East of Paris: Sketches in the Gâtinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne

Who would quit Alsace without a pilgrimage to Saverne and the country home in which Edmond About wrote his most delightful pages and in which he dispensed such princely hospital...

I found the well-remembered Hôtel de France much as I had left it, just upon twenty years before, every whit as quiet, comfortable, and moderate in price, indeed, one of the bes...

The first of these places mentioned is a Champenois village twelve miles from a railway station. From the windows of my friends’ château I look upon a magnificent deer park, whe...

A quarter of an hour by rail, an hour and a quarter by road, from Moulins lies Souvigny, the cradle of the Bourbons, and as interesting and delightful a little excursion as trav...

We had jogged on pleasantly enough for about half an hour, when the gentlemen of the party, with (to me) perplexing smiles, briskly folded their newspapers and consigned them, n...

Rheims possesses a handsome theatre, the acquaintance of which I was enabled to make under exceptional circumstances. At the risk of appearing slightly egotistical, I will here...

I had brought with me letters of introduction to friends’ friends, unaware that at such a moment the sign-manual of the President of the Republic himself would hardly have secur...

I will now say something about my numerous acquaintances at Bourron. After three summer holidays spent in this friendly little spot I can boast of a pretty large visiting list,...

Two years ago some Anglo-French friends joyfully announced their acquisition of a delightful little property adjoining Fontainebleau forest. “Come and see for yourself,” they wr...

The valley of the Loing abounds in captivating spots, Moret-sur-Loing bearing the palm. Over the ancient town, bird-like broods a majestic church, as out-spread wings its wide e...

Within the last twenty-five years so many new lines of railway have been opened in France that there is no longer any inducement--I am inclined to say excuse--for keeping to the...

There is a certain stimulating quality of elasticity and crispness in the French atmosphere which our own does not possess. France, moreover, with its seven climates--for the de...

It is ever with feelings of pleasurable anticipation that I approach any French town for the first time. The number of these, alas! now being few, I have of late years been comp...

It is a pleasant six hours’ journey from Dijon via Chalindrey to Nancy. We pass the little village of Gemeaux, in which amongst French friends I have spent so many happy days.

If an ugly name could kill a place, Pougues must surely have been ruined as a health resort centuries ago. Coming, too, after that soothing, harmoniously named La Charité, could...

Forty thousand acres of woodland at one’s doors would seem a fact sufficiently suggestive; to particularize the attractions of Bourron after this statement were surely supererog...

The grandest of all the grand cathedrals in France has been so fully described elsewhere, that I will not attempt to do justice to the subject myself. During one of my numerous...

This ancient village, reached by the forest, is one of the most picturesque of the many picturesque places hereabouts. Quitting a stretch of pinewood we traverse flat cultivated...

Scores upon scores of times had I steamed past Melun in the Dijon express, ever eyeing the place wistfully, ever too hurried, perhaps too lazy, to make a halt. Not until Septemb...

“Who knows Nemours,” wrote Balzac, “knows that nature there is as beautiful as art,” and again he dwells upon the charm of the sleepy little town memorialized in “Ursule Mirouët.”

But by far the most interesting acquaintance at this most historic little town was the great-nephew of Danton. Middle-aged, unpretentious of aspect, yet with that unmistakable l...