Where it all comes true in France; the experiences and observations of Betty and Mary as related by their aunt

Front matter

COMES TRUE IN FRANCE ©

CLARA

By

Contents

I. GETTING TO FRANCE

Pirates!

‘France is a fairy-tale land’

Introduction

IN case this should be the first volume of ours you have had, we think we ought to tell, as we did in the one on Italy and Switzerland, that we are two little girls, eleven and thirteen, who made our first trip to Europe when we were ten and twelve. We went with our Auntie, who has written ever so many books, and a number of them are about travel in Europe. Lots of people asked her to write some books for children that would be about Europe the way she has been telling it to us since we were very, very young. And she said she could do that only by taking us over and seeing what we really liked.

Some of Nannie’s friends (we have always called our auntie ‘ Nannie’) thought she was kind of crazy to go over with two children, and no one to help her. But she thought it would be all right; and it certainly was!

Before we started, and when we were going, we'd talk and talk things over. And Nannie said that she wanted us to have the very best and happiest time in Europe that two children could possibly have. But she wanted us, while we were having it, to keep thinking, as much as we could, about making our good times and wonderful experiences interesting and helpful to children at home.

And now, to tell you something about the way these books of ours are written.

Nannie says there are lots of books about Europe written for young readers by grown-ups, and describing for children what the grown-ups think is important for them to know about things over there. So she thought we ought to try to do ours a little different, and make it two children’s account of what they saw and did over there, so other children can decide if those are the things they’d like to do, too.

She wanted these books to be from us, to you; for she says she could write them only that way. But of course we don’t want any one to think that we did the actual writing of the books (that would be trying to deceive you, if we made you think so), instead of living the books with some one who knows how to write what we think and feel.

Our first book was about Italy and Switzerland. The second one was about Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. This one is about France. The next will be one on Great Britain. Soon we hope to do one on Germany and Austria, and one on Holland and Belgium. And one on Eygpt and the Holy Land and Greece. And one on Spain and North Africa. And then one on Around the World! By that time we'll be almost grown up; but we think we'll keep on feeling pretty much the same about our travels; because Nannie is grown up, and has travelled a lot, and she keeps on feeling very much the same about things as she did when she was about our age — which is why it is easy for her to write our books with us.

That’s about all, for Introduction.

Berry and MARY CLARA LAUGHLIN CHICAGO, 1928

WHERE IT ALL COMES TRUE IN FRANCE o) : a

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In France

Chapter I Getting To France

FRANCE was our first foreign country; and that was thrilling! Then, we had been wishing and wanting to go to France (particularly Paris) ever since we can remember, and had ‘played going,’ in a game, and ‘told it’ in just about hundreds of stories. And besides all this, we were Adventuring — and you know how that makes you feel!

There was just one thing about it all that we didn’t like; and that was leaving our'ship. We had enjoyed the voyage so; and everybody was so good tous. We soon found out that we were going to feel that way every time we had to make a change from one place to another: we never wanted to go; we were always leaving kind friends behind; we were always sure that ‘the next place’ couldn’t be as lovely as the place we were in. But it was!

We landed at Cherbourg, which is on a kind of big cape, eighty-three miles across the English Channel from Southampton, in England. Cherbourg is in the part of France called Normandy, where William the Conqueror came from, and so did Charlotte Corday, and Millet who painted ‘The Angelus.’ Maybe when you land at Cherbourg there'll be a big dock that the ships go up to; because they are talking about building one. But when we landed there, they were still coming quite a way out beyond the harbor, to take passengers and trunks and mail off, on small steamers called ‘tenders.’

Our big ship stopped, very early in the morning, around six o’clock or so; and our stewardess came to wake us — but we were awake and looking out of the portholes of our room, to see France! Everybody who was going to Paris had to have breakfast about 6.30 and be off the boat about 7.30, because at 8 she was going to steam off again, to Southampton, where her dock is, and where the people get off to go to London.

(You know you always call a ship ‘she.’) Once upon a time, Nannie was crossing on a very big ship, and there was a little boy about six on board and his sister who was about eight. He called the ship ‘he’ and insisted that such a big ship must be ‘a he.’ But Sister said No. One day he went in the barber shop on the ship, where there were a lot of things to sell, and bought a ribbon band for his cap. On it was ‘R.M.S. Olympic.’ He asked the barber what that meant, and the barber told him Royal Mail Steamship. So he rushed out on deck where his sister was, shouting, ‘I told you this one was a male ship!’

