Book excerpt: To those who love it, life in France may be a perpetual dream of enchantment. There is a sense of art everywhere, rarely to be met with except in Italy. Every Frenchman is an artist, and every place he enters, he makes his studio. It is surprising to see in the simplest, the most uneducated peasant, a knowledge and a sense of art or historical research, unheard of in our own country, or even in England.In short, France is France. Nobody can properly describe it to you if you have not been there. You must go and see it, and enjoy it for yourself.-from the PrefaceAmerican author and traveler CHARLES GIBSON (b. 1875) summered in France and turned his idyllic journeys into this agreeable travelogue, a portrait of a long-ago time when travel was a romantic adventure. Combining snippets of history and legend uncovered during explorations of ancient tombs, churches, and fortresses with enchanting descriptions of the villages and landscapes he visited, Gibson introduces us to both charming aristocrats who open their gothic chateaux to visitors and pleasant peasants who run quaint rural inns.First published in 1905, this is an enthralling work that continues to delight readers today.OF INTEREST TO: Francophiles, armchair travelers