In the first place, then, I must remind you that in order to reach Le Morvan it is not necessary to traverse either the Indian Archipelago or the Cordilleras, or black or ferocious populations. Those who have by accident passed through it, have not been induced by its appearance to inscribe its name in their note-books. But Le Morvan is close at hand; Le Morvan, so to speak, touches England,--a sufficient reason, as every one knows, for taking no interest in it. Every year caravans of tourists leave for Italy and the East; they go to gaze upon the remains of what was once the palace of the famous Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, or to kill the lizards on the steps of the mouldering Coliseum; one invites the scorpions of Greece to bite his leg; another seeks the yellow fever in the Brazils; a third prefers being robbed in Calabria, or dying of thirst in the Deserts of Lybia;--the more distant and perilous the journey, the greater the pleasure of accomplishing it. Such is English taste. Yet Le Morvan is a charming and picturesque country--a lovely region, clad with verdure, flowers, and forest-trees, and watered by fresh, sparkling, and silvery streams, which every one can reach without fatigue, much expense, and without the slightest chance of danger, but perhaps, as I have before said, its proximity is its misfortune. Should any one after perusing this volume desire to visit Le Morvan, he should be aware that to do so with any degree of pleasure or profit it is absolutely necessary to speak French fluently,--for half our peasants are not in the least aware the earth is round, and that on it there are other nations besides their own. To see its thousand beauties, to fish its rivers and enter into its delightful, exciting and perilous sports, to plunge without hesitation into the depths of its forests, the traveller should also be accompanied by an experienced guide, and piloted by a friendly hand. Le Morvan, unknown to all to-day, would come forth quickly from the shell of obscurity in which it lies concealed, if some man of rank in England, led thither by hazard or caprice, were to spend a few weeks amidst its glades and vineyards, its mountains and its streams. What was Cannes twenty years since? who ever mentioned it in England, who knew its beauties? Nobody. Lord Brougham passes there, stops, selects a hill, crowns its top with a white _château_, scatters the gold from his purse, and sheds over the little town the lustre of the renown won by his versatile genius--Cannes immediately becomes the vogue--Cannes is charming, magnificent! Cannes, certainly, with her fields of jasmine and roses, her groves of orange-trees, her burning sun, blue skies and sea, and her warm pine-woods, is a delightful spot;--but Cannes is also a place of languor and sloth, a lavender-water country. If you have the gout, if you are old and rich, if you have delicate lungs, go to Cannes, your life will be agreeable but enervating.