[IX.]
TOWNS IN SOUTHERN FRANCE
E left Marseilles on Tuesday, September 26th, at 6 A. M. for Grenoble. The sunrise was very beautiful; along the way you can see trees, the tops of which have been chopped off. We were told that the annual crop of fire-wood in France is just the same as the annual crop of wheat or any other product. Fast growing trees are planted and the branches and twigs are utilized for fuel.
We were met at the Grenoble station by eight entirely new Dodge automobiles.
At Grenoble, we visited the glove factory of Perrin & Co. This firm is well known in the United States and we were informed that our country is its best customer. In normal times the concern employes twenty thousand men and women, equally divided. The product is twenty million pairs of gloves annually. Much of the work is taken home for execution. The shop is well lighted and the sanitary conditions seem to be all of the very best. We visited the Raymond button factory and the candy factory of Davin & Company. This was a very interesting experience. At the close, or rather before leaving the factory, we were permitted to witness the decoration of a workman who had been in the employment of the company for thirty-five years. It was really an affecting sight. We were told that in all that time he had not lost a day from sickness and the time had arrived when he was entitled to a pension. He was decorated by the head of the firm. At the close of the ceremonies he was surrounded by his family, relatives and members of the firm, and greeted in the usual way of the French with their own countrymen, that is to say, by kissing and embracing.
On Wednesday, September 27th, at seven in the morning, we left Grenoble for the French Alps. We had as a guide John Steel, an American who had been in France for fifteen years and had become a French citizen. He gave us much valuable information. He said, among other things, that when the railroads in France take freight they guarantee the time of delivery, if desired, and include an extra charge in the rate. On this trip we passed three companies of mounted guns, the technical name being mountain artillery. This was an interesting sight. A portion consisted of donkeys with all the paraphernalia of a soldier strapped to their backs, together with rapid firing mitrailleuses. The soldiers were unusually fine looking men from the Alpine district, a portion of France near the Swiss border.
[Illustration: Types from French Provinces.]
We visited a paper mill where the entire product was cardboard. We passed the "Escole de Garcons," otherwise a school for teaching waiters. We were told by Mr. Steel that in the valley adjoining that in which we were driving anthracite coal exists in abundance but has not been worked to any great extent. We passed mountain villages and noticed the cultivation of the sides of mountains almost perpendicular. It was a wonderful ride, amid splendid scenery, with numerous waterfalls, snow and glaciers in great abundance; in other words, we were going through the Switzerland of France. We passed a flock of sheep, more than five thousand in number, cared for by a head shepherdess, with several assistants and a number of dogs.
We had luncheon at the Grand Hotel Bourg D'Oison and stopped briefly at the hotel de La Meige.