It was decided at this meeting that, in the month of June of the following year, there should be a great race from Paris to Bordeaux and back (732 miles); that the carriages were to perform the whole distance in one trip; and that repairs were to be made only by such means as could be carried. The contestants, according to the formula adopted, were to procure en route nothing but 'entertainment for man and machine.' This was, therefore, a race and nothing but a race.
In a test of this kind it was, as a matter of course, extremely difficult to establish a method of competing which should be at all logical and satisfactory. The elements entering into an appreciation of the merits and faults of automobile carriages are so complex, that up to the present time the most competent specialists consider it almost impossible to establish a general formula for the classification of contestants. It was hence resolved to adhere to the course, since a test of speed, so long and so hard, would of itself eliminate any vehicle presenting the slightest flaw or insufficiency of construction.
These provisions have been completely realised, and to-day a very long and a very hard course is the most assured means of testing a vehicle.
During several months the committee did considerable work; for it was not only necessary to collect funds, but also to elaborate a set of regulations, and to obtain from the proper authorities the permission to make such trials of speed on the various sections of the route. In this arduous task the committee was most efficiently assisted by M. Marcel Desprez, Member of the Institute; M. Georges Berger, Deputy of the Seine; and especially by M. Michel Lévy, Engineer in Chief of Bridges and Roads. Thanks to the efforts of the Committee, the whole matter was organised in spite of a multiplicity of difficulties. Numerous participants arrived; among them it gives me pleasure to note two Americans—Mr. Gordon Bennett and Mr. Vanderbilt.
During the early part of June, when all was ready, the vehicles were for several days placed on view in a permanent
