(and entirely on my own). see a
quiet sign Of the times-the fair sex
It is as If taboo were lifted on
both sides.
by scruple, suffering bitterly for
conscience sake not to peek when
they might peek, now makes no diff
Guilty in motoring through the desert and
visiting the Grande Chartreuse from end
to end. as if saying: Its all right
Let's take it in while we cant"
Government subsidized alpine cars I'M
load their tourists. All the cars are
packed with fen1ininity. Where one
time meditative men, on one to three
night visits, were logged up to the
dead Line by their envious wives and
daughters, now come giggling couples,
caravans of girl cousins, dragging in
their wake footsore escort, honeymoon
ing pairs. engaged girls, daughters-to-
marry, girls who fling their eyes real
reckless, bevies Of them bubbling with
the Joy of living-all full of an esoterie
certainty that they were not profaning
the hushed halls through which they
swish and rustic.
This curiosity of woman depends.
Of course. primarily on the unique
prohibitions Of the past, which
barred them from the entire desert
territory, but men and women alike
have always been awe-struck by the
excessive severity Of the Carthusian
rule.
The learned fathers Gatin and
bellies lettres were requisites) never
spoke. Human conversation existed
no longer for them. Each passed his
life in two-roomed cell and a high
walled little garden attached to it
In his vestibule he might have a
turning lathe and carpenter bench,
with any quantity of tools. or he
might merely chop firewood for phys
ical exercise. In his solitary garden
he raised vegetables seriously. In his
two rooms he read and wrote. His