I arrived at Weimar late at night. Next day I set out on foot toward Paris, on the old national road. It wound its way over rolling hills and among the ravines and valleys where was fought a great battle between Germany and France in the Franco-Prussian War. For miles along the way, dotting the hillsides, standing alone or in clusters along lazy brooks or half hidden among the green of summer, were countless simple white crosses marking the graves of fallen soldiers and bearing only the simple inscription, “Here rests Krieger——1870.” At one place I came upon a gigantic statue of a soldier pointing away across a deep wooded glen to the vast graveyard of his fallen comrades.
Plodding early and late, I reached Paris a few days after crossing the boundary.
A mile farther on, in the open country, two iron posts marked the boundary between the two countries. A farmer, with his mattock, stood in Germany, grubbing at a weed that grew in France.
I expected to be stopped when I tried to pass into France, for I knew that the two countries were not on the most friendly terms. The customs house was a mere cottage, the first building of a straggling village some miles beyond the boundary. When I came within sight of it, a friendly-looking Frenchman, in a uniform worn shiny across the shoulders and the seat of the trousers, wandered out into the highway to meet me. Behind him strolled a second officer. But they did not try to delay me. They cried out in surprise when I told them I was an American walking to Paris. They merely glanced into my bundle, and as I went on they called out after me, “Bon voyage!”
I had to wait for some time whenever I came to a railway crossing. Ten minutes before a train was due, the gate-woman would close both gates and return to the shades of her cottage close by. If the train happened to be an hour late, that made no difference. That was the time that Madame was hired to lock the gates, and locked they must remain until the train had passed. It was useless to try to climb over them, for Madame’s tongue was sharp and the long arm of the law was on her side.
Plodding early and late, I reached Paris a few days after crossing the boundary.
A month of tramping had made me an awful sight. Moreover, it was August, and my woolen garments had been purchased with the winds of the Scottish Highlands in mind. For fifteen francs I bought an outfit more suited to the climate. Then I rented a garret, and roamed through the city for three weeks.
CHAPTER V
TRAMPING THROUGH FRANCE
The month of August was drawing to a close when I started southward. At first I had to pass through noisy, dirty villages filled with crying children and many curs. Beyond, travel was more pleasant, for the national highways are excellently built. The heaviest rain raises hardly a layer of mud. But these roads wind and ramble like mountain streams. They zigzag from village to village even in a level country, and where hills abound there are villages ten miles apart with twenty miles of tramping between them.