This is not a love story. These wings are wings of motion, not of Cupid, yet there is much of romance and story in these pages,โfor who can travel the plaisant pays de France and not dip deeply into both? When I entered my red machine at Nice no route had been laid out,โto me there is small pleasure in travel when that is done,โso I told Jean to start and left the direction to him.
Arles, Narbonne, fantastic Carcassonne, Lourdes, and Pau followed in rapid succession, and then we rested awhile at Biarritz with short journeys into Spain.
Turning northward we rolled off into Central France, pausing daily in some ancient city or quaint village, climbing mountains to long forgotten castles, or rolling into valleys in search of deserted abbeys. So we wandered through Auvergne, through courtly Touraine, sad Anjou, and stormy Brittany, until Normandy and Picardy smiled into our faces and Paris received us within her gates.
There the spirits of the woods seized upon us and we promptly got lost in the Black Forest, and so rolled on into Switzerland to Geneva and finally to Aix-les-Bains, where the journey ended and I bade goodbye to my staunch car which had carried me without mishap or delay for near five thousand miles.
To its winged wheels the highest mountains of France were no barrier. I am leaning over the terrace at Monte Carlo, watching the sparkle of the shifting sea. Away to the eastward glisten the villas on Cape Martan, to the west rises the ancient city of Monaco, behind me towers the Casino, the scene of more misery than almost any other spot on earth. Beyond and above it, rise the hills tier on tier, dotted with hotels and villas, while far in the blue dome of sky soar the eternal snows.
