1936 On the Continent

notices but which make just the whole difference. There are Coty’s perfumes and those of Molinard, which summon up all the flowers and all the springtime of Grasse and its colourful fields. And finally, the dressmakers themselves, those magicians of Paris, have their own special perfumes, cleverly adapted to go with each dress they offer, with each fashion they create.

FRANCE AND SPORT
    At present, in practically every branch of sport, French players are well up to the level of their foreign competitors, and the youth of France, although perhaps with less military discipline about them than in some other countries, are just as enthusiastic and keen sportsmen as the youth of England or the United States. The primitive stadiums of former times have long been ousted by up-to-date sports grounds where every day, and particularly on Saturdays and Sundays, hundreds of thousands of girls and young men, as well as men and women of every age, are the spectators of big sporting events or themselves practise some kind of sport.
Football
    If you are keen on football, you will already know that in recent years France has made immense progress in this sport, and that the French teams are to-day worthy rivals of the best teams in Europe. Should you be intending to stay some time in France and want to carry on with football, you will find any club in Paris or the Provinces only too glad to welcome an Englishman.
    When going to a football match in France you should keep in mind the fact that, just as in England, the capital is far from being the centre of French football, and that among the sixteen teams of the first professional league, only two belong to Paris: the Racing Club de France and the Red-Star Olympic. Those two names alone should suffice to show you how deeply England has influenced France in the field of football and for that matter in every other field of sport as well.
    The Racing Club is one of the leading football teams in France, and every year organises several big international matches at the Stade Olympic of Colombes (built at the time of the Olympic games in Paris, in 1924). For instance, there is the famous match Arsenal
v
. Racing, which usually takes place in November. Then, it is at the Colombes stadium that the biggest national event of the year takesplace on the first Sunday in May, the final of the Coupe de France, played in the presence of the President of the Republic.
    The popularity of football has cast rather a damper on that of rugby. This, I believe, is equally true in England.
    However, the real centre of French rugby is not in Paris, but in the Midi and Basqueland: Perpignan, Toulouse, etc. The capital only plays a secondary rôle. The big matches, as in the case of football, take place at Colombes or at the Parc des Princes or at the Jean Bouin stadium or at the Buffalo stadium.
Tennis
    There was a time—between 1927 and 1932—when French tennis was practically unrivalled throughout the world. No Englishman interested in sports will ever forget the names of Lacoste, Borotra, Brugnon, Cochet or Suzanne Lenglen, difficult as her name is to pronounce for the English tongue. Their brilliant exploits drew on the youth of France to take up this comparatively new sport, and in a few years the number of men or women playing tennis in France has increased by about a million! Paris and its surroundings alone have several thousands tennis courts, both open-air and closed, most of which are at the disposal of club-members or visitors at quite reasonable prices. At the same time, I must add that the Englishman will probably find sport a much more expensive pastime in France than in his own country.
    The reputation of the Roland-Garros Stadium (Bois de Boulogne), often referred to as the French Wimbledon, needs no advertising. That was where the American and British teams struggled in vain, from 1927 to 1933, to wrest the Davis Cup from France, and where finally Perry and Austin at last succeeded in winning back this precious trophy. Since the French have lost the Davis Cup, French tennis has not yet been able to find any successors for the star players of former times, and with the Challenge Round, Paris has also lost one of its greatest sporting and social events of the year. However, the international championships, organised every year in May, the heats of the Davis Cup and a large number of other tournaments, most of which are held at the Roland-Garrosstadium, still constitute a first-class