Читать книгу Winged Wheels in France - Michael Myers Shoemaker - Страница 7

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OUR DEPARTURE FROM NICE—THE ROAD TO AIX—THE CITY OF KING RENÉ

I had greatly desired to make a long auto tour, but being alone save for Yama, my Jap servant, I had scarce the courage to start, so I decided to go by train to Paris, and was in fact booked by that of Saturday week. As I stand on the porch of the Hôtel des Anglais gazing with regret at the flashing machines as they glide by, an old acquaintance comes out and asks me to "take a spin in his," which I gladly do, with the result that before I return to the hotel I have engaged that same machine and driver by the month. So it is settled. I offer the owner some payment in advance, but he waves it aside, "Any friend of Mr. E. is all right." However, we shall see what we shall see. I secure, as is wise, a written agreement to the effect that I am to have the auto at the rate of six hundred dollars per month, everything included except the board, lodging, and pourboire of the driver, also that I am in no way to be held responsible for any sort of accident or breakage. This is necessary as otherwise one would certainly be charged with every scratch.

So it is settled that we start two days hence and I have some consultations with the chauffeur. Everything is arranged for an extended tour through Southern France or wherever I will, and then "Jean," the driver, says that the owner would like "half a month's pay in advance." I thought that smile of the other day meant something. He reminded me of Monsieur Blandois in Little Dorrit whose "nose came down over his mustache and whose mustache went up under his nose," but a pleasant man withal. Having disposed of my railway tickets and forwarded my heavy luggage to Paris, and all being ready, we start, stopping a moment to pay Monsieur half a month in advance. That is of course as it should be. Off at last. Away over the beautiful Promenade des Anglais we roll with all Nice glittering and gleaming a goodbye at us, while the sea joins in in a soothing monotone. Our route leads over the long Corniche road, "Autos de course" thunder by us at an appalling speed, would we plod on at a modest gait of forty-five miles per hour.

A moment's pause at Cannes to say goodbye to a friend, and we are en route once more. Cannes is beautiful, but agreeable only if one owns a villa and knows the people. Hotel life there is desolate. It is the Newport of this coast. Gorgeous yachts lie in its harbor, splendid villas gleam amidst the olive trees, and the people are mostly English. Here we leave the coast and sail—that seems the best way to describe our motion—up into the hills of Provence until the olives vanish and we are surrounded by the peaceful mountains, while the air is laden with the balsam from the pines. We do not sight the sea again, but the ride is glorious. The racing machines are now few and far between, so one does not hold on for dear life and is not choked in dust—one's own dust never bothers.

The roads are simply superb, hard as a floor and magnificently made. They appear to have been sprinkled with petroleum.

Towards evening as we are gliding into the peaceful land of Provence, high on an adjacent peak stands a Madonna (which forces from Jean the confession that he has not been a good Catholic). The setting sun turns her crown into glittering gold and the sad green of the olive trees into silver. The peasants' horses are plodding peacefully homeward, with their tired masters sleeping soundly in the rumbling vans. It has always been a desire of mine to visit Aix, but it seemed a sacrilege, almost, to enter it in a train of cars. To-day, however, sailing onward, soundless and with no sense of motion save that of gliding, it is almost as though we are borne on wings until the first paving stone of the city jostles us down to earth once more. But even so we are spared the usual porters and omnibus and all the paraphernalia of an hotel in the twentieth century, and moving up to the portals of the quaint hôtel Nègre Coste, are welcomed by Madame in a black gown and a white cap.

Here my first day in an auto comes to an end, and rising, I shake myself, and, rubbing my eyes, step out, and instantly the auto, Jean, and Yama vanish, and I stand—almost wondering whether they have ever been—gazing up at the statue of King René who died four hundred years ago, and who seems to smile and hold out his bunch of grapes as he welcomes me to Aix in his fair kingdom of Provence.

The voice of Madame recalls me from the royal presence, asking, "Is it Monsieur's wish to have a chamber for himself and one for each of his domestics?"

"Yes." (Jean might go to a cheap hotel, has even so suggested, but my life is in his hands and I want good service, such as can come only from good nature. Therefore Jean will stop in the house with me.)

This hôtel Nègre Coste has made no changes since before the great Revolution, and I doubt not but that members of the Committee of Public Safety or Revolutionary tribunals have entered this same door, nay, slept in that same bed where I shall presently forget all about them. It is my day now, theirs is done, and most of them have not even graves alone, but rest in the public fosses.

From my window I look down upon the Cours Mirabeau, though it bore no such name in his day. In this city King René lived and reigned in peace, the centre of all the music and romance of this section and apparently unaware of that werewolf Louis XI, awaiting just outside for his death in order to seize the kingdom. The "Cours" is long and narrow, with a promenade in its centre, the whole being sheltered by double rows of plane trees cut square over the tops, and forming beneath a long tunnel where the sunlight filters through the green gloom of the leaves, as thick here as in Vallambrosa. At the head of the Cours the statue of the king gazes downward upon the two old moss-grown fountains, where all form and shape has long since been lost in the passing years and plashing waters. To the music of one just outside my window in the quaint little hotel, I sink to sleep and dreams of King René and Margaret of Anjou intermingle with those of wild rushes over long highways.

The morning sunlight shines brightly, and Jean would like to move on, but Jean has not that sort of a man to deal with. The twentieth century and the automobile must wait while I spend some hours in exploring this quaint town, a decision of which Madame, mine hostess, approves, as she smiles from a seat near the door where she sits knitting and watching her hotel. Madame is old and knows many things, amongst them, that "Monsieur would visit the Cathedral, it is ancient and very curious, and is to be found far up by the first turn to the left."

Modern Aix holds some thirty thousand people, and to the great outer world is but little known. One hears much of Aix-la-Chapelle and of Aix-les-Bains, but little of Aix in Provence, yet to my thinking it is more interesting than either of the others, certainly than Aix-les-Bains, though the German city with its memories of Charlemagne holds its own for interest intense and abiding.