Our ride toward Toulouse led us steadily into southwestern France and nearer the Pyrenees. From time to time the landscape, with its fields of fodder corn, was peculiarly American. The illusion never lasted long; a chÂteau appeared on a distant hill, or a sixteenth-century church by the roadside, and we were once more in Europe, with its ancient architecture and historical association, with its infinite change of scenery and life.

Our trip never grew monotonous. There was always the element of the unexpected. For instance, in the village of Villefranche we rode into the midst of a local fÊte. Banners overhung the road; flags were flying from the windows; ruddy-cheeked girls in gay peasant dress were practicing in the dusty street a rustic two-step or farandole in preparation for the harvest dance.

While entering Toulouse we narrowly escaped disaster. It was not late, but our depleted funds made it necessary to reach a bank before closing time. Suddenly a bicycle rider shot out from a cross street. There was a "whish" as we grazed his rear wheel. The infinitesimal fraction of an inch means a good deal sometimes.

We were too late; the banks were closed. The next day was a business holiday, and the following day was Sunday. Our letter-of-credit would not help us before Monday. But as luck would have it, we were able to discover and fall back upon a few good American express checks. Our hotel, the Tiviolier, gave us a poor rate of exchange, but almost any exchange would have looked good at that poverty-stricken moment.

Toulouse, the flourishing and lively capital of Languedoc, is a city of brick still awaiting its Augustus to make of it a city of marble. The old museum must have been a splendid monastery. We dined in three different restaurants, and fared sumptuously in them all. The cassoulet of Toulouse was so good that we tried to order it in other towns. The experiences of the day very fittingly included a trolley ride along the banks of the famous Canal du Midi, and a visit to the remarkable church of St. Sernin, considered the finest Romanesque monument in France.

It would have been difficult not to make an early start the next morning, the air was so keenly exhilarating. The usually turbid Garonne revealed limpid depths and blue skies as we crossed the bridge. The road dipped into a valley and then, ascending, spread before us imposing mountain ranges. The Pyrenees were in sight; every mile brought them nearer. The name was magical. It suggested landscapes colorful and lovely, strange types of peasant dress, songs that had been sung the same way for centuries, exquisite villages that had never been awakened by the locomotive's whistle. Range retreated behind range into mysterious cloud realms. The road was like a boulevard Parisien under the black bars of shadow cast by the poplar trees.

At St. Gaudens, where we stopped before the HÔtel FerriÈre for lunch, an American party was just arriving from the opposite direction. There were three middle-aged ladies and a French chauffeur who did not appear to understand much English. The question of what they should order for lunch was evidently not settled. One of them wished to order potage St. Germain. Another thought it would be better to have something else for a change, since they had partaken of potage St. Germain the preceding day. The remaining member of the party was sure it would be nicer if they saved time by all ordering the same thing, but did not suggest what that should be. The chauffeur, who looked hungry and cross, merely contributed a long-suffering silence to the conversation.

Leaving our car in the garage and our sympathy with the unfortunate chauffeur, we went in to give appreciative attention to a well-served mÉnu. So long as we remained in France we never failed to order sardines. There is a certain quality and delicacy about the flavor of the French sardine which one misses outside of that country. Coffee was served outside, under the trees in front of the hotel, where we could watch the life of the road. St. Gaudens is on the main highway passing through the Pyrenees to Cannes and Nice on the Riviera. It is also the central market for the fine cattle of the Pyrenees, and for their sale and distribution to other parts of France and the outside world. We could see them swaying lazily along the road, big, powerful creatures with wide horns and glossy skin.

Descending from St. Gaudens into the plain, we shot along the highway to MontrÉjeau, where there was a steep ascent through this bizarre little town, very Italian looking with its arcaded streets, red roofs, and brightly painted shutters. Then the moors of a high plateau swept by us until we darted downward and curved for several miles through a beautiful wooded valley.

One of the front tires was evidently in trouble. It was our first puncture in more than thirteen hundred miles of motoring, not a bad record when one considers the frequency of such accidents on European roads, where the hobnails of peasants lie in ambush at every turn. We halted by the side of the road, to put on a fresh tire, refusing many offers of assistance from passing cars.

An unusual reception awaited us near Tournay. The whole barnyard family had taken the road for their private promenade. There were a couple of mules, some goats, half a dozen geese, and a large white bull. He was a savage looking brute as he stood facing us and angrily pawing the ground. It did not add to our composure when a gaunt collie, awakened by the noise, came snarling up to the car. At this eventful moment, the engine stopped running. No one of us was in a hurry to alight and "crank up." The barnyard clamor would have rivaled the well-known symphony of the Edison Phonograph Company of New York and Paris. At last a peasant appeared. He whistled to the dog and succeeded in driving the bull to one side, so that we could edge by to less dangerous scenes.

