604 AUTOMOBILE EACES. 



French clu))nicn had shown most sporting feeling toward the English 

 car, and had unofficially informed those most nearly interested that 

 the car would be started, timed, and checked, although she would, ,so 

 far as the race itself went, obviously be disqualified before she moved. 

 The conditions of the race laid down definitely that every part of a 

 competing vehicle must be built in the country by it represented, and 

 the use of foreign tires of course crabbed the deal. The above 

 arrangement was all that the English club or the owner or makers of 

 the car could desire, and it was felt by the whole English party present 

 that the French club had met them in their difliculties in a particu- 

 larly handsome and generous manner. If the English car had won, 

 well, the fact that she ran on Michelin tires would not have militated 

 in the smallest degree against the renown and glor}' that would have 

 been hers, and it is only by bearing this in mind that the sporting action 

 of the Automobile Club of France can be thoroughly appreciated. 

 Upon reaching Bordeaux we found Messrs. A. C. Harmsworth, Alfred 

 Bird, and Max Pemberton, the well-known novelist, whose brilliant 

 lately concluded story Pro Patria is still fresh in everyone's mind. 

 These three gentlemen had driven down from Paris, as to Messrs. 

 Harmsworth and Bird in the former's new 12 horsepower Serpollet 

 steam car, and as to the author of Footsteps of a Throne in Mr. 

 Harmsworth's 12 horsepower Panbard, driven by Engineer Lancaster, 

 than whom a better exists not. Colonel Crompton and Claude Cromp- 

 ton swelled the party later, having cycled from Paris. 



Mr. Harmsworth was good enough to take us out to the finishing 

 point about 2i to 3 miles from the city at a crossing of ways called 

 Les Quatres Pavilions, 345.89 miles from the starting point at Saint 

 Cloud, in his Serpollet, and though 3 miles is little enough to have of 

 so entrancing a vehicle, it was enough to convince us that that car is 

 quite the most luxurious road-traveling vehicle in which we have yet 

 ridden. Owing to the absurdly optimistic prophecies of Le Velo and 

 L'Auto Velo, we ran out over the horridly paved Bastide Bridge, and 

 the full mile of tram-lined pave bej^ond, and climbed the hills out to 

 the Quatre Pavilions, so as to be there before 10 o'clock. As the fly- 

 ing Fournier never arrived until nine minutes past 1, the odd hours 

 were made to pass as well as might be 1)}^ watching and criticising the 

 automobiles which went speeding outward toward Libourne in order 

 to take up favorable positions. Verily we believe every car in Bor- 

 deaux was requisitioned for the finish of this great event, for they 

 swept by in battalions and clouds of dust. In the intervals inquiries 

 were made as to what was known anent the progress of the race, and 

 occasional telephone messages to the house of M. Journu, of the 

 Automobile Club Bordelaise, which was hard by, were made known. 

 First we heard that Fournier and his Mors were leading well at 

 Chattellerault, 166 miles away, having passed Levegh, and that Gi- 



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