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The Discovery of France

Page 44

by Graham Robb


  link four white hooves: Mistral (1906), 189.

  link ‘my poor little carriage’: Stendhal, 135; also Assemblée Nationale, XXXVI, 310 (22 Dec. 1791).

  link salvo of abuse: Courtois, 45; Cradock, 260; Fleutelot, 11; Masson de Saint-Amand, 92.

  link ‘The deck was littered with nutshells’: L’Éducation sentimentale, part I, ch. 1.

  link between Rouen and Paris: Roland de La Platière, 13.

  link Raft trains: Lavallée, V, ‘La Roër’, 8–9; Peuchet, ‘Rhin-et-Moselle’, 5–6.

  link Pont-Saint-Esprit: e.g. Coulon, 162; Smollett, letter 9; Thicknesse, I, 59; etc.

  link voyage down the Loire: Stendhal, 219–26.

  link mail boat from Toulouse: Mercier-Thoinnet, 24.

  link ‘For those who have long been jolted’: Murray, 455.

  link Saint-Simonian reformer: Chevalier (1838), 215.

  link ‘A vivacious old man’: Stevenson (1878), ‘To Landrecies’.

  link wine-laden boats: Martin and Martenot, 411.

  link hundred and seventy boats that plied the canal: Forster, 69–70.

  link stepping stones: Hubscher, 376 n. 77.

  link pastor touring Provence: Frossard, I, 80.

  link ‘consider making a will’: Weber, 198 n. (quoting G. Garrier).

  link ‘rough and low-bred’: Murray, xxv.

  link notoriously bribable: Barbault-Royer, 170–72; Blackburn (1870), 239.

  link ‘arrayed in the green tail-coat’: Stevenson (1879), 14.

  link swamp dwellers of the Marais Poitevin: Lagardelle, 210.

  link shepherds on stilts: Saint-Amans (1812), 35 and 66; also Administration centrale des Landes, 2; Best, 354; Lawlor (1870), 545; Tastu (1842), 297.

  link snow-shoes . . . Crampons: Saussure, I, 479; Chaix, 77; Ladoucette (1833), 140.

  link schlitteurs: Grad, 23–6; Robischung, 88; Valin.

  244 ‘We felt as though we were swimming’: Saint-Amans (1789), 29–30; other accounts: Dusaulx, I, 171–2 (Pyrenees); Thévenin (Vosges), 76–7.

  link bicycles and skis: skis were introduced to the French Alps in 1891 by Henri Duhamel, who had acquired a pair, with no instructions, at the Paris Exhibition of 1878.

  link ‘They simply slid back down’: Mistral (1906), 222.

  link speed records: Arbellot (1973) (times from Paris); Aynard; Chevalier (1838), 305–7 (diligences); Viard (mail timetables). E.g.: in 1721, Saint-Simon (127–37) went from Paris to Bayonne in seventeen days; in 1815, Théodore Aynard (117) went from Lyon to Paris in six days; in 1843, letters took five days to reach Paris from Finistère, parts of the Auvergne and all the Mediterranean and Pyrenean provinces, six days from parts of the Basses-Alpes and between six and nine days from Corsica.

  link ‘What was I to do?’: Wille, I, 50; also Maclean, 180: ‘some of us, having set off on foot before the diligence, walked the whole stage [nine miles, from Cavignac to Saint-André-de-Cubzac], and had breakfasted before the others arrived.’

  link railway engineer: Aynard.

  link emperors travelling in Gaul: L. Bonnard, 12.

  link Drouet kept an account: V. Hugo, ‘Voyages’, pp. 990–93.

  link profit on uneaten meals: Bernhard, 56; A. Duval, 43 n.; etc.

  link Orléans was a candle: V. Hugo, ‘Voyages’, p. 751.

  link Nerval set off: Nerval, III, ‘Voyage au Nord’.

  link ‘So here I’ve been’: Hugo to Vigny, 20 July 1821.

