one
flourished it to-day before a stubborn octroi official or the
caretaker of a historical monument.

The membership card of the Italian, Swiss, or French touring clubs
will do much the same thing, and no one should be without them, since
membership in either one or all is not difficult or costly. (See
Appendix.)

France is the land _par excellence_ for the tourist, whether by road
or rail. The art of "_le tourisme_" has been perfected by the French
to even a higher degree than in Switzerland. There are numerous
societies, clubs, and associations, from the all-powerful Touring
Club de France downward, which are attracting not only the French
themselves to many hitherto little-known corners of "_la belle
France_," but strangers from over the frontiers and beyond the seas.
These are not the tourists of the conventional kind, but those who
seek out the little-worn roads. It is possible to do this if one
travels intelligently by rail, but it is a great deal more
satisfactorily done if one goes by road.

Here and there, scattered all over France, in Dauphine, in Savoie,
and in the Pyrenees, one finds powerful "Syndicats d'Initiative,"
which not only care for the tourist, but bring pressure to bear on
the hotel-keeper and local authorities to provide something in the
way of improvements, where they are needed, to make a roadway safe,
or to restore a historical site or monument.

In the Pyrenees, and in the Alps of Savoie and Dauphine, one finds
everywhere the insignia of the "Club-Alpin Francais," which caters
with information, etc., not only to the mountain-climber, but to the
automobilist and the general tourist as well.

More powerful and effective than all--more so even than the famous
Automobile Club de France--is the great Touring Club de France,
which, with the patronage of the President of the Republic, and the
influence of more than a hundred thousand members, is something more
than a mere touring club.

In the fourteen years of its existence not only has the Touring Club
de France helped the tourist find his way about, but also has taken a
leading part in the clearing away of the debris in many a moss-grown
ruin and making of it a historical monument as pleasing to view as
Jumieges on the Seine, or world-famed Les Baux in Provence.

It has appointed itself the special guardian of roads and roadways,
so far as the placing of signboards along the many important lines of
communication is concerned; it has b