Tracing Tressallier – from nowhere to know where

Midway on my journey to the centre of France, my Parisien neighbour texts me: ‘Bon voyage dans ton trou perdu.’ In English, ‘Enjoy your trip to the middle of nowhere’, with ‘trou perdu’ literally meaning ‘lost hole’. The middle of France may be considered the middle of nowhere, but anywhere is somewhere, a still point on the turning world, in T S Eliot’s phrase. An agricultural heartland, it’s not just an axis point, but an axis mundi. 

Like everywhere, France’s cultural achievements are...