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A Little Tour In France
by Henry James,
We good Americans - I say it without presumption- are too apt to think that France is Paris, just as weare accused of being too apt to think that Paris is thecelestial city. This is by no means the case, fortun-ately for those persons who take an interest in modernGaul, and yet are still left vaguely unsatisfied by thatepitome of civilization which stretches from the Arcde Triomphe to the Gymnase theatre. It had alreadybeen intimated to the author of these light pages thatthere are many good things in the doux pays de Franceof which you get no hint in a walk between thoseornaments of the capital; but the truth had been re-vealed only in quick-flashing glimpses, and he wasconscious of a desire to look it well in the face. Tothis end he started, one rainy morning in mid-Septem-ber, for the charming little city of Tours, from whichpoint it seemed possible to make a variety of fruitfulexcursions. His excursions resolved themselves ulti-mately into a journey through several provinces, - ajourney which had its dull moments (as one may defyany journey not to have), but which enabled him to feelthat his proposition was demonstrated. France maybe Paris, but Paris is not France; that was perfectlyevident on the return to the capital.
I must not speak, however, as if I had discoveredthe provinces. They were discovered, or at least re-vealed by BaIzac, if by any one, and are now easilyaccessible to visitors. It is true, I met no visitors, oronly one or two, whom it was pleasant to meet.Throughout my little tour I was almost the only tourist.That is perhaps one reason why it was so successful.
I am ashamed to begin with saying that Touraineis the garden of France; that remark has long ago lostits bloom. The town of Tours, however, has something sweet and bright, which suggests that it is sur-rounded by a land of fruits. It is a very agreeablelittle city; few towns of its size are more ripe, morecomplete, or, I should suppose, in better humor withthemselves and less disposed to envy the responsibili-ties of bigger places. It is truly the capital of its smil-ing province; a region of easy abundance, of goodliving, of genial, comfortable, optimistic, rather indolentopinions. Balzac says in one of his tales that the realTourangeau will not make an effort, or displace him-self even, to go in search of a pleasure; and it is notdifficult to understand the sources of this amiablecynicism. He must have a vague conviction that hecan only lose by almost any change. Fortune hasbeen kind to him: he lives in a temperate, reasonable,sociable climate, on the banks, of a river which, it istrue, sometimes floods the country around it, but ofwhich the ravages appear to be so easily repaired thatits aggressions may perhaps be regarded (in a regionwhere so many good things are certain) merely as anoccasion for healthy suspense. He is surrounded byfine old traditions, religious, social, architectural, culi-nary; and he may have the satisfaction of feeling thathe is French to the core. No part of his admirablecountry is more characteristically national. Normandyis Normandy, Burgundy is Burgundy, Provence is Pro-vence; but Touraine is essentially France. It is theland of Rabelais, of Descartes, of Balzac, of goodbooks and good company, as well as good dinners andgood houses. George Sand has somewhere a charm-ing passage about the mildness, the convenient quality,of the physical conditions of central Franc