"Of the four hundred and fifty passengers who crossed with us from Dover to Calais in August 1888, we lost every trace when quitting the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée line at La Roche. Writing a hundred years ago, the great agriculturist, Arthur Young,  ⁽¹⁾ gave his countrymen the following excellent piece of advice, which, it need hardly be said, has been generally neglected from that day to this:

‘It may useful to those who see no more of France than by once passing to Italy, to remark that if they would view the finest parts of France they should land at Dieppe, and follow the Seine to Paris, then take the great road to Moulins, and thence quit it for Auvergne, and pass to Viviers, the Rhône, and so by Aix to Italy. By such a variation from the frequented road the traveller might suffer for want of good inns, but would be repaid by sight of a much finer and more singular country than the common road by Dijon offers, which passes in a great measure through the worst parts of France.’

The Suffolk squire who rode through France on the eve of the Great Revolution, in spite of his conscientious desire to see all that the country had to show, lost much from want of roads, maps, and any kind of accommodation. Nowadays, as will be seen from the following pages, good food and good beds await the traveller in the most remote districts; but in vain! Ninety-nine tourists out of a hundred remain of the poet Shelley’s opinion – there is nothing to see in France – and hurry on as fast as the express can carry them to Geneva."
 

⁽¹⁾ Arthur Young (1741 - 1820) agriculturalist, traveller and writer.

⁽²⁾ Percy Bisshe Shelley (1792 - 1822) one of the greatest English poets.