Europe from a Motor Car Part 9

"What a reflection on modern diplomacy the whole situation casts! A policy which men like Gray and Asquith have repeatedly characterized as one of madness, as one leading to bankruptcy, as one that makes a mockery of peace by throwing away half its benefits, is pursued because the diplomats can't agree on a plan of armament limitation. It is admitted that the frenzied rivalry in armament increase adds nothing to the relative strength of any power or group of powers, yet the frenzied rivalry continues at the expense of industry and constructive social and economical reforms. If the 'causes of a general war' in Europe have not been removed, what has diplomacy been doing and of what use are the alliances, the ententes, and understandings among the powers? Might not a little courage and boldness in pus.h.i.+ng the armament-limitation idea and appealing to public, business, and democratic sentiment force the hands of the routine-ridden diplomats?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood

_The Seine at Rouen_ _Page 210_]

For nearly twenty miles the road cut a white swath through the treeless plain of St. Andre to the cathedral town of Evreux. The wheat fields and cathedrals of Normandy should be mentioned in the same sentence. France, so full of the picturesque, has few finer sights than the view of these airy cathedral spires while one is still miles away from any town. We zigzagged into the valley of Iton, climbed, swooped downward, and crossing that hurrying stream, ran beside the river Eure into the main street of Louviers. The warning, "_Allure modere_," was unnecessary. The cobble stones were sufficient to make us slacken speed. The beauty of the church of Notre Dame served to stop us completely. The church, with its profuse embroidery of rich, delicate carving, shone like a jewel amid the motley and jumbled houses. It was like finding a rosebush blooming in the gutter of some neglected street. Through the forest of Pont de l'Arche to the town of the same name, where we crossed the Seine, past bright little Norman cottages, our route shot ahead to Rouen, the center of cotton manufacturing for France, the most interesting mediaeval city in Normandy, and renowned the world over for splendid Gothic churches. After inspecting the rooms of two or three hotels, we chose the Hotel d'Angleterre, close by the crowded traffic of the Seine.

Sight-seeing in Rouen is more convenient by carriage than by motor car.

We moved from the abbey church of St. Ouen to the church of St. Maclou.

If Europe had no other remains of Gothic art, Rouen would be enough to describe all the splendor of that style of architecture. The cathedral is a whole library of description in itself. Curious is the legend of the Tour de Beurre, built by money received from indulgences sold, and permitting the people to eat b.u.t.ter in Lent.

"At the base of the Tour St. Romain, there still stands the lodge of the porter whose duties from very early times right up to 1760, included the care of the fierce watchdogs who were at night let loose in the cathedral to guard its many precious treasures from robbers. How much would we give for a glimpse of one of those porters walking through the cavernous gloom of these echoing aisles, with his lamp throwing strange shadows from the great slouching dogs!"[8]

[8] From _Motor Routes of France_, Part I, by Gordon Home.

The central tower rises into a great spire of open iron work, more than one and a half times as high as the steeple of Trinity Church in New York. One seldom sees anything so quaintly picturesque as the little wooden cloister, Aitre Saint-Maclou. From its courtyard, the burial ground for so many victims of the Black Death of 1348, one sees mediaeval spires which rise in all directions. Another vivid reminder of the past is the archway of the Grosse Horloge, with its huge clock in colors of blue and gold and dating from the sixteenth century.

But the impressions of Rouen that thrilled us most related to the sad closing days of Jeanne d'Arc. At Orleans we saw her in the hour of victory, a young girl dictating to experienced generals, cutting her way through the English army around the city and bringing provisions and succor to the beleaguered inhabitants. Our _cocher_ escorted us to the tower where, with instruments of torture around her, she faced and baffled her brutal inquisitors. In the old market place, the scene of her martyrdom, one is shown a simple slab which reads, "Jeanne d'Arc, 30 Mai, 1431." This marks the spot where she was burned at the stake.

The last lap of the trip, the ride to Dieppe on the English Channel, was past many large Norman farms. Neat haystacks dotted the rolling acres.

Nowhere else had we seen so many horses,--big, powerful creatures.

Normandy breeds and exports them. Apple orchards were in constant view.

Coasting down a long hill into the city, we left the car in the garage of the Grand Hotel, and joined an enthusiastic crowd which was watching a football game between Dieppe and Rouen.

