Le Tour de la France par deux enfants (1877

1877 in literature

The year 1877 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*Louisa May Alcott - Under the Lilacs*R M Ballantyne -The Settler and the Savage*Ambrose Bierce - The Dance of Death...

) is a French novel/geography/travel/school book. It was written by Augustine Fouillée (née

NEE

NEE is a political protest group whose goal was to provide an alternative for voters who are unhappy with all political parties at hand in Belgium, where voting is compulsory.The NEE party was founded in 2005 in Antwerp...

 Tuillerie) who used the pseudonym of G. Bruno. She was the wife of Alfred Jules Émile Fouillée

Alfred Jules Émile Fouillée

Alfred Jules Émile Fouillée was a French philosopher.-Life:Fouillée was born at La Pouëze, Maine-et-Loire. He held several minor philosophical lectureships, and from 1864 was professor of philosophy at the lycées of Douai, Montpellier and Bordeaux successively. In 1867 and 1868 he was crowned by...

. The book was widely used in the schools of the Third Republic

French Third Republic

The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...

, where it was influential for generations of children in creating a sense of a unified nation of France. Its success was such that it reached a circulation of 6 million copies in 1900, by 1914 it sold 7 million copies, it was still used in schools until the 1950s and still in print to this day. It was sometimes known as "the little red book of the Republic."

The story recounts the journey of two young brothers from Phalsbourg

Phalsbourg

Phalsbourg is a commune in the Moselle department in Lorraine in north-eastern France, with a population of about 5000.In 1911, it was a town of Germany, in the imperial province of Alsace-Lorraine, lying high on the west slopes of the Vosges, 25 miles north-west of Strasbourg by rail...

 in Lorraine

Lorraine (région)

Lorraine is one of the 27 régions of France. The administrative region has two cities of equal importance, Metz and Nancy. Metz is considered to be the official capital since that is where the regional parliament is situated...

, Andrew and Julian Volden, who, following the annexation of the Alsace-Lorraine

Alsace-Lorraine

The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...

 by the Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

ns in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War

Franco-Prussian War

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...

, and the death of their father, went in search of family members through the French provinces. The diversity of the people they meet lead them on to learn more. There are passages on the taste of local foods, the strange patois

Patois

Patois is any language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. It can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects, and other forms of native or local speech, but not commonly to jargon or slang, which are vocabulary-based forms of cant...

, mitigated by methodical learning. It is very patriotic and emphasises civic and moral education, as well as geography, science, history. The story teaches about monuments and symbols, exemplary lives of inventors, soldiers and patriot benefactors. They are very zealous to learn more about France. The accumulated wealth of knowledge: agriculture, home economics, hygiene ... leads them to establish a perfect farm called "La Grand'Lande", symbolic of the nation of France.

The book was reissued in 2000 by Belin, and in 2006 by France Loisirs.

Adaptations

• A silent movie version was released in 1923 by Louis de Carbonnat for Pathé
  Pathé
  Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
  
  .
• A television series began in 1957 for the RTF (French Radio and Television).
• Jean-Luc Godard
  Jean-Luc Godard
  Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
  
   made in 1979, for antenna 2, a television series on the occasion of the centenary of the book.
• The book's conformist and paternalistic tone is set in a France still largely rural and provincial. Anne Pons wrote a modernized adaptation in 1983.

External links

• Le Tour de la France par deux enfants (French)
• Le Tour de la France par deux enfants, at Internet Archive
  Internet Archive
  The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
  
  (scanned books original editions color illustrated).