THE GREAT WAR IN EUROPE

THE ROADS OF FRANCE

ONE of the joys of France to-day, as indeed it ever has been, is travel by road. The rail has its advantages, but it also has its disadvantages, whereas the most luxurious traveller by road, even if he be snugly tucked away in a sixty-horse royal Mercédes, is nothing more than an itinerant vagabond, and France is the land above all others for the sport.
As an industry to be developed and fostered, France early recognized the automobile as a new world-force, and the powers that be were convinced that the way should be smoothed for those who would, with the poet Henley, sing the song of speed.
With their inheritance of magnificent roadways, this was not difficult; for the French and mine host—or his French counterpart, who is really a more up-to-date individual than he is usually given the credit of being—rose gallantly to the occasion as soon as they saw the return of that trade which had grown beautifully less since the passing of the malle-poste and the diligence.
The paternalism of the French government is a won 
With their inheritance of magnificent roadways, this was not difficult; for the French and mine host—or his French counterpart, who is really a more up-to-date individual than he is usually given the credit of being—rose gallantly to the occasion as soon as they saw the return of that trade which had grown beautifully less since the passing of the malle-poste and the diligence.
The paternalism of the French government is a wonderful thing. It not only stands sponsor for the preservation and restoration of historical monuments,—great churches, châteaux, and the like,—but takes a genial interest in automobilism as well.


Hills have been levelled and dangerous corners straightened, level crossings abolished or better guarded; and, where possible, the dread caniveaux—or water-gullies—which cross the roadway here and there have been filled up. More than all else, the execrable paved road, for which France has been noted, is fast being done away with. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the chief magistrate himself is not an automobilist; which places him in practically a unique position among the rulers of Europe.
At Bayeux, at Caen, at Lisieux, and at Evreux, in Normandy, one is on that great national roadway which runs from Paris to Cherbourg through the heart of the old province. This great roadway is numbered XIII. by the government, which considers its highways a national property, and is typical of all others of its class throughout France.
The military roads of France are famous, and automobilists and some others know their real value as a factor in the prosperity of a nation.
It is not as it was in 1689, when Madame de Sévigné wrote that it took three days to travel from Paris to Rouen. Now one does it, in an automobile, in three hours.
From Pont Audemer she wrote a few days later to Madame de Grignan: “We slept yesterday at Rouen, a dozen leagues away.” Continuing, she said: “I have seen the most beautiful country in all the world; I have seen all the charms of the beautiful Seine, and the most agreeable prairies in the world.... I had known nothing of Normandy before.... I was too young to appreciate.”

Certainly this is quite true of Normandy, now as then, and to travel by road will demonstrate it beyond doubt.
The roads in France were, for several centuries after the decline and fall of the Roman power, in a very dilapidated state, as the result of simple neglect. Louis XIV., in the latter part of the seventeenth century, made some good roads in the vicinity of Paris; but it was not until the end of the eighteenth century (1775) that the real work of road-making throughout the country began. It was in the time of Napoleon I. that most of the great national roads, which run through the country in various directions, were constructed. These roads were made largely for military purposes, and connect the chief towns and the French frontiers with Paris.