France looked green and spring-like, from the ship, a mile or so out from the shore; but we couldn’t tell much about it from that far away.

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What interested us most was the boats coming out to meet us. It was hard to take time for breakfast; there was such a lot to see.

PIRATES!

Nannie said that one of the boats that was coming from the shore was full of Pirates! And that was the boat we had to get on! She said that one of the Pirates would grab all our belongings

(except our trunk, which was checked through to Paris) and run away with them, and take them to an Ogre, very fierce and terrible. And if we got anything away from the Ogre, the Pirate would try to take it from us before the train left. And she told us if we’d watch some of the people who had sailed the sea with us, and sat on deck reading Adventure stories, we'd find out that they wanted all their Adventure done for them by characters in books; and when they themselves went travelling, they wanted everything to be just like they were used to having it at home — and when it wasn’t, they’d get mad.

So we had two kinds of fun to keep us busy!

The first boat that came out to us had French doctors on it. They had to come on board our ship and find out from our ship doctors if anybody had a disease that was catching. If anybody did, they might not let any of us land; for fear we’d be coming down with it, and give it to other people in France. That's kind of exciting! Because there might be somebody on a big ship like that who had a disease that’s catching! (Only, it seems, there just about never is’ The ocean’s such a healthy place.)

The boat that came out to get the hundreds and hundreds of sacks of mail we had brought for France and other countries on the Continent had letters on it for us and other passengers; and Paris newspapers, all in English; and everybody was running around seeing what there was for them.

Then, pretty soon, we all had to get in lines at the doors of the big lounge (which holds hundreds of people at a time) and have our passports in hand, and pass before French officials who see if our passports have a stamp on them that’s called a ‘visa’ and means that some French consul in the United States thought we were the kind of people it would be all right to let into France. They began doing this in War times, when countries had to be as particular as they could about who got into them. In peace times it’s a lot of nuisance and expense.

Well, the first Frenchman who greeted us didn’t give us any idea how very, very much we were going to love the people we met in France. The man who looked at our passport didn’t say a word — just stamped it. He acted as if he thought it was an awful nuisance, and he would much rather have stayed in bed. When he stamped our passport, to show that we could get into France, and gave us some landing cards, then we had to say more good-byes to people on the ship, and go off (through a big door that’s opened only to let you on and off) down a steep gangplank, to the deck of the tender where the Pirates are. The other name for Pirates is porters. They wear blue blouses, with numbers on them; and they keep yelling things that most of the passengers can’t understand. It could be orders to ‘Scuttle the ship!’ or ‘Walk the plank!’ or ‘Take ‘em to the galleys!’ But it is only calling out their numbers, or something like that. (People used to forget the number of their Pirate; so now the Pirate gives you a little check with his number on — and you can’t lose him!)

Our belongings were grabbed by a Pirate, and away he ran. We couldn't follow him; we had to move with the crowd, and show our landing tickets. It was slow going; but we could amuse ourselves by hearing some of the passengers fuss. One lady had kind of hysterics because she was sure she would never see her suitcases again. A man asked her if she ever lost sight of her baggage when she was travelling in America. She said, ‘Of course!’ and he said, ‘But you sometimes get it back?’ And she gave him what’s known as ‘a dirty look.’

The Pirate carries your bags into the custom-house where there is a very long narrow oval with counters surrounding it, and inside the oval there are Ogres. They are Ogre-ish because they have to spend most of their time in a pen like that pawing through people’s ‘un’erwears.’ If you have a naturally mean disposition you might enjoy making people scared and uncomfortable, and doing it all day long every day. But if you don’t enjoy it, it must get on your nerves.

The French Ogres are not really bad at all; but it’s fun to pretend that they’re going to be terrible, and that the reason you got by yours so easily was because you had a secret charm or a talisman, or something. Nannie says that some travellers have a thing like that. She wouldn’t tell us what it is, but said we should watch people travelling, and see if we could find out why some of them seem to have troubles and grievances all the time, and others hardly ever have any. She said if we watched closely, we’d catch the happy travellers working their charm, and find out how they do it. And the first one of us who found out would get a prize.

We looked hard, in the Ogre house; but we couldn’t see anybody doing anything that might be working a charm.