  13. COLONIZATION

  link ‘more quickly than a human heart’: ‘Le Cygne’, Les Fleurs du Mal.

  link ocean-bathing . . . at Dieppe: Duplessis, 321; Perrot, 302.

  link toured the Vendée: Nettement; Walsh.

  link ‘THE MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR’: Ploux (2003), 33.

  link sent out a proclamation: Nettement, III, 127–8.

  link road-building programme: Cavaillès, 184 and 202–3; H. Proust; Weber, 196.

  link military routes . . . of the Cévennes: Cavaillès, 60; Dainville, 78; Foville (1894), II, 95; figure 13.

  link ‘the first person to come along’: Mon cœur mis à nu, xxv: Baudelaire (1975–76), I, 692.

  link Brouage in 1772: Marlin, IV, 295.

  link Napoléonville: Anon. (1856); Savant, 43, 74 and 61 (on Pontivy-Napoléonville).

  link mass internal migration: e.g. Cleary, 11–12; A. Joanne (1869), I, lx; Moch, 22.

  link grooves cut by the barges’ cables: Mistral (1896), 3.

  link tiny houses: Audiganne, II, 150–51; Jordan, 33–4; Lavallée, I, ‘Bouches-du-Rhône’, 60; Marlin, I, 94; Michot de La Cauw, 31; Pachoud, XLIV, 162–3; Plumptre, II, 194–5.

  link ‘Wherever one looks’: Stendhal, 713.

  link labyrinth as large as a city: Coyer, I, 109.

  link more than twenty thousand: Pöllnitz, IV, 103.

  link mazets, baraquettes, etc.: Audiganne, II, 150–51; Aufauvre, 147; Moch, 86; S. Papon, 10.

  link ‘The host is never satisfied’: A. Legoyt, in Les Français, Province, II, 223.

  link thirty thousand Parisians: Perrot, 301.

  link deserted banks of the Seine: Smollett, letter 6.

  link cliff-dwellings: Baring-Gould (1911), 39.

  link cave near Tours: Capitan, 581.

  link ‘the extinction of poverty’: Bonaparte.

  link France’s first railway: Caron, 85; Blerzy, 656–7.

  link ‘the sky is perfectly visible’: Tonnellé, 514.

  link ‘rivers of coal-smoke’: ‘Paysage’, Les Fleurs du Mal.

  link clan traditions: Audiganne, I, 163–8.

  link pre-industrial landscape: e.g. Planhol, 240.

  link Sotteville and Saint-Sever: Audiganne, I, 55.

  link elderly people: C. Malte-Brun (1823), 269.

  link Aubin: Monteil, I, 63–5.

  link Burning Mountain: Peuchet, ‘Aveiron’, 4; Monteil, I, 58.

  link its neighbour Cransac: Barker (1893), 337–8.

  link ‘find at Decazeville’: Larousse, VI, 218.

  link phylloxera aphid: e.g. Bouvier, 56; McPhee, in Crook, 143; Moch, 47.

  link tracts of land . . . reclaimed: McPhee (1992), 223; Sutton.

  link colonies of orphans: Anon. (1849).

  link ‘a damp hospital’: Reclus (1886), 76–7.

  link swamp fever: F. Pyat, in Les Français, Province, II, 236.

  link the Double: Barker (1894), 246–7.

  link Craponne and Pierrelatte: Duby, III, 195.

  link ‘untilled and arid Crau’: Mistral (1859), VIII, 25.

  link Rivesaltes: see Grynberg, 202–7.

  link flower-pot without a hole: About, 107.

  link tree-planting . . . since prehistory: Mortemart de Boisse.

  link ‘You ask how I found the Landes?’: Guignet, 140–41.

  link yellow-skinned tribe: e.g. Rosenstein, 347–54; Saint-Amans (1812); V. Gaillard, in Les Français, Province,II, 113–15.

  link ‘The urban Landais’: V. Gaillard, in Les Français, Province, II, 120.

  link In the Corbières: McPhee (1999).

  link effects of deforestation: Dugied; McPhee (1999); Museon Arlaten; P. Chevallier; also Fauchet, 11–13; Grangent, 21.

  link tour of inspection: Dugied, 3 and 17.

  link Picardy and Flanders: Duby, III, 197.

  link In the Pyrenees: Buffault, 343 (the ‘chemin de la mâture’).

  link talking in whispers: Dusaulx, I, 108.

  link Restoration of Mountain Terrains: Museon Arlaten.

  link ‘The French Alps’: Reclus (1886), 88.

  link ‘the ruins’: O. Reclus (1886), 89.

  link Chaudun: Museon Arlaten.

  link ‘when the people left the village’: M. Chabre, www.retrouvance.com/histoire.htm

  link ‘controlled reintroduction’: Bois-Forêt.Info, 26 Sep. 2002.

