Map is taken from Cesar-Francois Cassini's Carte de Cassini (1789)
Lyon (which Radcliffe misspells as "Lyons"), apart from being the next destination along Adeline's journey, was the one originally sought by La Motte in his escape. The great road off of which La Motte sought to veer led straight from Paris to Lyons, and this is the road that La Motte later discovers to the Marquis that Adeline has taken (239).
For La Motte, Lyons held powers of concealment and safe passage. There, "he could either seek concealment in its neighborhood, or embark on the Rhone for Geneva" (13). For Adeline, Lyons is a pleasant distraction from woe: its "beautiful environs, studded with villas, and rich with cultivation, withdrew [her] from the melancholy contemplation of her own circumstances" (235). The city is, however, colored with danger, as the Marquis knows about Adeline's journey there, has sent servants to retrieve her, and plans to undertake the journey himself (307).
Upon Adeline's arrival in Lyon, "her first care [is] to inquire concerning the passage of the Rhone" (235). They seek out a vessel, and Peter leads her to the waterfront. Here, she encounters a scene of communal gaiety she had envisioned so long before in her release from the Abbey (there, she exclaims: the world, in which my fancy had beenso often delighted to roam--whose every scene smiled in beauty and invited to delight--where all the people were good, and all the good happy (38)): here, in Lyon, she "look[s] with surprise upon the river gay with vessels, and the quay crowded with busy faces, and [feels] the contrast which the cheerful objects around [bear] to herself--to an orphan, desolate, helpless, and flying from persecution and her country" (235).
They depart Lyon "slowly passing up the Rhone," and their watery trail is hidden from the Marquis' servants.
For La Motte, Lyons held powers of concealment and safe passage. There, "he could either seek concealment in its neighborhood, or embark on the Rhone for Geneva" (13). For Adeline, Lyons is a pleasant distraction from woe: its "beautiful environs, studded with villas, and rich with cultivation, withdrew [her] from the melancholy contemplation of her own circumstances" (235). The city is, however, colored with danger, as the Marquis knows about Adeline's journey there, has sent servants to retrieve her, and plans to undertake the journey himself (307).
Upon Adeline's arrival in Lyon, "her first care [is] to inquire concerning the passage of the Rhone" (235). They seek out a vessel, and Peter leads her to the waterfront. Here, she encounters a scene of communal gaiety she had envisioned so long before in her release from the Abbey (there, she exclaims: the world, in which my fancy had beenso often delighted to roam--whose every scene smiled in beauty and invited to delight--where all the people were good, and all the good happy (38)): here, in Lyon, she "look[s] with surprise upon the river gay with vessels, and the quay crowded with busy faces, and [feels] the contrast which the cheerful objects around [bear] to herself--to an orphan, desolate, helpless, and flying from persecution and her country" (235).
They depart Lyon "slowly passing up the Rhone," and their watery trail is hidden from the Marquis' servants.
