THE SPELL OF THE HEART OF FRANCE The Towns, Villages and Chateaux about Paris By André Hallays The Page Company 1920 [Illustration: 0010] [Illustration: 0013] INTRODUCTION Whoever has read "The Spell of Alsace" by André Hallays will need no introduction to the present book. While the work on Alsace was undoubtedly read by many because of its timely publication just at the close of the Great War, when Alsace and all things French were uppermost in the public mind, these readers found themselves held and charmed as much by Monsieur Hallays' wondrous talent for visualizing landscape and for infusing the breath of life into images of the past as by the inherent interest of the subjects on which he discoursed. His books are not travel books in the hackneyed sense of the word. He does not catalogue the things which should be seen, or describe in guidebook fashion those objects which are starred by Baedeker. He does not care to take us to see the things which "every traveler ought to see." He specializes in the obscure and the little-known. He finds that the beauty of out-of-the-way places and objects far from the beaten track of tourist traffic is as great as can be found in famous spots, and far more gratifying because of the fact that it can be observed in solitude and enjoyed in moods undisturbed by the multitude. His manner of depicting landscapes is not by meticulous description, but by apparently casual touches of color, brilliantly illuminating what might to the ordinary observer seem monotonous and colorless landscapes. The inspired flash of description clings in the mind and gives an unforgetable impression of landscape or architectural beauty. In Alsace he saw everywhere the red-tiled roofs, the pink sandstone of the Vosges, sharply contrasted against the green foliage of lush summer or the golden light of the declining sun. In the heart of France, as indeed also in Alsace, he sees, especially, architectural delights which are unknown to the guidebook and the multitude. In fact, it is with the eye of an architect that Monsieur Hallays has traveled through the outer suburbs of Paris, to write the essays which are included in this book. Everywhere he is impressed by the marvelous perfection of French architectural styles at their best, as he has found them in the regions which he traversed. He makes us see new beauty in churches and châteaux which we might pass with a casual glance had not his illuminating vision and description marked that which we might see and wonder at.