  14. THE WONDERS OF FRANCE

  link borrowed from English: e.g.E´ gron (1830), 17, where the word is explained in a note.

  link routes
south from Paris: described by Leduc.

  link ‘Long legs, thin body’: Taine (1858), 282–3.

  link 21 June 1741: Windham (1744).

  link visitors to Chamonix: Durier, 52; Ferrand (1912), 6; Windham (1879); Bruchet.

  link Dijon and Langres: Durier, 52; La Rochefoucauld d’Anville, 31.

  link excellent impersonators: Leschevin, 326; Saussure, II, 165–6.

  link ‘terrible havock’: Windham (1744), 6–7.

  link You must imagine’: Windham (1744), 8.

  link ‘What did you think of the horrors?’: Dusaulx, I, 57; also L. Bonnard, 59; Fortis, I, 111; Jourdan, 141; Peuchet, ‘Hautes-Alpes’, 6.

  link ‘I had imagined a mountain’: Desnoues, 16.

  link ‘corpses of the mountains’: quoted in Orlov, II, 90–91.

  link ‘Such uncouth rocks’: letter to Richard West, Turin, 11 Nov. 1739.

  link ‘one could hardly mention’: Moore, I, 186.

  link Those people don’t understand’: Fortis, II, 237.

  link excruciating silence: Achard (1850), 281–2.

  link the first to scale: e.g. a wooden cross on the Pic de Rochebrune in 1819: Ferrand (1909), 41.

  link Santiago de Compostela: Melczer, 90–91.

  link ‘to form one’s taste’: Piganiol de La Force, I, vi. Cf. Louette.

  link ‘the barrenest Plain’: Breval, 1–2.

  link monuments that had . . . ceased to exist: e.g. Piganiol de La Force; J.- P. Papon.

  link ‘M. Robert went to the trouble’: Marlin, III, 65 and 148; Hesseln, IV, 369–70; also J.-P. Papon.

  link ‘eternal snow’: Barron, Rhône, 224–5; also Flaubert, 355; Girault de Saint-Fargeau, 490; Murray, 444; Peuchet, ‘Vaucluse’, 7; Pigault - Lebrun, 44.

  link ‘clumps of bulrushes’: Barron (1888), 23.

  link Pont du Gard . . . deserted: e.g. Richard and Lheureux, 12–13; Thicknesse, I, 63.

  link a year’s stay in Paris: Dutens, 17.

  link Seven Wonders of the Dauphiné:e.g. Chorier, I, ch. 12; Saugrain, 125; Wraxall, I, ch. 7.

  link ‘intercede there, as is customary’: Melczer, 97.

  link ‘a walk that is pleasing’: Girault de Saint-Fargeau, 72.

  link ‘use your drawing pencils’: Briand, x.

  link ‘natural curiosities’ of France: Depping (1811), 606–14. Other lists in Girault de Saint-Fargeau, p. xiii ff. and La Roche, the first to use a star system for ‘those Articles one would most regret missing’.

  link Valenciennes . . . Quiberon: Lavallée, ‘Nord’, 18; ‘Loire-Inférieure’, 3.

  link ‘The barracks are magnificent’: Lavallée, III, ‘Meurthe’, 12.

  link ‘the air oftentimes reverberates’: Lavallée, I, ‘Côtes-du-Nord’, 8.

  link Ariège in 1800: Mercadier de Bélesta, 60–65.

  link ‘Cathar tourism’: Mercadier de Bélesta, 64.

  link ‘twelve years have elapsed’: Birkbeck, 3.

