In 1834, Alexandre Dumas began publishing his enormously successful
Impressions de Voyage: En Suisse.
Possibly buoyed by the success of
this work, he set off again, in October 1834, on a second trip. He would
be absent from France for two years (1834-1836). His travels would take
him through the South of France, one Firenze (Florence), Rome, Naples, and
Sicily. The trip would eventually yield five travel books, of which the
first, Nouvelles Impressions de Voyage: Midi de la France, would appear
in 1841, some seven years after the events it described.
From internal evidence in the book it would appear that Dumas didn't write
Midi de la France until 1840 or so. This delay perhaps robbed the book
of some of the freshness and personal anecdote which usually characterized
Dumas' travel writing. By way of compensation, it contains an extra
helping of history, particularly classical history, inspired by the many
Roman ruins that Dumas and his party visited.
Dumas' itinerary took him from Paris to the palace at Fontainebleau (which
inspired an anecdote of the abdication of Napoleon, thence to Cosne (a
story about man who murders his family), then to Bourbon-Archembault, and
then to Lyon. Dumas' visit to Lyon is the occasion for an extended account
of the execution of Cinq-Mars by the order of Louis XIII. From Lyon, Dumas
continued south to Vienna, Valence, Orange, and then to Avignon. At
Avignon, Dumas recounts the assassination of his god-father, Maréchal
Brune, in 1815. Dumas continues to Aigues-Mortes, Arles, and then to
Marseilles. At Marseilles, Dumas describes the capture of the city by the
forces of Henri IV in 1595.
Dumas concludes the book with a short story, La Maison Phenicienne,
(which he attributes to a manuscript found in an old chest, but slyly
suggests was actually written by Méry), a pocket-size historical romance of
the 1595 fall of Marseilles.
This may seem like a lot to cram between the covers of a single book, but
there are actually many more locales, and many more stories, than the few
highlights listed above.
