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A

FRANCE

BY HENRY HOYT MOORE

WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

STERN, military-looking man seemed

out of place at the table-d'hôte, amid wine-sellers, drummers for Bordeaux jobbers, and other commercial men. We agreed that, if not an anachronism in this age, he was certainly without reason-for-being in this peaceful little town in southern France. For this was two months before the war, and Albi looked as if it had never had even a nightmare about marching armies and the noise of guns. Little did we imagine that a few weeks after our visit the commercial men would be transformed into soldiers and would be marching away to the front, perhaps under the lead of the very man who seemed so superfluous when we sat opposite him at dinner at the Grand Hôtel de la Poste.

But Albi, sleepy little town that it was last May, is not without its history of war and rumors of war. For did not the fact that it contained a fortress-cathedral first interest us in this peaceful village on the river Tarn? One of the few fortress-churches of France," we read, "and one of the finest examples of

Southern Gothic." So we said that we would run over on the afternoon train from Toulouse, see the Cathedral, come back the same evening, and take the late train for Carcassonne-which is another and quite different

Albi, be it observed, is not on the maintraveled road. One must study the time-table carefully to find one's way there, or, better, counsel with the hotel porter as to trains. For must not one change at Tessonières, and are not the trains from that quiet little hamlet somewhat infrequent? Then, too, the branch road from Tessonières is old-fashioned as to its cars, and one gets into one of them to find a representative of the French commercial class engaged in eating a late lunch with the perfect sang-froid and indifference to surroundings that characterize the native traveler in the independent land of France. He is ready, however, to answer the questions which after a suitable interval are put to him, and shows himself familiar with the neighborhood, and, what is more, proud of

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The houses rise on terraces high above the river. Ladders enable the householders to reach the boats below

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ST. CECILIA'S TOWER SEEN FROM ONE OF ALBI'S WINDING STREETS The Albigensians love flowers, and window-boxes and roof gardens may be seen in many parts of the old town

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