  link Quentin Durward: Warrell, 18-19.

  link Scott’s descriptions: Stendhal, 282.

  link ‘buttoned-up clergymen’: Hallays, VIII, 85.

  link J. M. W. Turner: Warrell, 115.

  link ‘The peasantry were still busy’: Longfellow, 94–6.

  link Calais . . . bilingual: Lavallée, IV, ‘Pas-de-Calais’, 25.

  link population of Tours: Holdsworth; Orlov, I, 64.

  link ‘In 1793, he was able’: Balzac, IX, 643.

  link ‘If this destruction continues’: Peuchet, ‘Gers’, 1.

  link ‘one can hardly put’: Pigault-Lebrun, 39.

  link ‘This is not a voyage of discoveries’: Nodier, ‘Ancienne Normandie’, 5.

  link Between 1834 and 1852: Mérimée (1835, 1836, 1838 and 1840); Raitt, 139–46.

  link appraising the beauties: Mérimée (1941–64), I, 327.

  link bridge at Avignon, etc.: Raitt, 154.

  link ‘They no longer suit’: Thérond, 31.

  link ‘The Highways and Bridges’: Mérimée (1852).

  link ‘We left Versailles’: Bader, 9.

  link ‘There is a very bad smell’: Genlis, 49–50.

  link ‘If poor lodging’: Courtin, 202–3.

  link the ‘inn’ . . . a farmhouse: e.g. Bailly, 7.

  link ‘typical mountain people’: Richard and Lheureux, 23.

  link list of hotels: Richard and Lheureux, 103–4 and 136.

  link ‘Beauty won the day’: Depping (1813), 277–8.

  link innkeeper’s duties: Les Misérables, II, 3, 2 and 9; also Dumas (1863–84), VII, 106–7.

  link ‘Fail not to take a piece of soap’: Murray, xxix.

  link killed four hundred and eighty: Cradock, 260.

  link ‘I turned it, dish and all’: Thicknesse, II, 106–8.

  link ‘‘the Temple of Cloacina’: Smollett, letter 12.

  link ‘Don’t worry, sir’: Depping (1813), 261–2.

  link 1828 guide to Paris: Audin, 61, 191 and 206; cf. Hughes, 158.

  link ‘Ici on est bien’: Karr, 232–5.

  link ‘Slice a pigeon’: Haan, 127.

  link ‘Naps! Naps!’: Perbosc, 281.

  link young men from Saint-Brieuc: Sébillot (1886), 327–8.

  link ‘charcuterie composed’: Grand Dictionnaire universel.

  link manual of rural architecture: Saint-Félix, 26.

  link smashed with a hammer: Lefebvre d’Hellancourt, 9–10.

  link fact-finding mission: Anon. (1844).

  link wolf . . . repulsive: Crignelle, 278; Weld (1869), 208.

  link fox a delicacy: Restif, 215.

  link Red squirrels . . . were eaten: Saint-Amans (1812), 15; Weld (1869), 212–13.

  link marmots . . . flesh: Saussure, II, 153; Montémont, I, 137; Windham and Martel (1879), 58.

  link ‘when a bear has been killed’: Dagalier, 208.

  link a diet of gaudes: Proudhon, 26.

  link ‘pensions alimentaires’: Gutton, 64–75; R.-J. Bernard; Thuillier (1965).

  297 gorged himself on peaches: Perdiguier (1854), 62–3.

  link three million beehives: Girard.

  link a quince crystallized: Barron, Garonne, 296; Marmontel, 50.

  link Victor of the Aveyron: Itard.

  298 Memmie: La Condamine.

  link specialities of each region: e.g. MacCarthy; for an earlier example, Reichard (‘carte gastronomique’).

  link connoisseur of French wines: Planhol, 231–2.

  link ‘A nutritional tour of Paris’: Barberet, VI, 166.

  link ‘Since no one knew’: Guillaumin, 250.

  link trip to Roscoff: Dumas (1878), 116–26.

  link ‘The English onion’: Dumas (1878), 1059.

