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A Chronicle of the Wayside and Waterside
Author of 'Wayfaring in France', 'Wanderings by Southern Waters,' ETC.
[Illustration: G. Vuillies DOORWAY OF THE ABBEY CHURCH AT BEAULIEU
(CORRÈZE).]
Of the four summers which the writer of this 'Chronicle of the Wayside andWaterside' spent by Aquitanian rivers, the greater part of two provided theimpressions that were used in 'Wanderings by Southern Waters.' Althoughthe earlier pages of the present work, describing the wild district of theUpper Dordogne, through which the author passed into Guyenne, belong, inthe order of time, to the beginning of his scheme of travel in Aquitaine,the summers of 1892 and 1893, spent chiefly in Périgord and the Bordelais,furnished the matter of which this volume is mainly composed. Hence thetitle that has been given to it.
It may be thought that there is not a sufficient separation of interest,geographically speaking, between the tracts of country described in the twobooks. The author regrets that it is not possible to convey in a few wordsan idea of the extent of the old English Duchy of Aquitaine as it wasdefined by the Treaty of Brétigny. Still less easy would it be to dealrapidly with its physical contrasts, its relics of the past, and itshistorical associations. Surely no writer could pretend to have exhaustedthe interest of such a subject even in two volumes.
Before the final expulsion of the English, Aquitaine was gradually takingthe name of Guyenne; but when this designation came to be definitivelyapplied, at the time of the Renaissance, Gascony was not included init, nor were Poitou, Saintonge, Angoumois and Limousin. Even when thusrestricted in its meaning, Guyenne still represented a very considerablepart of France, including as it did the regions or sub-provinces known asthe Bordelais, Périgord, the Agenais, the Rouergue, and the Quercy.
If the author's work during the fifteen years that he has been living inFrance has served to make the people, the scenery, and the antiquities ofthis ever-fascinating country somewhat better known to those who speakthe English language, he believes that it is to his favourite mode oftravelling that such good fortune must be largely attributed. His faring onfoot has caused him to see much that he would otherwise have never seen;it has also widened his knowledge of his fellow-men, and has helped him tocontrol prejudices which are not to be entirely overcome, but ever remainan insidious snare to the traveller and student of manners.
PARIS, May, 1894.