The new France is keenly interested in sports and games. In 1912 there was held in Paris the International Congress for Physical Culture, the idea being to impress upon the young the need for physical development.

The extent to which the idea of physical culture has captured France will be evident from the following figures: in 1896 the various athletic societies had less than fifty thousand members; to-day, they have more than three hundred thousand members. France has indeed entered upon a new era. The chief characteristic of it is not literary but practical, self-a.s.sertive, and everywhere for action. The young Frenchman of to-day is more interested in sports than in art or literature. A French professor recently said: "I have lived my life in my library. There I have pa.s.sed through my intellectual crises. There I have experienced my most fervent emotions. In the lives of my sons I notice that books play a very little part, or if they read, it is biography, and especially the biography of men of action like Napoleon."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood

_Where Jeanne d'Arc was burned at the stake_]

Now comes the pang of keen regret. We are close to the end. These weeks of unmingled joy stand around us like a group of friends, as if to stay our leaving. Four thousand miles of motoring, in five countries, and without an accident! Our car has taken on personality. Here, climbing a mountain to the very summit whose far-away vistas held us enchanted, or rus.h.i.+ng down on the other side, we skirted some quiet lake that lay embosomed in its own loveliness; there, a wild glen with its mysterious depths beckoning us to halt! We have seen the peasantry, as in France, looked upon their quaint costumes and customs, and caught the simple melody of their songs. We have gone close to palaces, and wondered whether prince or peasant were the happier. We have seen chateaux that were tragedies and cathedrals that were poems. We have seen the conscripts file slowly past, each surrendering three years of the most important period of his life. Then, we have contrasted a nation as a military camp with our own great republic, without a large standing army, but safe. And now, homeward bound to the freest land beneath the sun, America!

CHAPTER XV

EXPENSES AND SUGGESTIONS

The purchase of the car at the Benz factory in Mannheim, Germany, plunged us at once into a maze of police regulations. It was necessary to secure a driving license. With us in the United States this is hardly more than a matter of routine. Not so in Germany, where the examination is really a formidable affair. It is especially difficult for a foreigner to secure a driving license. He may be able to give evidence proving that he has driven a car for years in his own country. This fact makes no difference. It is not even taken into consideration. Every possible opportunity is given the candidate to make mistakes, and thus to prove that he is not qualified to receive the desired certificate. No detail of motormans.h.i.+p is overlooked. There is an age requirement of eighteen years. First came the physical examination. Then it was necessary to spend two hours a day in the shop for five and a half weeks so as to become thoroughly acquainted with the various parts of the motor car. The candidate is given an opportunity to see motor cars taken apart and put together. In this way he is made familiar with the use and purpose of every part of the car. The crucial test begins when he is called upon to show his skill as chauffeur. It is customary to drive one hundred miles in the city and surrounding country. The official police inspector who accompanies him is resourceful in his tests. Under his supervision the car is driven through crowded streets, and made to back up and turn around in difficult places,--in fact, to meet all the emergencies of motor travel. Even after the examination has been pa.s.sed successfully, there is a delay of several days before the license is given the final stamp of official approval. The license for which we made application on February 22 was not secured until April 10. It cost one hundred _marks_ (about twenty-five dollars). Of this amount, one half goes to the state and the balance to the shop giving the candidate his instruction in motor-car mechanics. The inspector receives ten dollars for his services. There is also a customary charge of one dollar and a half for the number plate.

Americans who have lived for a considerable time in Germany are always impressed with the numerous occasions when the state interferes in the private life of the individual; the foreign motorist is no exception to this rule of coming at once into contact with the state. He no sooner crosses the frontier than the state compels him to pay a tax. Even though he remains in the country but a single day, he is forced to secure a tax license which costs three _marks_ (about seventy-five cents). These tax licenses are issued to cover periods of from one to ninety days, the license good for three months costing fifty _marks_. If one remains longer than ninety days it is necessary to renew this license or _Steuerkarte_. The annual tax on motor cars varies according to the power of the car. A car of 13.9 horse power (German rating) would be taxed one hundred and twenty _marks_. The German tax net spreads everywhere. At the time of our sojourn in that country the city of Munich was considering the introduction of a tax on cats. Such a tax would without doubt be the first of its kind in the world. In southern Germany the small towns still continue to exact imposts of ten _pfennigs_ (three cents) from the motor cars pa.s.sing over their roads.