  15. POSTCARDS OF THE NATIVES

  link ‘Around the World in 80 Days’: Anon. (1869).

  link Mont Cenis tunnel: Chérot, 323; Saint-Martin.

  link ‘thirty-three cigars from Marseille’: Merson, 210.

  link Boulevard des Italiens: Achard (1869), 86.

  link a third-class carriage: Anon. (1842), 96.

  link From Paris to Nice: Gauthier de Clagny, 2.

  link ‘six weeks of constant railway-travel’: James, 250; on railway manners: Siebecker, 119–21.

  link drained of traffic by the railways: L. Bonnard, 135; Cavaillès, 225 and 276–7; Marmier, 2; MP, 1854, p. 21; Lenthéric, 291; Murray, 505; Weber, 210 and 218.

  link ‘we reach the point’: Ogier, 19; see also Demolière; Mazade.

  link illuminated kilometre markers: Saint-Martin, 393–4.

  link on the track itself: Égron (1837), 223.

  link faces in the carriage windows: Guillaumin, 268.

  link planted explosives: Weld (1850), 268.

  link The navvies: e.g. Le Play, 104.

  link old town gates: e.g. Poitiers: Favreau.

  link The official hour: Arago (1864); Nordling; Thuillier (1977), 206; time differences: e.g. Anon. (1792), 115; Miller, 26–7; older means of telling the time: S. Papon,
95; Davis, 19.

  link Berthouville: Corbin (1994), 113.

  link names of some ancient pays: Soudière, 70–72.

  link Tremblevif: Reclus (1886), 133.

  link Merdogne: Reclus (1886), 32; MP, 1903, p. 491; Conseil d’État, 3 Feb. 2003, no. 240630.

  link Politics has arrived: Agulhon; Berenson, 127–36

  link photographs of political leaders: Berenson, 131 and 149.

  link supernatural powers: Hazareesingh, Legend.

  link especially in the south-east: Judt.

  link dynastic rulers: Audiganne, II, 223 (Villeneuvette); P. Jones (1988), 255; Singer, 40; Weber, 539.

  link Labiche defined the maire: Laudet, 152; also Hamerton, 58.

  link the ‘heartless science’: Baudelaire (1973), I, 579.

  link In the Corrèze: Vuillier, 507.

  link In Nîmes: Audiganne, II, 165–68; Moch, 105–06; É. de La Bédollière, in Les Français, Province, II, 54–6.

  link level crossing: Home, ch. 1.

  link runs the post office: Viard’s list (1843) shows that 1,092 of the 1,938 post office directors were women, though only one was director in a departmental chef-lieu.

  link ‘the land of bouillabaisse’: Zola, I, 96.

  link provincial museums: Babeau (1884), II, 338; Chennevie`res; Georgel, 109; E. Pommier in Nora.

  link collections of folk songs: Thiesse (2001).

  307 ‘folkloric costume’: Williams, 483.

  link George Sand sponsored: especially correspondence with Charles Poncy.

  link ‘an instinctive antipathy’: Brochet, 43.

  link Barèges: Bar; Dusaulx, I, 206–8; Leclercq, 23; Saint-Amans (1789), 122.

  link ‘which nothing but the hope’: Murray, 230.

  link Bagnères-de-Bigorre: Dagalier, 214.

  link Aulus-les-Bains: Labroue, 164.

  link a typical spa town: Anon. (1867); Frieh-Vurpas; Maupassant (1887); Monnet.

  link ‘The water possesses’: from the fountain at Saint-Martin-Vésubie.

  link silent procession: e.g. J. Girardin; Taine (1858): on Eaux-Bonnes.

  link gravestones of curistes: J. Girardin.

  link Aix-les-Bains: Fortis, I, 80–85; Frieh-Vurpas, 11 and 28.

  link ‘There is a continual mêlée’: Speleus, xv.

  link the sea: Corbin (1988); Garner, 80.

  link arrival of mass tourism: Corbin (1988); Brittany: Céard; Warenghem; Dieppe: Perrot, 302; Royan: MP, 1891, p. 252.

  link new plants and flowers: Blanchet, 61–4.

  link Conty’s guide: Conty (1889).

 

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