This book is Pat Stapleton's account of her journeys through France in the tracks of Arthur Young. In 1787, 1788 and 1789, during the French revolution, this English agronomist traveled through France studying the agricultural developments taking place, a unique and remarkable undertaking for his time. He had an amazing ability to mix and communicate with people at all levels. He was at ease with the nobility, mixed happily with peasant farmers, and managed to strike up conversations with all he met as long as they could find some common language in which to communicate. Following in his footsteps, Pat gives us a personal perspective on the changes from Arthur's pre-industrial era to our modern world, offering a travel diary with a new slant on travelling through France. Pat first came to France in 1947, as an au pair in a remote mountain village above Nice, and has lived in the Vaucluse since 1984.