Before the revolution, and for most of the nineteenth century there was hardly any common French idea. Like with most countries, community and tradition are recent inventions.
Graham Robb in ‘the discovery of France’ has the perfect analogy that a French dialect only carried as far as the nearest church bell. People a valley further would speak a different vernacular.
Before the revolution, and for most of the nineteenth century there was hardly any common French idea. Like with most countries, community and tradition are recent inventions.
Graham Robb in ‘the discovery of France’ has the perfect analogy that a French dialect only carried as far as the nearest church bell. People a valley further would speak a different vernacular.