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A MOTOR-FLIGHT THROUGH FRANCE It is to this vivid synthesis of the past that one reverts from even the strongest single impressions—from the civic sumptuousness of the Palais de Justice, the elegance of the Hôtel de Vogué, the mysterious symbolism of the jutting row of gargoyles on the west front of Notre Dame—suffering them to merge themselves, these and many more, into a crowded splendid tapestry, the mere background of the old city's continuous drama of ducal, Imperial, parliamentary life.

The same impression of richness, of deep assimilated experience, accompanies one on the way north through the Burgundian province—giving to the trivial motorist, the mere snarer of haphazard impressions, so annihilating a sense of his inability to render even a superficial account of what he sees, and feels beneath the thing seen, that there comes a moment when he is tempted to take refuge in reporting the homely luxury of the inns—though even here the abundance of matter becomes almost as difficult to deal with.

It is for this reason, perhaps, that after a morning among the hills and valleys of the [ 156 ]