and post-chaise. The place was crowded with motor cars of all shapes and
sizes, some of these were plain, shabby gigs and carts of commercial
travellers, others, landaus, waggonettes and victorias of rich folks
seeing the world in their own carriage as their ancestors had done
generations before; one turn-out suggested royalty or a Rothschild, I
was about to say, rather I should name a Chicago store-keeper, since
American millionaires are the Haroun-el-Raschids of the twentieth
century. This last was a sumptuously fitted up carriage having a seat
behind for servants, accommodating eight persons in all. There was also
a huge box for luggage. It would be interesting to know how much
petroleum, electricity, or alcohol such a vehicle would consume in a
day. The manufacture of motor cars must be a very flourishing business
in France, next, I should say, to that of bicycles. Of these also there
was a goodly supply in the entrance hall of the inn, and the impetus
given to travel by both motor car and bicycle was here self-evident. The
Hotel du Grand Monarque literally swarmed with tourists, one and all
French folks taking their ease at their inn. And our neighbours do not
take their pleasure solemnly after the manner of the less impressionable
English. Stay-at-home as they have hitherto been, home-loving as they
essentially are, the atmosphere of an inn, the aroma of a holiday, fill
the Frenchman's cup of hilarity to overflowing, rendering gayer the
gayest.

The invention and rapidly spreading use of the motor car in France shows
the French character under its revolutionary aspect, yet no people on
the face of the earth are in many respects so conservative. We English
folks want a new "Where is it?" for social purposes every year, the
majority of our friends and acquaintances changing their houses almost
as often as milliners and tailors change the fashion in bonnets and
coats. A single address book for France supplies a life-time. The