Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens ()
Regards et expériences de voyageurs français sur l’Écosse à travers l’exemple des récits de Pierre-Étienne Denis Saint-Germain-Leduc et de Michel Bouquet dans les années 1830-1850
Abstract
Scotland has fascinated and attracted the French for centuries. Located on the periphery of Europe, its geographical location made it difficult to reach for a long time. However, with the development of roads in the Highlands and the reduction in costs that accompanied improved transport, an increasing number of French people began to visit Scotland from the late eighteenth century onwards. It even became one of the most popular destinations with French travellers in the first half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, many writers and painters ventured to the land of Walter Scott and Ossian. How did French travellers from the 1830s to 1850s view Scotland and its people? What factors influenced their perception of the nation? Was the way they perceived Scotland characteristic of the French? What role did these French travellers play in the development and dissemination of a multifaceted Scottish cultural identity in Britain? This article will attempt to answer these questions through a study of Pierre-Étienne Denis Saint-Germain-Leduc’s travelogue (L’Angleterre, l’Écosse et l’Irlande : relation d’un voyage récent dans les trois royaumes) and the publications—collections of lithographs and letters—by Michel Bouquet, who visited Scotland between the late 1830s and the 1840s. This study will show, on the one hand, that these two travellers’ view of Scotland was representative of the way the French perceived Scotland; on the other hand, that the publications of Saint-Germain-Leduc and Bouquet helped to disseminate the new Scottish identity that was developed after the Napoleonic Wars by Walter Scott, Scottish historians and painters.
