The Car That Went Abroad

had that inviting sound which always belongs to the localities of pure romance-that is to say, fiction-and it has come about that Tarascon belongs more to Daudet than to history, while

ther be a place where something has happened, or could happen, or it must have a name with a fine sound, and it should be located in about the right quarter of the globe.

t for him on the banks of the Rhone. It is used as a jail now, but King René held a joyous court there and a web of romance clings to his memory. King René's castle does not look like a place for romance. It looks like an artificial precipice. We were told we could visit it by maki

onary days, one St. Martha delivered the place from a very evil dragon, the

lette, for one thing, and anyone who has read that poem, either in the original or in Andrew Lang's

a light tissue of legend was woven around the castle itself-half-mythical tales of its earlier centuries. Figures like Aucassin and Nicollette emerged and were made so real by those who chanted or recited the marvel of their adventures, that they still live and breathe with youth when their gallant castle itself is no more than vacant towers and fragmentary walls. The castle of Beaucaire looks across to the defiant walls of King René's castle in Tarascon and I believe there used to be some sturdy wars between t

ve Nicollette was shut up for a time in one of its houses-we di

an't Ask a Man 'Quel Est le Chemin' for Anywhere When You A

ned. We had practiced a good deal at asking in the politest possible French the way to any elusive destination. The book said that in France one generally takes off his hat in making such an inquiry, so I practiced that until I got it to seem almost inoffensive, not to say jaunty, and the formula "Je vous demande pardon, but-quel est le chemin pour-" whatever the place was. Sometimes I could even do it without putti

Rhone and found ourselves, in mid-afternoon, at the gates of Avignon. That is not merely a poetic figure. Avignon has veritabl

s. We stopped the car to stare up at this overtopping masonry, trying to believe that it had been standing there already three hundred years, looking just

we halted in the great portals. We halted because we noticed the word "L'Octroi" on one of t

rat."-that is to say, garage gratis, such being the custom of this land. Narcissa, who has an eye for hotels, spied one presently, a rather imposing-looking place with a long, imposing name. But the management was quite modest as to terms when I displayed o