The standard of living in these mountain communities is not high. We saw one farmhouse where the goats moved in and out as if very much at home and on the same social footing as their peasant owners. A mile farther on, we were spectators at a dance which the peasants were giving along the roadside. There was an orchestra of two violins and a cornet, enthroned upon a wooden platform brightly decorated with flags and flowers. A dozen couples were dancing up and down the road. Wooden shoes were all the style. This unique ballroom floor impressed us as being rather dusty. Steepsided valleys yawned in quick succession. There were views of the snowy Pyrenees. On the side of a mountain we caught a moment's glimpse of Tarbes in the plain.

The Grand HÔtel Moderne was a happy surprise. The elevator actually worked, and the running hot and cold water was a boon delightful to find after these dusty mountain roads. Tarbes is chiefly interesting for its great horse-breeding industry. BarÈre, the regicide, described by Macaulay as coming "nearer than any person mentioned in history or fiction, whether man or devil, to the idea of consummate and universal depravity," was born here in 1755. Tourist traffic has found Tarbes to be a convenient stopping place on the through route from Biarritz on the Atlantic to the winter resorts of the Mediterranean shores, and also a natural center for excursions to the Pyrenees. We remained in Tarbes an extra day to make the trip to Lourdes, the tragic Mecca for increasing thousands of Catholic pilgrims.

A short half-hour's ride and then Lourdes, without doubt one of the most dismal and melancholy places in the world. We are certain that nothing would ever draw us there again. For many, the trip is a pilgrimage of faith; others go from curiosity; but for so many suffering thousands the miraculous spring at Lourdes is the goal of anxious hopes. They gather from all parts of France, from England, Scotland, and Ireland, and even from distant parts of Europe. Last year there were over six hundred thousand visitors. Around us, on that afternoon, we saw the sick and the dying. Some were hobbling along on crutches, others walking helplessly with sightless eyes. Many were being carried on stretchers, and there were sights that we would rather not mention. It seemed as if all the diseases to which mortal humanity is heir were represented in that pathetic throng. The following newspaper account describes the pilgrimage which left Paris in August, 1913:

"The great Austerlitz Railway station in Paris presented a strange and terrible scene—and above all, a distressingly pitiful one—yesterday afternoon, when the annual pilgrimage to Lourdes set forth on the long journey to the little Pyrenean village. During last night thirty-three special long trains converged on Lourdes from every quarter of France. Every train ran slowly because of the many sick people on board. And this morning all the trains will reach their destination and will discharge their pilgrims at the station near the shrine.

"From two to four o'clock, the greater part of the Austerlitz station was given up entirely to the pilgrims. The railway servants withdrew, and their places were taken by hundreds of saintly faced Little Sisters of the Assumption, and brave men of all ages and all ranks in life, all wearing the broad armlet that denoted their self-sacrificing service to the sick and helpless. One by one, on stretchers, in bath chairs, over a thousand suffering people, men and women of all ages, youths and little children, entered the great hall of the station.

"Each, as he or she is brought in, is laid upon a bench transformed into an ambulance, to await the departure of the train. A silence that is almost oppressive falls upon the usually noisy station; people speak in whispers, and move with silent feet.

"Then the train—the long white train for the grands malades—moves softly in to the platform, and each poor human parcel is gently convoyed to its allotted place. Eventually, the long task is over, and then came the last moving ceremony. The Cardinal Archbishop of Paris passed slowly down the train and blessed the sick within it. A moment after, without a whistle or a sound, the long white train moved out.

"Eight other equally long trains followed, the last bearing at the rear the Red Cross flag."

We watched the procession forming to move toward the sacred miraculous spring, such a sad procession,—the halt, the maimed, and the blind, who had come, many of them, thousands of miles to bathe in the icy waters and be healed. Attendants passed us, carrying a sick man on a stretcher; the eyes were closed, the features white and fixed. We saw a mother clasping a sick child; she also joined the slow, pitiful procession. Where will you find such a picture of human suffering! It was all like the incurable ward of a vast open-air hospital.

The fame of Lourdes dates back to 1858, when a little village girl, fourteen years old, named Bernadette Soubirons, said that she had seen and talked with the Virgin. This happened several times. Each time the Virgin is said to have commanded the child to tell others, and to have a church built above the spring, since its waters were to have miraculous powers of healing. Crowds went with her to the grotto, but she was the only one who saw anything. The Bishop of Tarbes believed in her visions. The fact that the child was "diseased, asthmatic, and underfed," and also that "she was not particularly intelligent," did not make any difference. Pope Pius X issued a Bull of endorsement. A basilica was built above the grotto, and from that time the thousands kept coming in increasing numbers every year.

We noticed that not all of the visitors to Lourdes had come on a pilgrimage of faith. Everywhere one sees signs with large letters warning against pickpockets. The evidence of business enterprise was also unmistakable. There were large hotels; one long street was devoted to bazaars for selling pious mementos; the windows of many shops contained tin cans of all sizes for sale, these to be filled with Lourdes water. The many advertisements of Lourdes lozenges, made from Lourdes water, and the women dressed in black, sitting at the gates of the garden and selling wax candles, all helped to give the place an atmosphere of commercial enterprise.