A Pilgrimage to Auvergne/Vol 1

"As soon as we dismounted at our inns, I wrote all down, whether it was late or early, that posterity might have the advantage of it, for there is nothing like writing for the preservation of events." Johnes's Froissart.

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I had long felt a great desire to to visit Auvergne, its extinct volcanoes, boiling springs, and antique towns, the scenes of so many of the romantic histories related by Froissart, and, in the spring of 1841, set out from England with the intention of doing so; but as the whole of the route I chose from Picardy, through Artois, Yalois, Champagne, and Burgundy, was new to me, I paused at every place of interest, and found so many, that I was much longer in arriving at my destined bourn than I had calculated on. As I met with such numerous and varied subjects worthy to arrest attention, I cannot but hope that the record I have made of my impressions may excite the same pleasure in the minds of my readers, and that those who felt amused in following my wanderings amongst the Bocages and the Vines of the Loire, will not be sorry to ac​company me where the Vines of Burgundy and Champagne extend, and will feel some curiosity to be introduced to the Dômes and the Puys of one of the most singular and picturesque parts of France, seldom visited and less known to the English traveller than it would be were its beauties appreciated as they deserve. Auvergne is, in fact, the Switzerland of France, and possesses features of its own, nowhere to be met with except in this region of basaltic rocks and chaotic valleys. Not a peak or a glen but has been a scene of wild adventure, and the lover of novelty may there hail the appearance of objects which his travels in other countries have not presented him with.

To the poet and the painter Auvergne and Velay offer new and charming sites, and nowhere could their genius be called forth greater pleasure. No drawback of bad roads or wretched inns need now deter the lover of the picturesque, for a chemin de velours is open to all travellers, from one end of France to the other, and the diffulties of occasionnel crossroads are amply repaid by the beauties to which they lead.

Dec. 1841.