Petra ten-Doesschate Chu

“Books devoted to France and its various regions became increasingly popular toward the later part of the July Monarchy. This growing preoccupation with France itself—perhaps best exemplified in the novels of George Sand—was a complex phenomenon, related at once to romantic nationalism, to improving communications within France, and to the retreat, after the 1830 revolution, of the legitimist nobility to their country estates, which contributed to making the countryside fashionable.

Though by no means a new genre—they had been widely published since the middle of the eighteenth century—the travelogues had a wider audience than ever before during the July Monarchy because, like novels, they often appeared initially as installments in newspapers, to be published only later in book form. Thus, they were read by a broad segment of the public. Indeed, from upper to lower middle class, the French during the July Monarchy were a nation of enthusiastic armchair travelers.”
― Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848

“In his comprehensive survey of romantic landscape lithographs, Jean Adhemar has demonstrated that these albums were made up of topographic prints in a picturesque mode, depicting both foreign and French scenes. While albums depicting foreign scenes were generally devoted to a single country, those showing French scenes usually took the form of regional albums that featured a department, a historic region (Normandy, Brittany), or a mountain range (the Pyrenees or the Jura). The importance they played may be gauged not only from the considerable number of albums that were published but also from the substantial editions that were printed, particularly of the albums that were published in Paris.”
― Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, The Art of the July Monarchy: France, 1830 to 1848