The Discovery of France (77 page)

29
. 124, Rue Saint-Lazare (1837, to Le Pecq), 44, Boulevard Montparnasse (1840, to Versailles) and 1, Boulevard de l’Hôpital or ‘Jardin des Plantes’ (1843, to Corbeil and Orléans).

30
. Oil of amber, caustic ammonia and alcohol.

31
. To judge by the army handbook of 1884, it is fortunate that most road building was left to civil engineers:

Gradient on which troops can still march in good order: 25 per cent (1 in 4)

Gradient manageable by mounted horses and light carriages: 33 per cent (1 in 3)

Gradient manageable by mules: 50 per cent (1 in 2)

Escarpment that an infantryman can still cross by using his hands: 100 per cent (completely vertical).

32
. Seine and Marne, Loire and Loiret, Rhône and Saône, Garonne and Dordogne. Northern bias chose as the Loire’s companion the diminutive Loiret, which runs to the south of Orléans for seven miles, rather than the Allier (two hundred and fifty-six miles) or the Cher (two hundred miles), which rise in the Auvergne.

33
. The Perte du Rhône was later blown up to allow wood to be floated down the river. The cataract was one of the main tourist attractions of eastern France until 1948, when the waters of the Génissiat dam engulfed the belvedere, the tea-room and the slippery bridge.

34
. Renamed Bourbon-Vendée at the Restoration, then, in 1848, Napoléon-Vendée. In 1870, it reverted to its original name, La Roche-sur-Yon.

35
.‘Others shall have our fields, our paths and hiding places. / Your wood, my beloved, now belongs to strangers.’

36
. ‘
Pittoresque
’ still had its primary sense: related to painting or worthy of being painted.

37
. Place of birth / death: Paris, 189 / 367; Provinces, 296 / 128; French colonies, 9 / 3; other countries, 26 / 22.

38
. These figures refer to the Seine
département
, though, by 1880, some towns in neighbouring
départements
could be considered suburbs of Paris.

39
.These schools could be private or public. The dominant role of the Catholic Church was reinforced by the Falloux law of 1850. Primary schools for girls were made obligatory in 1867. The Jules Ferry laws of 1881–82 introduced free, compulsory, secular education for boys and girls from six to thirteen.

40
. Relatively poor, that is. In the mid-1880s, a teacher like M. Blondel earned about 1,200 francs a year; women teachers earned half as much as men. The average daily wage of a worker in the Paris region was about seven francs. A single Parisian on a week’s holiday to a spa town in the Auvergne might spend the following (in francs): second-class return train ticket: thirty-five; room and board: fifty; excursions, donkey hire, tips, etc.: twenty; refreshments and souvenirs: thirty; one map: two; five postcards and stamps: one. Total: 138 francs.

The Discovery of France

‘Certain books strain the patience of those close to you. How many times can you demand: “Look at this! Can you imagine? Did you know that?” without actually handing over the volume? This is such a book . . . It’s not so much a cool linear account as a mosaic, like the patchwork pays of France herself

Mail on Sunday

‘An exhilarating account of how the geographical entity that has become “France” emerged . . . With gloriously apposite facts and an abundance of quirky anecdotes and thumbnail sketches of people, places and customs, Robb, on brilliant form, takes us on a stunning journey through the historical landscape of France . . . He has written an unstuffy, fascinating and very superior historical guidebook for the unhurried traveller: altogether a book to savour’

Independent

‘Elegant, entertaining and occasionally brilliant . . . As this book powerfully demonstrates, French history is nothing if not built on paradox and contradiction. Most importantly, Robb reminds us why France still matters’

Observer

‘This splendid history of France mixes the rambling charm of a traveller with a scholar’s rigorous research . . . At once history, psychogeography, itinerary and cabinet of curiosities,
The Discovery of France
is an astute sociological catalogue of France’s changing idea of itself . . . It’s [also] an extraordinary journey of discovery that will delight even the most indolent armchair traveller’