In spite of the complaint that this tax is a serious obstacle to trade and traffic, there is no immediate prospect of its being removed.

France, in contrast to Germany, does not subject the foreign motorist to a tax unless his sojourn exceeds a period of four months.

The annual dues of the Rheinische Automobile Club amounted to forty _marks_. Members.h.i.+p in an organization of this kind is necessary to secure the _triptyques_ which are so indispensable to the motorist whose itinerary includes several countries of Europe. The usefulness of this important doc.u.ment has been described so often that we do not feel called upon to make further comment here. Our international driving permit based upon the special license issued by the state was also secured for a small fee from the automobile club above mentioned.

Among the incidental expenses, the cost of repairs is apt to figure largely, particularly when one is motoring along mountain highways.

Such services are much cheaper in Europe than in the United States. In our case the item was so small as to be almost negligible. The car was so carefully overhauled and inspected before leaving the factory that we suffered little inconvenience or delay. Our tire troubles were limited to a single puncture. Continental tires in the rear and Excelsior in the front gave excellent service. Notwithstanding the wear and tear of mountain motoring, we found it necessary to use only one of the two reserve tires.

Gasoline was everywhere obtainable. In Germany and France the price is about thirty-seven cents a gallon, but in Austria and Spain it is much higher, generally approximating eighty cents a gallon. In Italy, where bargaining is necessary, the price usually dropped from eighty cents to less than forty-eight cents a gallon. A Bosch magneto greatly increased the speed and climbing ability of the car, and enabled us to average about twenty-one miles to every gallon of gasoline. In France the cost of this necessary article is not fixed. Neighboring towns often showed a difference of several cents in the cost per gallon. But although the price is not uniform, the fine quality is, and always gave excellent results. As a part of our equipment we carried as reserve a five-gallon sealed can of gasoline and a similar quant.i.ty of oil. On these it was occasionally necessary to pay a duty of a couple of cents at the numerous _octroi_ stations in France. The inconvenience of these imposts was usually more burdensome than the amount of the tax. For our oil, which would have cost about forty cents a gallon in the United States, we averaged one dollar and ten cents a gallon.

Our hotel bills were not high. We had expected to find them much higher.

Two dollars or two dollars and a half was sufficient as a rule to cover dinner, chamber, and breakfast. For instance, our rooms at the Hotel de France cost one dollar each, the dinner _table d'hote_ seventy-five cents each, and breakfast thirty cents, the usual prices which secured us satisfactory accommodations nearly everywhere in France. Every hotel had its garage, a fact which we did not always find to be true of the hotels in Germany. The garage was often not much more than a shed or lean-to, but it always offered the shelter and protection necessary for our one-or two-night stops. Sometimes there was a garage charge of one franc (nineteen and one half cents) a day, but this was exceptional. If the car was washed we were expected to pay from thirty-five to fifty cents for this extra service. The scale of prices in Germany and Austria was possibly twenty per cent higher, but nowhere was there any attempt to take advantage of the fact that we were foreigners.

The motor tourist is such a familiar sight abroad that the stopping of a motor car before a provincial hotel does not excite unusual interest. It is rather an everyday occurrence, an accustomed detail of the day's routine. France especially, more than any other country in Europe, has become a land of motor tourists. The large well-to-do cla.s.s turns naturally to motoring for recreation and diversion.

The Frenchman practices thrift in his hours of leisure and travel as well as in his business. This fact probably explains in great part the comparatively low level of hotel charges to be found in that country.

Contrary to the popular idea, there are not two sets of charges, one for the European and a higher one for the American. We were never expected to pay for services that were not rendered in more than ample measure.

On the contrary, we had daily opportunities to observe the effort made to give us the best possible service for the prices charged. This was true not only of the hotels but of the restaurants as well. Of course, for a dollar a day we did not expect to have a _chambre de luxe_. It is really a constant surprise to see how much one can get in the way of clean, comfortable rooms and appetizing meals for a small outlay.

France is a country by itself in this respect. There is perhaps no country where the traveler can get so much for his money. In no other land of Europe can one motor so cheaply. It is always possible to avoid the big towns as sleeping places and at meal times, and yet run no risk of not enjoying the finest cooking and a comfortable night's lodging.