Our Pirate put our bags on the counter, all ina row, ready to be opened for the Ogre. The Ogre asked Nannie if she had anything to ‘declare.’ That means, anything you’re not supposed to take in without telling about it and paying duty on it. And she said, ‘No, M’sieu.’ Then he asked her if she knew what the things are that have to be declared. And she said, ‘Oui, M’sieu.’ He handed her a printed list of those things, so she could be sure. It was printed in English. We didn’t have any of them, except a few candies — chocolates; not enough to matter. So he looked at all our bags and picked one that he wanted opened. Nannie opened it, and he took one little look, she closed it, and he made a mark on all our things that showed we could go out, and take our belongings. You couldn’t say he was a nice Ogre; but he certainly wasn’t a mean one.

Then we had to get by another one, with more showing of passports. And soon we got out to where our train was standing — three long sections of it — ready to take hundreds of passengers to Paris.

You buy your train tickets on the ship, and have seats reserved, and get little cards with your seat numbers on; so you know just where you belong — same as when you have your little Pullman tickets at home.

We showed ours to the Pirate, and he stowed away our bags and suitcases in the racks above those seats. He seemed so nice, we couldn’t imagine why anybody would call him a Pirate. He was old, but strong as an ox; he put a heavy leather strap through the handles of all our bags, and slung them over his shoulder as if they were a string of balloons. We thought he was quite wonderful. And then—! All of a sudden, we saw him turn right into a Pirate!

Nannie gave him some money for carrying our bags — which one always does, of course — and it was a little more than plenty, because when he

Ca AR APL HN A A PS TE EA CEES SES got through helping us it was probably too late to get another passenger to help; and what we gave him might be all he’d earn that day, unless there was another ship. He carried four suitcases and a hat-box for us, and we each carried a small bag for ourselves. Nannie gave him fifty francs, which was nearly two dollars, or almost forty cents in our money for each piece. He began to kind of whine that it was ‘not enough.’ And Nannie told him it was far too much, but that she gave it to him anyway because she wanted to see if there wasn’t one porter at Cherbourg that knew how to behave when he was very well treated. She didn’t get cross, or anything. She just smiled at him as if she knew a lot about Pirates. And he was the maddest Pirate we ever saw — until we looked around, and saw that everybody’s Pirate was mad, too; and all of them were kind of snarling or whining or muttering something about ‘not enough.’ And nearly everybody was mad at them. It was comical!

When Nannie was a very small girl travelling in Europe, Grammie used to buy books to read aloud to her at bedtime. And one of them (which disappeared, long ago, so they can’t find it to prove anything by) Nannie says (teasing Grammie) was full of stories of children who began their dreadful careers by biting their nails or leaving their overshoes where they didn’t belong; and they all ended up by being hanged from a yardarm, or something like that. Grammie says she knows she would never have bought or read such stories. Nannie claims she can remember them all, vividly. They call it ‘the little green book,’ because it had a dark-green cover; and they have lots of fun about it; and we do, too, because Nannie’s always making up stories like those, to tell us— stories about girls who began their careers of crime by leaving their handkerchiefs lying about, or not knowing where they put their purses, and ended by being bandits or something like that. She laughs when she’s fooling. But we usually ‘take the hint,’ and she says that’s all any one could ask of a moral story.

When we saw how the Pirates behaved, we were kind of disgusted, because we had always heard how kind and polite French people are.

So Nannie said that when a little boy in France isn’t as courteous as he ought to be, his mother says to him: ‘Do you want to grow up to be a Pirate at Cherbourg?’ And, mostly, that makes him start behaving nicely, right away. But if it doesn’t ! If he goes on and on, being greedy and rowdy-ish, before he knows it, he’s ‘a porter at a port — yo! ho!’ Of course, we knew she was making it all up as she went along. But what we were waiting for was to see where little girls come in — little girls who leave hankies lying ’round. And, goodness! we almost hate to tell you: they get married to Pirates! And, no matter what they cook for their Pirates, or sew for them, or clean for them, all they ever get is ‘Not enough! Wot ENOUGH! Not ENOUGH!!!’ Yessir! although they started out believing they would wed a Prince charming, a Pirate is their fate.

GETTING TO FRANCE II

‘FRANCE IS A FAIRY-TALE LAND’

There was one more thing we wanted to know, and that was why France kept Pirates at her ports where people are coming in to visit her. And Nannie gave one of her comicallest and most despairing looks.

