Excursions Beyond France's Frontiers
War Memory and National Feeling in French Travel Experiences during the Nineteenth Century
Introduction
This project will attempt to map and contextualize a series of nineteenth-century travel accounts written by French authors. The eventual goal will be to demonstrate and analyze the role that travel to neighboring lands had in shaping national identity.
- What sites stimulated nationalistic reflections?
- Did such experiences challenge or reinforce preexisting beliefs?
Some Research Questions:
Texts to be Covered
1831
Voyage de Réthel à Bruxelles
1836
Voyages D'un Solitaire - Edgar Quinet
1842
Le Rhin - Victor Hugo
1864
Cinq journées avec Charles Baudelaire à Bruxelles - Georges Barral
1869
Une Visite à quelques champs de bataille de la vallée du Rhin - Robert d'Orléans
Modes of Travel
Well into the Nineteenth Century, the horse-drawn carriage remained the default mode of transportation for moving across European lands.
However, where there was coastline or navigable rivers, travel by boat provided an alternative to the often difficult roads of rural Europe.
The proliferation of the steamship through middle of the Nineteenth Century made water-based travel not only faster but more consistent without needing to rely on weather and more easily able to overcome the natural flow of rivers.
These new types of ships were often viewed as a marvel of modern technology and source of national pride but did not displace the traditional sailboats and rafts on European rivers. As Victor Hugo notes, the disparate state of transportation on the Rhine river in the 1830s:
"At present, twenty-five steamers are engaged on the Rhine...The ancient mode of navigating the Rhine, which was by vessels with sails, contrasts strangely with the present. The steamboats, with life in their appearance, rapid, comfortable, and painted with the colors of all nations, have for invocation the names of princes and cities : Ludwig II., Gross, Herzog von Hessen, Konigin, Victoria, Herzog von Nassau, Prinzessin Mariann, Gross Herzog von Baden, Stadt Manheim, Stadt Coblentz. The sailing vessels glide slowly along, and have at their prows grave and reverential names, such as Pius, Columbus, Amor Sancta Maria, Gratia Dei. The steamboat is varnished and gold lettered ; the sailing vessel is bedaubed with pitch. The one pursues its way beseeching of men; the other continues its course in prayer. The one depends upon man; the other places its reliance in God - food, and that which is the gift of Heaven, being its cargo. " (p. 245)
but also hinting at the danger of increased traffic near river communities - As Victor Hugo observed when visiting Cologne in the 1830s:
"Cologne is demolished by its river. Scarcely a day passes but some old stone, some ancient relic, is detached by the commotion of the steamboats. A town is not situated with impunity upon the great artery of Europe."
For more on the changing nature of river transport during this period see this brief overview .
Of course walking remained an irreplaceable part of a tourist's journey. In fact, this was reinforced in the early decades of the century with the popularization of hiking especially for accessing to unspoiled nature and remote historical ruins.
Rail Travel
Although the steam powered locomotives had been developed in the first decades of the Nineteenth Century, it was only in the 1830s that the first viable models for long-distance passenger transport came into being. This combined with the incredible capital and labor requirements for creating a rail-infrastructure meant that it took until the 1850s for railroads to mature a means of transportation in Continental Europe.
A trip from Réthel to Bruxelles during the September of 1831 as recounted in an 1832 issue of the periodical Nouvelles Annales des Voyages
Voyage de Réthel à Bruxelles - Septembre 1831
The traveler who simply signs his account with his initials, A.E., felt compelled to survey the Franco-Belgian border and make an excursion to Brussels because of the recent political revolution and military conflict occurring in Belgium. Within the context of the Dutch invasion of a newly-independent Belgium and France's military intervention against the Dutch, this nationalistic travel account reflects on the contemporary geopolitical situation and French military history.
Victor Hugo's Le Rhin (1842)
- Black dots - a town visited in the text
- Green dots - a site with additional information (descriptions, quotations, images and/or links)
- Orange arrows - route taken in Hugo's first trip
- Blue arrows - route taken in Hugo's second trip
For the maps below:
The Creation of Hugo's Le Rhin (1842)
Between 1834 and 1840, Victor Hugo took multiple eastward trips from Paris. Combining these travel experiences, he published an exploration of the Rhine River in his 1842 book, Le Rhin. The text combines travel guidance, ethnographic observations and political reflections.
The routes reflected by this map are those implied by Hugo's narrative although in reality, these routes were composites of many shorter trips he had taken.
Victor Hugo circa 1835 - Nils Personne (text), Maurin (image), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
First Tour of the Rhine
In his first volumes of Le Rhin, Hugo describes his travels along a northeasterly path through Northern France and Belgium before coming to the Rhine at Cologne. From that point on, he follows the river south stopping at picturesque villages, castles and historical ruins which catch his interest.
Second Tour of the Rhine
The later volumes of the text trace a more southernly route which reaches the Rhine at Straßbourg. From there, he again goes south along the river and into Switzerland.
The River and Hugo's depiction
What becomes clear from mapping the routes suggested by Le Rhin is Hugo's relatively narrow focus on certain sections of the Rhine. Despite, describing the entire Rhine in generally terms, Hugo's experience and interest remained focused on the Middle Rhine and the High Rhine.
Video of part of the Rhine River Valley
Frequency of years after 1000AD mentioned in Le Rhin (Vols. 1 & 2) [Voyant Tools - Cirrus]
The prominence of 1814, the year of the Allied invasion of France and fall of the Napoleonic Empire is apparent throughout Hugo's Le Rhin. Also the emotional language employed suggests an strongly negative reaction to French defeat and a desire to celebrate Napoleon as a strong leader.
