Guide Pittoresque, Portatif et Complet du Voyageur en France

1840

De Beer Fb 1840 G

Paris: Didot

Published by the famed Didot firm, this portable guide to travelling France’s postal routes gives detailed descriptions of ‘des villes, des bourgs, des villages, et généralement de tous les lieux remarquables de la France’ – ‘cities, market towns, villages, and generally all of the remarkable places in France’. This engraving shows the spring in Fontaine de Vaucluse, a small town 25 kilometres from Avignon in the southeast of France. Vaucluse literally means ‘closed valley’, and it is at the end of the valley that the famous spring – ‘fontaine’ – is located, the biggest in France. Every year 630 million cubic metres of water flows from the spring, the bottom of which has never been ascertained. The little town is still a popular tourist destination today.