Austria is the most expensive country for the motorist. Spain and central and southern Italy are so little patronized by motor traffic that they do not need to be included in our comparison.

The consideration of incidental expenses brings us to the question of tipping, without doubt the most perplexing and the most misunderstood of all the problems that confront the foreign motorist in Europe. Long before his steamer touches the sh.o.r.e of the Old World, he has visions of an extended line of servants standing with outstretched hands to receive the expected shower of coins. For the majority of tourists it is almost an ordeal to leave a European hotel. How often we have heard the question, "What shall I give?" The average American has such an instinctive sense of fairness, of wanting to do the right thing, that a matter of this kind a.s.sumes an importance out of all proportion to the value of the tip. He is willing to be liberal; on the other hand, he is not eager to pose as a philanthropic and charitable inst.i.tution created to satisfy the needs of every hotel employee who says "_Guten Tag_" or "_Bon jour_" to him when he enters the hotel. The trouble is that in borrowing this custom from Europe we have so Americanized it that we find it difficult to get the European viewpoint and to adapt ourselves readily to the practice as it exists to-day across the water. The American _voyageur_ is so accustomed to doing things in a large way that it is not easy for him to appreciate the European system of small percentages. His common mistake is to give larger tips than are expected and overlook the small tips which do not seem to be so important. He hesitates to give a small tip, and in such cases would prefer to give none at all.

We have read somewhere the story of a Frenchman who was visiting the United States for the first time. He ate a sixty-cent meal in a New York restaurant. Following the custom in Paris, he left five per cent of the bill, three cents, for the waiter. Many of us could probably confess to an equal uncertainty and helplessness in the presence of our first tipping experience in Europe. Baedeker's cla.s.sic rule of ten per cent of the total amount of the bill seems strangely inadequate when a traveler has stayed only one night at a hotel and finds that his bill is about two dollars. The problem of dividing twenty cents so that every one will be satisfied is a task that he would willingly turn over to somebody else. As a matter of fact, while there is no arbitrary rule, it does not take long to discover that the _pourboire_ and _Trinkgeld_ are fixed and permanent inst.i.tutions, as solid in their reality as the Credit Lyonnais or the Reichsbank. One is expected to give at least something, even if the service rendered has been merely nominal. The French and German systems of coinage, with their _5-centime_ and _10-pfennig_ pieces, fit in so conveniently to the European standards of tipping. Judging from our experience, the tourist will be most quickly at ease who observes the custom as it is practiced by the inhabitants of the country, and then makes his own scale of tips slightly larger.

Foreigners are expected to be a little more liberal. The quality of service received will ordinarily more than compensate for this slight increase. In Valence, where we stayed only one night, the bill, including chamber, dinner, and breakfast, amounted to twenty francs for two people. Our tips were itemized as follows:

FRANCS CENTIMES Garcon 50 Femme de chambre 50 Valet de chambre 50 Concierge 1 Garage 25 -- -- Total 2 75

If there was an _ascenseur_ in the hotel the elevator boy never looked insulted when we gave him ten or fifteen _centimes_. If extra service was rendered, we paid for it accordingly. This scale of tipping secured us good service in the small provincial towns. In the larger places the _maitre de l'hotel_ (head waiter) plays a more important role and ranks in tipping dignity with the _concierge_. In Italy the equivalent of four cents per person would be considered liberal in most restaurants. In Germany, where the rise in cost of living is more noticeable than in France, the item of tipping was slightly larger. Austria gave us the most difficulty. Here the system is more complicated. The _Speise-traeger_ who brings you food, the _Piccolo_ who ministers to your thirst, the _Zahl-kellner_ who receives payment for the bill, all expect their contribution of _h.e.l.lers_. These dignitaries were ordinarily satisfied with tips of twenty, ten, and forty _h.e.l.lers_ in the order named. The value of _h.e.l.lers_ and _centimes_ is so nearly equal that it was not confusing to pa.s.s from the Austrian to the French system of coinage.

The largest single item of expense was of course the cost of transportation, which always depends on the size and weight of the car.

The cost of ocean transportation for an ordinary four-seated touring car would run from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and seventy-five dollars. To this amount must be added fifty dollars to cover cost of boxing. In our case, since the car was purchased abroad, it was necessary to pay a duty of thirty per cent on the original cost, minus the agent's commission of twenty-five per cent.