THE BEAUTIES OF FRANCE 



465 



has taken full advantage of its situation. 

 Its twin rivers, spanned by 22 handsome 

 bridges and dotted with battered public 

 wash-boats, are lined with superb, tree- 

 shaded quays on all sides. There are 

 miles of other fine streets and many parks 

 and squares — the fashionable Bellecour, 

 with its ponds and swans, its cafe and 

 bandstand; the Terreaux, with its monu- 

 mental fountain of the rivers and springs, 

 its flowing crowds and fluttering pigeons. 

 The less noted squares, each with its 

 monument embayed in flowers, are un- 

 usually attractive because of the French 

 genius for design and location. In one 

 square no less than nine great streets are 

 focused, thus giving flower beds and 

 monument their happiest effect. 



Imposing modern commercial and pub- 

 lic buildings in no way detract from the 

 interest of the remarkable Cathedral of 

 St. Jean and its attendant, the incrusted 

 and arcaded eleventh century Manecan- 

 terie, or Choristers' House, or from the 

 quaint Romanesque Church of St. Mar- 

 tin-d'Ainay, with its inlays of colored 

 stones and its tower with acro£eria. A 

 superb view from the balconies of the 

 tower of the Fourviere Church sweeps 

 a hundred-mile circle of city and plain, 

 fenced in by snowy peaks, among which 

 Mt. Blanc . is clearly visible in good 

 weather. 



A FIELD OF STILL VOLCANOES 



There is probably no part of the world 

 in which prehistoric volcanic action can 

 be so easily studied and understood as in 

 the old province of Auvergne. It is 

 warty with three groups of extinct vol- 

 canoes, and bubbles with important me- 

 dicinal springs : it is full of rural beauty 

 and urban significance in architecture. 

 The volcanoes are so symmetrically 

 round-topped, they must have looked like 

 titanic old-fashioned coke-ovens when 

 they were "going." Now, cooled off, 

 they are rich in the most fertile of soils. 



One has an excellent observatory for 

 this on the tram-funicular that ascends 

 the Puy de Dome, opening at every turn 

 some new and inspiring vista of the 

 round heads of the domes fading into the 

 distance, their dark flanks splashed with 

 vivid yellow gorse, oblongs of grain or 



plowed earth, fired suggestively with 

 poppies, and touched in places with clus- 

 ters of enormous, tigerish violets striped 

 with black. 



The coming of a storm is marvelous ; 

 you seem suspended in vacancy, while the 

 tops of the domes whirl away, one after 

 another, and vanish into emptiness long 

 before the charging rain clouds blot out 

 the world below. Curious grottoes, in- 

 numerable glancing cascades, and little 

 mountain lakes add to the interest and 

 beauty of the region. 



Clermont-Ferrand — Bright Mount, be- 

 cause of the sunshine that floods it, while 

 the neighboring domes are swathed in 

 fog and mists — is anything but a gloomy 

 place, though built almost entirely of 

 black lava. The inhabitants are as sunny 

 as the town, from those old folks and 

 children who sun themselves in the high 

 Place Poterne, with its views of the 

 domes, to the sleek goats, who stroll after 

 their piping herdsman through the large 

 and handsome Place de Jaude, while the 

 sidewalks, filled with chairs and covered 

 with bright awnings, shelter a cosmo- 

 politan throng sipping its tea and aperi- 

 tifs to the music of string bands. 



Here once more we find that architec- 

 ture has strikingly adapted itself to the 

 material resources of the district and the 

 habits of the local builders. The notable 

 Church of Notre Dame du Port is a typi- 

 cal specimen of the Auvergnat style of 

 Romanesque, with its black and white 

 volcanic inlays, curious pedestal above 

 the crossing as a support for the octag- 

 onal tower, and four symmetrically ra- 

 diating apse chapels. 



A HIGHLAND SPA 



Nearby is the famous spa of Royat, 

 with its little town behind in the hills, 

 straggling along the edge of a precipitous 

 gorge, whose black walls drip vines and 

 flowers that fringe wet grottoes where 

 laundresses splash and sing. An amaz- 

 ing old battlemented church, founded by 

 Benedictine nuns 1,200 years ago, with 

 crazy, crooked houses jammed close 

 about it, dominates the town, and sets off 

 charmingly its raggedy, spirited popula- 

 tion of men and women market garden- 

 ers, who think more of their strawberries 