Daily Telegraph

‘Few foreigners have immersed themselves in France as deeply as Graham Robb . . . The reader is left hoping that Robb will hop back on his bike to explain how this rediscovered France evolved into the country it is today’

Financial Times

‘This book is an elegy to what has disappeared, a retrospective exploration of that lost world. But the British love affair with France makes this particular story special, and Robb, from his two-wheeled vantage point, has made a dazzling and moving contribution to a long tradition’

Sunday Times

‘Robb’s great achievement is that of marrying the imaginative journeys he took through the archive with those in the bracing actuality and slipstream of outdoor life. The result is a multi-dimensional, detailed exploration of how the disparateness of a nation moved towards coherence . . . This book is worth having not just as a travelogue or a guide-book, but primarily as the record of a journey that is twisting and subcutaneous. It is scholarly and abundantly accessible, making France all the more accessible in its wake’

Scotsman

‘Robb is full of such fascinating facts . . . there’s any amount of treasure to be found here.’ Book of the Week,

Evening Standard

‘Robb travelled fourteen thousand miles on a bicycle around France and spent four years in the library to prepare the groundwork for the magnificent achievement that is
The Discovery of France
. . . A gently mesmerising, always brilliant exposition, and a vibrant biography of a forgotten France . . . Robb is always erudite. He is regularly insightful. He writes with authority leavened by a sly wit. But he has the eye for the phrase or fact that can illuminate a previously hidden truth. The whole of these accumulated facts, witty observations and genuinely intellectual insights is a book of unfolding marvel’

Herald

‘An astute sociological catalogue, and an extraordinary journey of discovery’

Irish Independent

‘Rid your mind of the idea - suggested by the ordinary title - that this is an ordinary book’

Literary Review

‘Before leaving their mountain villages, nineteenth-century pedlars would load up with as many as 23,222 items. Their baskets were, as Graham Robb says, “masterpieces of packing”. So is his new book, which bulges with tasty and thought-provoking facts . . .
The Discovery of France
stands in the ancient and delightful line of compilations that cater to our “great liking to hear speak of strange things of diverse countries”, as one of Robb’s predecessors put it’

New Statesman

‘It is an astonishing, eccentric book that defies linear narrative to detour, circle back, swerve and dodge between the centuries. Robb carries the reader along on flawless prose, over France’s terra incognita, probing, discovering, and getting to know a country still deeply at odds with itself. There is information in this book to surprise even the most avid Francophile, and to delight anyone who is even vaguely thinking of boarding the new Eurostar’

The Times

‘It is beautifully written and truly eccentric, seeking out the obscure or forgotten parts of a nation that - Robb argues brilliantly - is still discovering itself

Times Literary Supplement

‘Graham Robb’s
The Discovery of France . . .
adds to his reputation as one of the greatest non-fiction writers in English’

Herald

‘As an alternative view of French history it is a fascinating diversion. Its real value lies in helping to explain why modern France remains a centrally directed society that has adopted big ideas and bloody ideals in order to create itself

Daily Mail

‘Robb’s history is excellent - his tour and his research have thrown up so much of great interest . . . So much to discover, so beautifully written and compiled’

Publishing News

‘Robb is a fascinating and hugely knowledgeable guide to a country that we only thought we knew’

London Review of Books

‘[Robb’s] shrewd observations, which he recounts with insightful humour, make this a fantastic resource for anyone interested in this wonderful country’

Good Book Guide

G
RAHAM
R
OBB
was born in Manchester in 1958 and is a

former Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. His highly acclaimed

biography
Balzac
was published in 1994,
Victor Hugo
(winner

of the Royal Society of Literature Heinemann Award and the

Whitbread Biography Award) in 1997, and
Rimbaud
(shortlisted

for the Samuel Johnson Prize) in 2000. All three biographies

were
New York Times
‘Best Books of the Year’, and Robb

is also the author of
Strangers: Homosexual Love in the

Nineteenth Century
(2003). He lives in Oxford.

Also by Graham Robb in Picador

RIMBAUD

Homosexual Love in the

Nineteenth Century