Creating Map Readers: Republican Geographic and Cartographic Discourse in G. Bruno's (Augustine Fouillée) 1905Le Tour de la France par deux enfants

Abstract

G. Bruno's (Fouillée) Le Tour de la France par deux enfants, first published in 1877 and with maps in her 1905 edition, introduced geography and provided maps to millions of French school children. The work also marks a crossroads between old and new ways of understanding France. Fouillée's narration describes the boys’ journey and championed republican values of honesty, cleanliness and hard work but it also introduced a republican geographic discourse to generations of school children. In the text, the author situates towns within both departments and the old, provincial regions, suggesting that a significant portion of her readership still relied on the latter classification. Fouillée's cartographic discourse, on the other hand, tells a different story. Her national and regional maps show how France was divided administratively but also downplay the republican nomenclature championed in the narration. None of Fouillée's map titles or their legends acknowledge the 86 departments in metropolitan France. Even her map of France at the end of the book, the one document on which Fouillée provides a clear shape of the entire nation, divides the country by region. Even if disparate, Fouillée's narration and cartography taught readers that France was one unified, if culturally diverse, nation.

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