In between Paris and Thiers, where Adeline travels with La Motte, Radcliffe becomes abstract in her use of geographical location. Whereas at all other points in the novel Radcliffe's place names can be located on a contemporary map, during the events surrounding the Abbey, the characters quite literally fall off the map. I have taken the liberty to call this hazy area the "World of Romance" (explained in more detail here); the map below displays this section of France stretching between Paris, where Adeline begins her journey, and Thiers/Lyon, where she reappears on the map following her stay at the Abbey. Below this map are individual, more detailed maps of each abstract location mentioned within the "World of Romance."
Map above is taken from Thomas Kitchin's Atlas (1794)
The maps below are images of Cesar-Francois Cassini's detailed map of France, and include those areas where Adeline presumably travels, but are ambiguously mentioned in the text. As this area is where Radcliffe portrays gothic sensibility at its height (the clandestine escape, the Abbey, the tomb, the skeleton, the emotions running wild, etc.), I have named this hazy area the "World of Romance." Click on the maps below for larger images.
The La Mottes leave Paris, travel for approximately three leagues, and stop because they are lost (3). La Motte spots a light in the distance, and approximately a half mile away, they discover a house. This is the house at which Adeline was held prisoner, and where La Motte first meets her is approximately and is approximately 9 1/2 miles (one league = 3 miles) away from Paris's south border, or around Savigny or Viry in the center of this map.
After travelling all night, they stop to eat breakfast at "D--" where La Motte sends a letter to Nemours. Since the La Mottes leave Paris at midnight, travel approximately two hours to the house on the heath (at 5 miles/hr.), and then 45 minutes more while led by the "ruffians," it is approximately 3:00 a.m. by the time they start off on their own. They would have travelled at least four to five more hours before stopping at D-- for breakfast, putting them approximately 20-25 miles further along the road. This would have put them just north of the Forest of Fontainbleu (top of the picture), around the town of Dam-Marie, though there is no way of knowing if this was the "D--" Radcliffe had in mind.
The party travels until 2:00 (approximately five hours), and arrives at a "deep valley, watered by a rivulet, and overhung with wood" at which they eat dinner (10). Though the novel doesn't mention it at this point, Louis later identifies a town nearby that La Motte visits as "V--" to ask for directions toward Monville (67). This journey would have, presumably, led them to or past Nemours--the name of La Mottes Parisian confidant.
The party travels on toward Monville, "a small town where La Motte determined to pass the night" (11). They arrive there three hours after sunset, or approximately 11:00p.m. (about 20-25 miles away). This would have put the travellers, had they continued to journey southward, at approximately Monville seen on the map above. It is in this city that Adeline becomes very sick--understandably, as she has been traveling through the previous evening without a chance for sleep.
After spending a "few days" in Monville, they set out for B-- upon a "wild and woody tract of country" (13). It is at this point that locating Adeline becomes even more difficult. As B-- is a "village out of the great road," it is presumable that the party would have veered either to the east or west. They stop "about noon at a solitary village," which Louis later identifies as "L--" (67), and obtain directions "for passing the vast forest of Fontainville upon whose borders they now were" (13). This, considering the distance it would have taken to travel from after breakfast to "about noon," would have landed them around Lorris (if they had chosen to go westward), at the borders of the Foret d'Orleans.
The party enters the Fontainville Forest "about twelve o'clock at noon, and [La Motte] was desirous to hasten forward, that he might pass the forest of Fontanville, and reach the town on its opposite borders, before night fall" (13). They travel for the "remainder of the day," and Peter gets lost (14). After the sun sets (approximately 8:00 - they had been traveling for eight hours through the forest), La Motte "observed...some dark towers rising from among the trees at a little distance" (14). They drive towards them and discover the Abbey of St. Clair.
About the Fontainville Forest
Though from a linear geographic perspective, the Fontainville Forest could be equated with the Foret d'Orleans, Fontainville seems to be more based upon the renowned Forest de Fontainbleu that the travellers would have passed early on. Aside from the similarity in name, Fontainbleu is rumored to be full of game, to be enchanted, and contains two prime prototypes of Fontainville's "Auboine": Avon and Arbonne. Because the travellers would have been far south of the Forest of Fontainbleu by this time--much closer to the Foret d'Orleans--the two forests are conflated, which further underscores the other-worldly, unlocatable nature of the world of romance.
Many months later, after a lengthy stay at the Abbey, an "escape" to the Marquis' chateau, a real escape that is frustrated, and a return to the Abbey, Adeline departs the World of Romance with Peter toward Savoy. Significantly, the two leave the Abbey at nighttime, and "travel for several hours" (25-40 miles) until daybreak. Adeline muses on the kindness of La Motte for two paragraphs, and they stop and get "directions to Thiers, which place they reached without any accident, and there stopped to refresh themselves" (235). This, of course, sounds as if the two travelled through the night 25-40 miles, traveled a bit longer, asked for directions, and then ate lunch at Thiers after another 20 miles or so. In reality, however, Thiers is at least 150 miles from where the fictional Fontainville would have been. This would have taken them at least four long days to traverse. Because this passage from the Abbey to Thiers is purposely diminished and eased, it seems as if the characters are literally passing between two different worlds where time and location don't quite match up (more on this here).
