Matilda Betham-Edwards: 'Unfrequented France.' (original) (raw)

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK

VILLA JULIA
HASTINGS
January 7/11

Dear Madam

If bookbuying is an extra, a luxury with you I shall have pleasure in forwarding a copy of the 2nd [_edition/impression?_] of "Unfrequented France" for your acceptance.
Faithfully yours
M. Betham-Edwards

____________

MONTPELLIER-LE-VIEUX

AN apology for this volume is not necessary. Despite the dozens, scores, I am tempted to say hundreds, of books written about France within the last decade (in other words, since the inauguration of the entente cordiale), the regions here described, for the most part, have been passed by.

The unique and ancient citadel of Provins in the Brie, Besan�on and its magnificent scenery, the highlands of Franche-Comt� and forests of the Jura, the idyllic scenes around Dijon, the descent of the Rh�ne, perhaps the finest trip by river in Europe, the rapids of the Tarn, the dolomite city of Montpellier-le-Vieux, the savage grandeur of the Gausses�triple marvels first made known to English and, by acknowledgment, to French readers by my own pen (see M. Martel's Les C�vennes)�the curious Ile de R�, an hour and a half from beautiful La Rochelle, the lovely banks of the Erdre and of the Loire between Nantes and Angers, lastly, the Pays Vend�an and Pays Angevin, historic, romantic, and attaching nooks and corners of the Vend�e and of Anjou�few and far between are the English travellers found zigzagging amid these scenes, none throughout France more amply repay a visit. Many of the spots here described are inaccessible by railway; in others, since my wanderings, iron roads have been laid. As far as possible, the wise traveller will follow my example and stick to diligence and cal�che, steamer, barge and boat, in other words, selecting the slowest possible means of locomotion.

I beg most gratefully to acknowledge the courtesy of Messrs. Hurst and Blackett, also of the Macmillan Company for allowing copious extracts from my Holidays in Eastern France and The Roof of France: both works long since out of print. I add that all passages culled from those volumes have undergone careful revision, and that neither of them are included in the Tauchnitz series; also that although numerous detached portions have been translated into French and issued in French periodicals, no entire translation has been brought out.

As will be surmised, the long and wide apart journeys here put together were not made at a stretch; they cover, indeed, many years, but I have linked the various stages so as to make of the zig-zaggeries a sequent and easily followed round.

MATILDA BETHAM-EDWARDS.

August 8, 1910.