HE FORESTS OF FRANCE

THE forests of France are a source of never-ending interest and pride to the Frenchman, of whatever station in life.
They are admirably preserved and cared for, and a paternal ministerial department guards them as jealously as a fond mother guards her children.
No cutting of trees is allowed, except according to a prescribed plan; and, when a new road is cut through,—and those superlative roadways of France run straight as the crow flies through many of the finest forest tracts,—as likely as not an old one is replanted.
The process of replanting goes on from day to day, and one sees no depleted forests of a former time, which are to-day a graveyard of bare stumps.
If there is any regulation as to tree-planting in these great forests, it would seem, to a casual observer, to be that where one tree has grown before two are to be made grow in its place.
There is a popular regard among all travellers in France for Fontainebleau, Versailles, and perhaps Chantilly, but there are other tree-grown areas, quite as charming, little known to the general traveller: Rambouillet, for instance, and Villers-Cotterets, of which Dumas writes so graphically in “The Wolf Leader.”
Normandy has more than its share of these splendid forests, some of them of great extent and charm. Indeed, the forest domain of Lyons, in Upper Normandy, one of the most extensive in all France, is literally covered with great beeches and oaks, surrounding small towns and hamlets, and an occasional ruined château or abbey, which makes a sojourn within its confines most enjoyable to all lovers of outdoor life.
Surrounding the old Norman capital of Rouen are five great tracts which serve the inhabitants of that now great commercial city as a summer playground greatly appreciated.
Game of various sorts still exists; deer in plenty, apparently, together with smaller kinds; and now and then one will hear tales of bears, which are, however, almost unbelievable.
In some regions—the forests of Louviers, for instance—the wild boar still exists. The chase for the wild boar, with the huntsmen following somewhat after the old custom (with a horn-blower, who is most theatrical in his get-up, and his followers, armed with lances and pikes in quite old-time fashion), is, as may be imagined, a most novel sight.
The forests of Roumare and Mauny, occupying the two peninsulas formed by the winding Seine just below Rouen, are remarkable, and are like nothing else except the other forests in France.
There are fine roadways crossing and recrossing in all directions, beautifully graded, with overhanging oaks and beeches, and as well kept as a city boulevard.
Deer are still abundant, and the whole impression which one receives is that of a genuine wildwood, and not an artificial preserve.
In the picturesque forest of Roumare is hidden away the tiny village of Genetey, which has for an attraction, besides its own delightful situation, an ancient Maison de Templiers of the thirteenth century, a well of great depth, and a chapel to St. Gargon, of the sixteenth century, built in wood, with some fine sculptures and paintings, which was at one time a favourite place for pious pilgrims from Rouen.
Not far away is Henouville, with a sixteenth-century church, lighted by five great windows of extraordinary proportions. The choir encloses the remains of Legendre, the almoner of Louis XIII., who was curé of Henouville, and whose fame as a horticulturist was as great as that brought him by his official position.
The near-by Château du Belley and its domain is now turned into a farm.
La Fontaine, a hamlet situated directly on the Seine bank, is overshadowed by a series of high rocks of most fantastic form, known as the chair, or pulpit, of Gargantua.
The forest of La Londe, of 2,154 hectares, on the opposite bank of the Seine from Rouen, is a remarkable tract of woodland, its oaks and beeches quite reminiscent of Fontainebleau. The trees as a whole are the most ancient and grand of those of any of the forests of Normandy. Two which have been given names are known respectively as Bel-Arsène, a magnificent beech of eleven great branches, planted in 1773, and the Chêne de la Côte Rôtie, supposed to have the ripe old age of 450 years; and it looks its age.
The forest of Londe is what the French geographer would describe as pittoresque et accidentée. It is all this would lead one to infer; and, together with the forest of the Rouvray, exceeds any other in Normandy, except the forest domain of Lyons.
At the crossing of the Grésil road is the Chêne-à-la-Bosse, having a circumference of three and a half metres; and, near by, one sees the Hêtre-à-l’Image, a great beech of fantastic form.
Amid a savage and entirely unspoiled grandeur is a series of caves and grottoes, of themselves of no great interest, but delightfully environed.
Near Elbeuf, on the edge of the forest of Londe, are the Roches d’Orival, a series of rock-cut grottoes and caverns,—a little known spot to the majority of travellers in the Seine valley. Practically the formation begins at Elbeuf itself, onward toward Rouen, by the route which follows the highroad to the Norman capital via Grand Couronne. At Port du Gravier, on the bank of the Seine, is a sixteenth-century chapel cut in the rock, like its brethren or sisters at St. Adrien on the opposite bank, and at Haute Isle, just above Vernon.
At Roche-Foulon are numerous rock-caverns still inhabited, and at the Roche du Pignon begins a series of curiously weathered and crumbled rocks, most weird and bizarre.
On a neighbouring hill are the ruins of Château Fouet, another of those many riverside fortresses attributed to Richard Cœur de Lion.
The forest domain of Lyons is the finest beech-wood in all France, and its 10,614 hectares (rather more than thirty thousand acres) was in the middle ages the favourite hunting-ground of the Dukes of Normandy. It is the most ample of all the forests of Normandy.
There are at least three trips which forest-lovers should take if they come to the charming little woodland village of Lyons-le-Forêt. It will take quite two days to cover them, and the general tourist may not have sufficient time to spare. Still, if he is so inclined, and wants to know what a really magnificent French forest is like to-day, before it has become spoiled and overrun (as is Fontainebleau), this is the place to enjoy it to the full.
The old Château of Lyons, and the tiny hamlets of Taisniers, Hogues, Héron, and the feudal ruins of Malvoisine, are a great source of pleasure to those who have become jaded with the rush of cities and towns.
The château of the Marquis de Pommereu d’Aligré, in the valley of the Héron, can be seen and visited, or rather the park may be (the park and château together are only thrown open to the public on the fête patronale—the first Sunday of September). Croissy-sur-Andelle is another forest village, and the Val St. Pierre, a sort of dry river-bed carpeted with a thick undergrowth, is quite as fine as anything of the kind at Fontainebleau.
At Petit Val is a magnificent beech five and a half metres in circumference, and supposed to be four hundred years old.
At Le Tronquay there is a great school, over whose entrance doorway one reads on a plaque that it is—
“Commemorative de la délivrance des paroissiens du Tronquay admis à porter la fierté de St. Romain de Rouen, le 5 mai, jour de l’ascencion, de l’anne 1644.”
At the end of a double row of great firs, lie the ruins of the Château de Richbourg, built by Charles IX.
La Fenille is a small market-town, quite within the forest, where one may get luncheon for the modest price of two francs, cider and coffee included, if he wanders so far from Lyons-le-Forêt as this.






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