They are excellently built, these national highways; the heaviest rain barely forms upon them a perceptible layer of mud. But one could pardon them a little unevenness of road-bed if only they would strike out for their goal with the dogged determination of our own axle-cracking turnpikes. They wind and ramble like mountain streams. They zigzag from village to village even in a level country. The least knoll seems to have been sufficient reason in the minds of the constructing engineers for making wide detours, and where hills abound, there are villages ten miles apart with twenty miles of tramping between them.
Thus far I had tramped the highways of Europe alone. Beyond Nemours, my second night’s resting-place, I came upon two wayfarers in the shelter of a giant oak, enjoying a regal repast of hard bread which they rendered more palatable by dipping each mouthful in a brook at their feet. On the plea of an ample breakfast I declined an invitation to share the feast, but our routes coincided and we passed on in company. The pair were young miners walking from Normandy to the great coal-fields of St. Etienne. Thanks to the free-masonry of “the road,” formalities were quickly forgotten, and before the first kilometer post rose up to greet us we were exchanging confidences in the familiar “tu” form. I soon added to my vocabulary the nickname of the French tramp. My new comrades not only addressed me as mon vieux, but greeted by that title every wayfarer we encountered, until it came to have as familiar a sound in my ears as the “Jack” of the American hobo. Its analogy to our “old man” is at once apparent.
There are stern laws in France against wandering from place to place. A lone traveler may sometimes escape attention, but well I knew that in trio we should often be called upon to give an account of ourselves. We were still some distance off from the first village beyond our meeting-place when an officer appeared at the door of the gendarmerie and, advancing into the highway, awaited our arrival.
“Où allez vous autres?” he demanded, with officious bruskness.
“A St. Etienne.”
“Et vos papiers?”
“Voilà!” cried the miners, each snatching from an inside pocket a small, flat book showing signs of age and hard usage.
The gendarme stuffed one of the volumes under an arm and fell to examining the other. Between its greasy covers was a complete biography of its owner. The first leaf bore his baptismal record, followed by a page for each of his three years of military service, all much decorated with official stamps and seals. Then came affidavits of apprenticeship, variously endorsed and viséd, and last a page for every firm that had employed the miner, giving dates, wages, testimonials, and reasons for leaving or dismissal. The miner bore the scrutiny with fortitude. With his official book at hand the French laborer has little dread of the officers of the law. After each term at his trade he may, if he sees fit to travel a bit, give variations of the old “looking-for-work” story, though as the date of his last employment grows more and more remote, the gendarmerie becomes an increasing obstacle.
Without some such document no one may tramp the highways of France. He who travels on foot for other reason than poverty, or who, being poor, will not make his way by begging, is an enigmatical being to any race but the Anglo-Saxon. To the French gendarme his mode of travel is proof absolute that he is a misérable sans-sous to whom every law against vagrancy must be strictly applied.
The officer ended the examination of the books and handed them back with a gruff bien.