St. Gaudens and Montréjeau are passed in turn, and Tarbes reached at six o'clock, where we descend at the Hôtel de la Paix on the main square. The hotels in all this section show the influence of Spain. This one has a _patio_ and the one at Carcassonne also possessed one with a raised platform at the end over which a vine was twined and under which Carmen might have carried on her flirtations. Three autos arrived while I was in Carcassonne, a large one with three Englishmen, which had destroyed three tires that day and caught on fire; a small one of twelve horse-power with three men, and one just like ours, of twenty-four horse-power. This held a lady, a maid, and two dogs. Imagine travelling in an auto with two dogs. Jean says the lady is an American countess and seems surprised when I tell him that we have no titles in America. He might have replied that we try to marry as many as possible, which is quite true, to our sorrow generally. This person looked like a painted countess of the stage. One must journey through the provinces in France to find her men and understand the source of her past power. Those we meet with daily are a fine, manly looking lot of fellows, bright eyes and erect, sturdy figures, nothing effeminate about them, in all ways superior to the men of the towns who would seem to be descended from the old men and boys, all Napoléon left in the land in his wild race for self glory. What a magnificent figure his would have been in history had he placed France first and remained First Consul! How absurd that play at Emperor! Of his military and executive genius there can be no question, but for his own glory he deliberately sacrificed France and hundreds of thousands of her best men. His family playing at royalty always reminds one of some stage performance; "Belles of the Kitchen", for example. I think we made a mistake in coming via Toulouse. It would have been more interesting to have gone via Montreal, Pamiers, and St. Gaudens. If I ever come this way again, I shall keep nearer the Pyrenees. The run to-day has covered from Carcassonne at nine o'clock to Tarbes at six, one hundred and seventy-five miles. It is but thirty miles further into Pau, but man and master both are weary and the auto must be hot, to say the least. [Illustration: THE GROTTO AT LOURDES By permission of Messrs. Lévy]