by John Fiennes (Author)
French Letters is based on the letters and records of an Australian francophile who has spent most of his leisure time, and a good deal of his working life, in France and the French-speaking world. The reminiscences range over Paris, of course, Bordeaux and Lyon with their rich historic and gastronomic treasures; regional corners such as Grignan, in Provence, with its elegant literary connections, and the curiously-named Condom (in Gascony) with its links to the "Three Musketeers", and then Marseille with its maritime links to the French colonial world and to Outremer, to far-away French-influenced places such as Egypt, Indochina, Madagascar, New Caledonia, Quebec, Reunion Island and Tahiti. This is a light-hearted and yet thoughtful view of a wide and often little-known world, presented here in an easily accessible form for dreamers, adventurers, and armchair travellers.