Voyage in France by a Frenchman

Voyage in France by a Frenchman by Paul Verlaine (Voyage en France par un Français) was written in 1880, but only published posthumously for the first time in 1907.



From the preface by Louis Loviot:



"Voyage in France by a Frenchman has remained unknown to Verlaine biographers; the title itself can be found mentioned only on the liminary page of the first edition of Sagesse, published by Palmé, in 1881... It seems surprising that Poor Lélian, always without two nickles to rub together, should have held on to the pages of a piece of writing without trying to draw some profit from them... [the] violent, reactionary pamphlet elaborated around 1880, during the time of mystical renaissance in which were composed the verses of sweet piety comprising the collection Sagesse, which Voyage in France is the virulent paraphrase of... [these] ¿refound pages'... offer a psychological document of the most singular kind and can serve to comment on and explain certain pages of Sagesse and of Bonheur."