France 1964 [antikvár]

France has resumed its traditional place on the top rung of the tourist ladder as the favorite country of British and Ameri- can travelers in recent years. The current revised edition of our Guide to France provides a complete coverage of the at- tractions that make it so. ? There is an old familiar saying, "Everyone has two countries, his own and France." For France is the land of Cocagne, where every man does what he pleases, the land of individualism, where you can allow your personal idiosyncracies full play and apologize for them with complete acceptability by the simple remark, "Je suis comme Qa" You are like that. It's all that need be said. In France, every man has a right to be like himself. He needn't conform to the model of another. It is the freedom, in one sense, of Paris that has made it the hoopla capital of the world; and it is its freedom, in another sense, that has made it one of the world's cultural capitals. There is perhaps no other place on earth that can contribute so much to the spiritual development of the indi- vidual. If environment can add to a person's stature, the environment of Paris can be counted upon to do it, by virtue of the influence she brings to bear upon everyone sensitive to beauty, measure, and intellectual stimulation. The best witnesses to that are the many expatriates, in Paris and in France, who came to admire, and remained to praise. * France is a diverse land, and in this guide we have tried to present for you its many aspects. In our opening chapters, we underline some of the spiritual characteristics of France and the qualities of her people, just as in the Parisian section we attempt to capture some of the essence of the soul of this city whose name evokes affection from so many different sorts of persons for so many different sorts of reasons. But in our desire to put France before you in a fashion less dry than that often provided by the serried parading of un- illuminated facts, too often characteristic of guidebooks, we have not forgotten that for a guide to be useful, it must never-