Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy

There is not a village or a town in Dauphiny, be it ever so humble, but which guards some vestige or tradition of some feudal chateau or fortress of the neighbourhood. Nor are o...

In the heart of the Cote d'Or are found first of all the _bonnes villes de bons vins_ of the French, Beaune, Pommard, Nuits, etc. Here is a region which was literally sown with...

The immediate environs of the Lac du Bourget, the Lac d'Annecy and the French shores of Lac Leman,--more popularly known to the world of tourism as the Lake of Geneva--offer a s...

"La Bresse, le Bugey, le Val-Romey et la Principauté de Dombes" was the high-sounding way in which that hinterland between Burgundy and Savoy was known in old monarchial days. O...

There is no more charming river valley in all France than that of the Yonne, which wanders from mid-Burgundy down to join the Seine just above Fontainebleau and the artists' hau...

Of no city of France are there more splendid ducal memories than of Dijon. To the French historians it has ever been known as "the city of the glorious dukes." It is one of the...

The Burgundy of Charlemagne's time was a much vaster extent of territory than that of the period when the province came to play its own kingly part. From the borders of Neustria...

The origin of Tonnerre was due to a chateau-fort built here on the right bank of the Armançon, surrounded by a groupment of huddling dwellings which, in turn, were enclosed by a...

Mâcon is a name well known to travellers across France, but its immediate environs are scarcely known at all save as they are recognized as a region devoted to the product of th...

South from Chalon, by the banks of the Saône, lies the Beaujolais, a wine-growing region which partakes of many of the characteristics of the Côte d'Or itself. Further south, be...

One comes to Chambéry to see the chateau of the Ducs de Savoie, the modest villa "Les Charmettes," celebrated by the sojourn of Jean Jacques Rousseau and Madame de Warens, and t...

East of Dijon, from the centre of which radiated Burgundian influence and power, was a proud and independent political division which, until 1330, never allied itself intimately...

Montbard lies midway between Semur and Châtillon-sur-Seine, on the great highroad leading from Burgundy into Champagne. The old Chateau de Montbard is represented only by the do...

Avallon owes its origin to the construction of a chateau-fort. It was built by Robert-le-Pieux, the son of Hugues Capet, in the tenth century. Little by little the fortress has...

In the high Alpine valleys back of the Barre des Écrins is a frontier land little known even to the venturesome tourist by road, who with his modern means of travel, the automob...

One may leave Rousseau's smiling valley above Chambéry and journey to Grenoble via La Grande Chartreuse, or by the valley of the Isère, as fancy dictates. In either case one sho...

Due east from Avallon some thirty odd kilometres is Semur-en-Auxois. It is well described as a feudal city without and a banal one within. Its mediæval walls and gates lead one...

Burgundy has ever been known as a land of opulence. Since the middle ages its _richesse_ has been sung by poets and people alike. There is an old Burgundian proverb which runs a...

"La Savoie," say the French, is "La Suisse Française," and indeed it is, as anyone can see and appreciate. With respect to topography, climate and nearly all else this is true....

Dauphiny owes its name as a province to the rightful name of the eldest sons of the French kings down to the middle of the nineteenth century. The actual origin of the applicati...

The boundary between Dauphiny and Provence was by no means vague; it was a well defined territorial limit, but in the old days, as with those of the present, the climatic and to...

The importance of the ancient Chastillon on the banks of the Seine was entirely due to the prominence given to it by the Burgundian dukes of the first race who made it their pre...