The bridge spanning the Dordogne into cheerful Bergerac showed a town busy with festal preparation for the coming of President Poincaré. Pine branches were being wound around telephone poles; festoons of green decorated the houses; windows were bright with flags; the streets overhung with arches bearing inscriptions of welcome. We stopped at a tea shop which was also a _boulangerie_.
It was interesting to discover, from the local papers, that our route for the next two days was to be part of the itinerary selected by President Poincaré for his tour through the French provinces.
This trip resulted from the president's desire to know his people better, to become acquainted with their local life, to visit their industries, and especially to attract the attention of the motor world to beautiful and interesting regions of France which had too long been neglected,--these slumberous small towns of the Dordogne, Limousin and Périgord, hidden from the broad travel track, rich in local traditions and peculiarities, wrapped in their old-world atmosphere, surrounded by exquisite landscapes with marvelous horizons. For these towns, the president's coming was a big event. Some of them recalled that since the days of Louis XI no ruler of the state had visited their village.
We were to see Périgueux, with its precious relics of Roman life and of the Middle Ages; Limoges, noted for its beautiful enamels and the center of the porcelain industry. It was this part of France, so little visited even by the French themselves, that President Poincaré chose for his week of motoring. For him, as well as for us, it was to be a delightful voyage of discovery.
The twenty-nine miles to Périgueux proved a memorable motor experience. Much of the way was among steep, tree-covered slopes. No one met us along the road.
It is surprising how far one can motor in France without seeing any trace of human life; areas of deserted country are so common; abandoned farmhouses appear so frequently. The reason lies not alone in the drift of population to the larger towns and cities, but in the fact that the French birth rate is failing to hold its own. France, so rich in other respects, is actually threatened by a decreasing population. In 1911 the number of deaths exceeded the number of births by 33,800. In the first third of the last century, when the death rate was much higher than now, there were six births to every death; in 1871 the ratio had fallen to two births to each death; in 1901 it was even. If we consider the number of births per 10,000 inhabitants during the decades of the last century, we find the series to be an invariably decreasing one--from 323 in 1800 to 222 in 1900. In 1870 Germany and France had each about 38,000,000. Germany now has over 67,000,000, a gain of 27,000,000 over the present French population of 39,340,000. France is thus placed at a great disadvantage in the matter of national defense. If we assume the German army to be only 750,000 soldiers, there would be one soldier to every 89 inhabitants; France, to have the same army, would be obliged to have one soldier to every 52 or 53 inhabitants. The fact that the French soldiers will now be compelled to serve three years in the army, as compared with two years in Germany, shows how France is now paying the penalty for neglecting that vital national problem of population.