nch at the Hotel du Grand Conde, which is marked with
three stars in the automobile route-books. This means that it is
expensive,--and so we found it. It was a good enough hotel of its
kind, but there was nothing of local colour about it. It might have
been at Paris, Biarritz, or Monte Carlo.

The great attractions of Chantilly are the chateau and park and the
collections of the Duc d'Aumale, famed alike in the annals of history
and art. We were properly appreciative, and only barely escaped being
carried off by our guide to see the stables--as if we had not
suffered enough from the horse craze ever since we had struck the
town.

The most we would do was to admire the park and the ramifications of
its paths and alleys which dwindled imperceptibly into the great
Foret de Chantilly itself. The forest is one of those vast tracts of
wildwood which are so plentifully besprinkled all over France. Their
equals are not known elsewhere, for they are crossed and recrossed in
all directions by well-kept carriage roads where automobilists will
be troubled neither by dust nor glaring sunlight. They are the very
ideals of roads, the forest roads of France, and their length is many
thousands of kilometres.

Senlis is but eight kilometres from Chantilly. We had no reason for
going there at all, except to have a look at its little-known, but
very beautiful, cathedral, and to get on the real road to the north.

We spent the night at Senlis, for we had become fatigued with the
horrible _pave_ of the early morning, the sightseeing of the tourist
order which we had done at Chantilly, and the eternal dodging of
race-horses being exercised all through the streets of the town and
the roads of the forest.

"_Monsieur descend-il a l'Hotel du Grand Monarque?_" asked a butcher's
boy of us, as we stopped the automobile beneath the cathedral tower
to get our bearings. He was probably looking for a little commission
on our hotel-bill for showing us the way; but, after all, this is a
legitimate enough proposition. We told him frankly no; that we were
looking for the Hotel des Arenes; but that he knew nothing of.
Another, more enterprising, did, and we drove our automobile into the
court of a tiny little commercial-looking hotel, and were soon
strolling about the town free from further care for the day. The
hotel was ordinary enough, neither good nor bad, _comme 'ci, comme
ca_, the French would call it,--but they made no objection to getting
up