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Hills have been levelled and dangerous corners straightened, level crossings abolished or better guarded; and, where possible, the dread caniveaux—or water-gullies—which cross the roadway here and there have been filled up. More than all else, the execrable paved road, for which France has been noted, is fast being done away with. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the chief magistrate himself is not an automobilist; which places him in practically a unique position among the rulers of Europe.
At Bayeux, at Caen, at Lisieux, and at Evreux, in Normandy, one is on that great national roadway which runs from Paris to Cherbourg through the heart of the old province. This great roadway is numbered XIII. by the government, which considers its highways a national property, and is typical of all others of its class throughout France.
The military roads of France are famous, and automobilists and some others know their real value as a factor in the prosperity of a nation.
It is not as it was in 1689, when Madame de Sévigné wrote that it took three days to travel from Paris to Rouen. Now one does it, in an automobile, in three hours.
From Pont Audemer she wrote a few days later to Madame de Grignan: “We slept yesterday at Rouen, a dozen leagues away.” Continuing, she said: “I have seen the most beautiful country in all the world; I have seen all the charms of the beautiful Seine, and the most agreeable prairies in the world. … I had known nothing of Normandy before. … I was too young to appreciate.”
Certainly this is quite true of Normandy, now as then, and to travel by road will demonstrate it beyond doubt.
The roads in France were, for several centuries after the decline and fall of the Roman power, in a very dilapidated state, as the result of simple neglect. Louis XIV., in the latter part of the seventeenth century, made some good roads in the vicinity of Paris; but it was not until the end of the eighteenth century (1775) that the real work of road-making throughout the country began. It was in the time of Napoleon I. that most of the great national roads, which run through the country in various directions, were constructed. These roads were made largely for military purposes, and connect the chief towns and the French frontiers with Paris.
Besides the leading roads, there are also many other roads varying in degrees of importance, classed as follows:
(1) Routes Nationales. Constructed and maintained by the national government.
(2) Routes Départmentales. Constructed and maintained by the several departments at national expense.
(3) Chemins Vicinaux de Grande Communication. Passing through and connecting two or more communities, maintained and served by them, aided by government grant.
(4) Chemins Vicinaux de Moyenne Communication. Similar to Class III., but of less importance, and maintained at the cost of the people, but controlled by the department.
(5) Chemins de Petite Communication. Of still less importance, maintained by the communities separately under the supervision of government engineers.
(6) Chemins Ruraux. Roads of the least importance, and wholly controlled and maintained by the people without any interference from the government officials.
The art of road-building in France is only excelled by that of the Romans, and they unfortunately lived before the days of high-speed traffic and rubber-shod wheels.
The great national roads, usually tree-bordered, average but three in one hundred grade, the departmental roads four in one hundred, and the Chemins de Grande Communication five in one hundred. In all except very hilly districts, where of course there are deviations, this is the rule.
Napoleon’s idea was that these national highways were essentially a military means of communication, and as such they were laid out with a certain regularity and uniformity. Formerly they were largely paved with stone blocks. Who, among those who have travelled extensively by road in France, does not know the execrable pavements of the populated neighbourhoods through which these highways run? To-day these are largely disappearing. The roads in France suffer more from drought than from wet. They dry quickly after rain, and, in order to shade and protect the surface from the dry heat of summer, the planting of trees on the sides of the roads has been largely adopted. As showing the importance that has been attached to this matter, royal decrees were formerly passed, determining the manner of planting, the kind of trees to be used, and the penalties to be imposed on those who injured them.
Most of the roads of France, even the national roads, cross the railways on the level instead of over bridges. There are gate-keepers and gates for the protection of the public. At many of them the signalling is of a very primitive kind, and yet there are few accidents.
The history of the roads of France is the history of the nation since the conquest of ancient Gaul by the legions of Cæsar.
The Voie Auguste was the first, and bound Lyons with Italy by the Col du Petit St. Bernard, which to-day is actually National Road No. 90.
Agrippa made Lyons the centre of four great diverging roads; the first by the valley of the Rhine and the Meuse; the second by Autun to the port of Genosiacum, to-day Boulogne-sur-mer; the third by Auvergne toward Bordeaux; and the fourth by the valley of the Rhône to Aix and Marseilles.
From the decadence of the Western Empire and the invasion of the Barbarians, these fine roads were practically abandoned. Many good bridges were destroyed, and the work of road-building ceased completely, the people finding their way about by mere trails.
With the advent of Christianity in Gaul there was a partial renaissance of these Roman roads, thanks to great fairs and pilgrimages. The monastic orders became in a way the parents and protectors of bridges and roads, with St. Bénèzet at their head, who in the twelfth century constructed the wonderful Pont d’Avignon, which still stands.
The general system of the present-day national roads follows largely the old Roman means of communication, as well as those traced by nature, along the banks of rivers and on the flanks of mountains and in the valleys lying between. The great national roads of France form a class by themselves, independent of the departmental and communal roads. They approximate forty thousand kilometres, and run at a tangent from the capital itself and between the chief cities of the eighty odd departments which make up modern France.
In general, the designation of the road, its number, and classification are indicated on the kilometre marks with which every important road in France is marked.
The national roads, having their origin at Paris, have their distances marked from Notre Dame, and certain of the secondary cities are taken for the point of departure of other great roads.
A ministerial decree, put forth in 1853, decided that the national roads should have their distances marked from their entrance into each department, a regulation which has been followed nearly everywhere, except that distances are still reckoned from Paris on most of the great highroads of Normandy and Brittany.
Guide-posts are placed at all important cross-roads and pattes-d’oie (a goose-foot, literally).
An iron plaque, painted white and blue, beside the road, shows without any possibility of mistake the commune in which it is situated, the next important place in either direction, and frequently the next town of considerable proportions, even though it may be half a hundred kilometres distant.
French roads are indeed wonderfully well marked; and these little blue and white plaques, put up by the roadside or fastened on the wall of some dwelling at the entrance or the exit of a village or town, must number hundreds of thousands.
In these days