Collocates for "1814," "napoléon" and "bonaparte" in Le Rhin (Vols. 1 & 2) [Voyant Tools - Links]
Delving deeper, the collocates of "1814" in the text reflect his continual reference to the military struggle of that year (especially the defense of border fortifications) and the negative emotions associated with the French defeat (events were humiliating, fatal, disastrous, devouring, with cruelty and cowardice being exhibited). At the same time, Hugo (and the people he encounters) describe Napoleon with mostly positive language and seems to especially emphasize his strength, the drama of his fall and connect him to earlier historical figures (such as Charlemagne, Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great).
Sentiment analysis for the original French text of Le Rhin
Sentiment analysis for the text of the English translation of Le Rhin
Despite the aforementioned lamenting of France's defeat and inability to maintain its 'natural frontiers' along the Rhine, Hugo's text remains fairly positive overall. Displaying a mixture of emotions seeming to reflect his movement between nationalist angst, idyllic travel experiences and romantic contemplations of the ruins of bygone epochs.
Champs de Bataille de la vallée du Rhin (1869)
An exiled royal, Robert d'Orléans' travels to historic battlesites just beyond France's eastern frontier provided him with a context to reflect on French national identity and sites to reconnect with nationalism.
Frequency of years after 1000AD mentioned in Une visite à quelques champs de bataille de la vallée du Rhin (1869) [Voyant Tools - Cirrus]
Although framing the Franco-German border as the setting for French resistance to encroachments from the East from time immemorial, Robert d'Orléans' text has a clear focus on the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon (1792-1815). Comparing it to the analysis of Hugo's Le Rhin, the most apparent difference is a much stronger focus on the years of the Wars of the French Revolution (1792-1802). Meanwhile, the Napoleonic years achieve a prominent albeit secondary place showing a relative deemphasis of the fall of the Napoleonic Empire compared to Hugo's narrative.
Voyant Tools - Phrases
Despite this, when it comes specific personages, pre-revolutionary French military leaders are given more individualized attention than their Republican and Napoleonic counterparts. This may suggest a more diffuse collection of historical personalities for the conflicts after 1792 while earlier epochs were more likely to be defined by a few specific individual leaders. Another possible interpretation of this would be Robert's aristocratic background made him more interested in the exploits of aristocratic officers.
Voyant Tools - DocumentTerms
A cursory look at the occurrences of nationalities in this text not unsurprisingly show French and Belgian as by far the most common. However, the next few are more indicative of the relative attention paid to the Austrian, Prussian, Russian and 'German' nations where despite Austria's relative decline by the 1860s has a prominent place due to the history of Austro-French conflict along the Rhine. It is also worth noting that the only nationality with a clear trendline is German with it become significantly more frequent in the end of the text when the author turns to more contemporary reflections and envisions the threat to France that a united Germany may pose.
Approximate distribution of locations mentioned in Une visite à quelques champs de bataille de la vallée du Rhin (1869) [Voyant Tools - DreamScape]
Additional Travel Accounts
Edgar Quinet’s Voyages D'un Solitaire
Chapter II - Le Champ De Bataille De Waterloo in Revue des Deux Mondes (1836)
Some of the noteworthy things discussed in this short account of a visit to the battlefield of Waterloo is a depiction of travel to a battle site as an individualized experience and the nature of memorialization. Specifical Quinet comments on how the site itself can replace official monuments with the lack of commemorative monuments for the French transformed the entire field of battle into a monument. - “We thus find, in this horizon, the tombs of Englishmen, Hanoverians, Belgians, Dutch, Prussians, Scots, Irish; the French alone do not have one, or rather all that you can see is their tomb.”
Quinet also used his visit as an opportunity to reflect on nationalism more broadly: “There is a kind of interregnum in the world…they are all struck with helplessness and inertia.…[Although,] everyone has a prize in front of them; not one dares to touch it. Russia is retreating from its prey in the East, Germany from its unity, France from its freedom. In these circumstances, the genius of all becomes languid, for it has not yet formed a place for these different spirits which are exhausting themselves; there are no more nations, and there is no humanity yet. .... But when we have thus violated everything that the ancestors honored; when the idea of a country degraded by its own abandonment will no longer awaken either pride or love anywhere; when there will be no more barrier, no more home, no more asylum, there will be no more peoples, that is true; but also there will be no more men. Within a century, if no one opposed these maxims …Western and continental Europe would be nothing more than a mob of bourgeois without passion or place, without value and without heart.” Overall, the author depicts nationalism as providing the impulse to great events, human passions, and the basis of feelings of community
Georges Barral's Cinq journées avec Charles Baudelaire à Bruxelles
Of special note in this text is an interesting account of Barral and Baudelaire's visit to Waterloo in 1864
Full Texts and Citations
1814, Campagne de France - Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Hugo, Victor. En voyage. Le Rhin / Victor Hugo illustré, 1880. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k103020p .
Hugo, Victor. The Rhine : A Tour from Paris to Mayence by the Way of Aix-La-Chapelle, with an Account of Its Legends, Antiquities, and Important Historical Events. Translated by David Mitchell Aird. San Francisco : Payot, Upham, 1860. http://archive.org/details/rhinetourfrompar00hugorich .
files used for the textual analysis are available at my GitHub page : see https://belovsap.github.io/Website/