‘You!’ she moaned. ‘That you should ask me that! Don’t you know, after all these years of hearing about it and reading about it, that France is a fairy-tale land? And did you ever hear of a story-castle, or an enchanted wood or garden, or anything that was perfectly marvellous when you got inside, that didn’t have dragons guarding it, or sentinels, or ogres, or witches, or something? What fun would it be to get in, if you could walk right in without a shiver or a thrill?’

‘But everybody gets in!’ we objected.

‘Yes—they all seem to! But haven't you noticed the difference?’ .

We hadn't; but we started to see if we could.

It wasn’t so very hard to tell the difference; it’s just like any other magic thing: you can be 7m it; but if you don’t know the secret, you might as well have stayed outside. Sometimes people learn the secret after they’ve been inside for a while. And sometimes they never learn it at all.

Yet it’s such a simple secret! You don’t need anybody to tell it to you; you learn it for yourself, if you want to Discover! Discoverers are always looking for something precious —aren’t they? Something that makes life more interesting and more wonderful for themselves and for other people. You wouldn’t call any one a Discoverer who was looking for something to fuss about — would you?

Well! we soon learned to tell the Discoverers, who had the secret, and who were finding lovely things all the time, from the Fussers who went over the same ground and never found anything at all but things to criticize and complain about.

In the custom-house, on the train platform, in the train — everywhere — you could tell which was which, very quickly. And, after that, all the way along, wherever you go, some people couldn’t be better labelled if they wore a big ‘sandwich’ sign saying: ‘I’m here to fuss!’ And others couldn’t be easier to ‘spot’ if they wore an equally big sign saying ‘I’m looking for treasures — and finding them!’

This was the secret we had to find out, to get a prize. And as we found it out together, we both got a prize as soon as we reached Paris and could buy one — no, two!

It was nearly ten o’clock when we were ready to leave Cherbourg. And at four o’clock in the afternoon we arrived at Paris.

The ride is a beautiful one, through country that looked like thousands of pictures that had escaped from their pegs in galleries, and from their gilt frames, and were enjoying themselves in the sunlight where they were painted.

Such apple-blossoms! And lilacs! And little stone houses with gardens full of flowers! And churches with pointing spires! And so on. And the towns we went through were nearly all storytowns, of course; because almost every place in

France has stories to it. There was Bayeux, where the embroidery is on which Matilda worked the story of William’s conquest of England. And there was Caen, where she and William are buried, and where Charlotte Corday came from. And so on, all the way to Paris.

And then, one of us caught sight of the Eiffel Tower soaring up in the golden sunshine, and we nearly fell out of the car window in our excitement.

We were in Paris!

Chapter II Paris — At Last!

THE other day an editor asked Nannie to write an article for his magazine, telling what people could see in Paris who have only five days to stay there — which is about as long as many travellers have. And she asked each of us to make a list of places to be sure and see, and things to be sure and do. She made a list, too; and so did Grammie; and we got some more people to, who know Paris very, very well. It was fun! And then, we talked them over, to see what everybody had put in.

So, when we were getting ready to write about Paris in this book, we made some more lists, for a longer stay; because we hope none of the children who read this will have to leave Paris after only five days. A month in Paris just goes galloping. You can’t think where it went to. We hope to spend at least a month in Paris every year of our lives; and we wish we were like pussy-cats, and had nine lives!

You should see the lists we made for you — for this book! And then we had to decide if we’d try to mention all the places we think you'll love to see, and not say much about any one of them; or mention fewer places and have a little more room to tell stories about them the way we did when we were seeing them.

It was awfully hard to choose! We love the stories so! But we couldn’t bear not to tell you about all our favorite places; and we finally chose to do that.

Then we had to think if you might like them put down just as we happened to remember them, or as we saw them; or if it might be more useful to you to have them sort of classified.

We pretended that we were children who had never been to Paris and wanted to know what there is in Paris that we would love to see, and do. We know that children don’t like an awful lot of regular sight-seeing, as some grown-up travellers do. We have even met, since we came home, children who don’t care to go to Europe, because they think it’s all museums and churches and art galleries! And they want to have fun when it’s vacation time.

So we decided to tell first about the kinds of amusements we had in Paris, and you can have there. And after that, we'll tell you about some of the famous places that we’re sure you'll love to see — especially if you'll go to only one of them in a day, or even one every other day.

