One might fancy that the difficulty of looking well in motor costume would prejudice the Parisienne against the machine, for with her, the most important thing connected with taking up a new sport is the excuse offered for a new and piquant costume. But the difficulties in the way of the motor woman merely added zest to the adoption of the fad.
Madame flew to her dressmaker.
"Tiens, M'sieu. I have bought three automobiles. What shall I wear?"
And Monsieur brought his brows together in his most effective and judicial fashion, led the fair motor woman to an inner room where the conference might have the quiet demanded by such weighty consultations, and set himself to planning methods of leaping this sartorial hurdle.
Some of the experimental stages of the Parisian motor costume were fearful and wonderful, and even now our importers bring over spectacular motor outfits to which are attached the names of famous makers; but, on the whole, the Parisienne has mastered the problem of motor dress.
For her electric brougham and victoria and the other luxurious, smooth-running electric vehicles in which she speeds over the asphalt and takes her afternoon outing in the Bois, no special costume is required. Perhaps, if she is her own chauffeuse, she wears a trim tailor frock and hat, but no eccentricity enters into her attire even then, and, as a rule, she wears what she might wear were the carriage drawn by horses instead of being propelled by electricity.
If she is going farther afield—out to the Henri Quatre for luncheon, to the Reservoir for dinner—she wears an all-enveloping dust cloak to protect her delicate frock, a veil or perhaps a hood to cover her fragile hat and shield her face and hair from dust, but beneath this outer wrapping she is as exquisite, as elaborate as ever. When it comes to longer runs, or to genuine touring, the Parisienne promptly abandons all effort to look well on the road. To be comfortable, to be suitably dressed, to be immaculate at the journey's end,—all these aims demand the setting aside of a desire to be beautiful; and, since she may not be beautiful, the quick-witted Madame seizes upon the possibility of being piquant and goes to the extreme of attaining the hideous in pursuit of the practical. She hides figure, hair, face. Even her sparkling eyes are eclipsed behind goggles or dimmed by masks, and she consoles herself for the ugliness by thought of the dramatic effect with which she may flutter from the cocoon when her butterfly moment arrives.
One sees these transformations by the score at such a rendezvous as Chantilly at the time of the "Derby," for it is the mode to motor to Chantilly on the eve of the important day and put up over night at the Grand Condé, or to arrive in time for luncheon before the races. Machine after machine dashes up to the hotel, discharges its freight of grotesque figures and wheezes away to the garage. Madame, carrying a hat box, and cloaked, hooded, masked, powdered with dust, hurries to the chamber reserved for her. In a twinkling there trips from the room which swallowed the awesome enigma a charming woman, fresh, dainty, smiling, gowned in the airiest and most delicate of confections. Or perhaps there is not even the moment of seclusion. A toot, a whir, a quick reversing of levers! The automobile has stopped. A dusty, shrouded, shapeless figure springs lightly to the step, while the idlers look on curiously. A swift movement of the hands and the hood falls back; another, and the cloak slips from the shoulders. There is Fifi, a Dresden china figure all fluttering frills and laces and ribbon and flowers, a smile on her lips, a challenge in her eyes.
"C'est chic, ça," comments the old Marquis over his Burgundy. "All that there is of the most modern, mon garçon!"
Paris is the city of automobiles, and France is the motor tourist's paradise. The roads are good, the inns are excellent and are rapidly improving under the influence of the motor touring, and on every hand are picturesque towns and picturesque scenery, not too rugged for the peace of mind of the average chauffeur.