Paris is more full of amusements than any other city in the world. And though you don’t hear so much about them for children, we think it’s a children’s paradise.

First of all, let us tell you some of the outdoor things there are to do:

EATING IN PARIS!

To begin with, there’s eating! People in Paris love to eat out of doors, and we began doing it right away, and were always finding a new kind

CREAR DARE DNDN OS 12ST RN STR of outdoor place to eat. Maybe that’s why we ate so much and grew so big.

Wherever you eat in Paris (if you go all around, the way we did) it’s always an interesting Adventure and just like being in a story-book. But of course the outdoor places gave us the biggest thrills — except a few, that were indoors.

Our very first Paris meal was dinner at the Beeuf A la Mode — because that is where Nannie always goes first; and then goes as often as she can afterwards. It is indoors, but we loved it. It is full of stories — of history — and we never ate such good food; and we liked M. Charles, the manager, just heaps; and after dinner we went over into the Palais-Royal Gardens, across the street, and talked about Camille Desmoulins and Charlotte Corday and Napoleon and other people, till we could almost see them there, in the twilight, under the arcades where the shops are — where they once-upon-a-time were.

That was Friday. Saturday was our first whole day in Paris. We were pretty busy, and the places we ate at happened to be indoor ones — but very interesting, too.

Sunday was the first day of May, which is Labor Day in Europe; and there were no taxicabs running, and very few things of any sort to ride in. So we started out to walk — which we love to do in Europe, where there is so much to see.

We walked up to the Champs-Elysées (which means The Elysian Fields); and all along the avenue our hotel is on, and up the Champs- Elysées, the chestnut trees above our heads were white with blossoms. Paris streets, many of them if not most, have beautiful trees. At the Round Point where our avenue and a number of others run into the Champs-Elysées, there are fountains with water that doesn’t just drip down like lots of fountains do, but leaps into the sunshine in a glad kind of play that makes you glad, too. Most all the Paris fountains are like that — leaping and gay. And nearly everything in Paris has a way of making you feel glad. It is so very, very beautiful, and it seems to say to you that it is there to be enjoyed, so come on and do it.

The Champs-Elysées (which you pronounce something like Shongs-el-e-zay) is a very wide avenue with three traffic lanes, a centre one for fast-going automobiles which are like expresses, except at the crossings where they are signalled to stop; and two side lanes for carriages and cars in not so much of a hurry. There are not many carriages in Paris — just a few very fine ones that some wealthy people prefer to automobiles, and some little, horse-drawn taximetre cabs like what used to be known by the name of phaéton, or a small-sized ‘victoria’; these cabs are called fiacres, and are nearly always driven by fat old men who wear oilcloth ‘top hats.’ We love riding in fiacres; they jog along so nice and slow, and you can see everything. When it rains they can pull up a hood to cover you.

Well, that Sunday morning there were not any fiacres or motor taxicabs, and the Champs- Elysées looked very different from what they usually do. The fountains were leaping up and down, there were beds and beds of lovely spring flowers, and lots of people were out walking. When we stand at our corner and look up and down, it is certainly thrilling. Behind us (we see it plain from our hotel windows) is the Ev‘ffel Tower, shooting up into the sky, so tall and delicate-looking — not solid, like our tall buildings, but lacy, so you can look through it and see sky; which is very lovely to do. And in front of us, up on the hill they call Montmartre because that is where the first Christians of Paris were martyred, is the huge white Turkish-looking church that looks as if it had come out of the Arabian Nights and was visiting Paris on a magic carpet — because, mostly you don’t see what it stands on, and you could almost think it was suspended in the air. Then, on our right, we look down the Champs-Elysées which has ever-somany avenues of trees, and lots of beautiful playgrounds for children; and hundreds of benches and chairs for people to sit on and watch all that’s happening; and many grand restaurants, where you can eat indoors or out under the trees; and theatres; and merry-go-rounds; and puppet-shows; and donkeys to ride; and goat-carriages; and ‘teeter-totters’; and sand-pits for babies to play in; and booths that sell toys. One end of this great Play Avenue is at the immense space called the Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine used to stand in the days of the French Revolution; it has an Egyptian obelisk in it now, and many statues and fountains; and on the other side of it from where the Champs-Elysées runs into it