France

France is a passage through which Daniel Peggotty carries his search for Emily Peggotty from a family calamity into a wider world of strangers and assistance. The country is not presented as a destination in its own right: it is the first named stage of his continental journey, where determined movement and the generosity of ordinary people keep his search going.

A country crossed in search of Emily

Daniel Peggotty recalls that, after Emily was lost, he understood that James Steerforth had taken her to foreign countries with promises of a grander life. When he later went to meet Steerforth’s mother, he crossed the Channel and landed in France, arriving, as he puts it, as though he had fallen from the sky. France thus marks the point at which the search leaves familiar English ground and becomes a solitary journey across borders.

Travel and the means of the search

In France, Daniel secures papers from an English gentleman in authority, who also offers him money. Daniel is grateful for the help but has no need to accept the money. The papers enable him to continue travelling; the episode shows that the search depends not only on his resolve but also on practical assistance that allows a stranger to move through the country.

He makes most of the journey on foot, sometimes riding in market carts or empty coaches. He covers many miles a day and occasionally travels alongside soldiers going to visit their friends. Though he and these companions cannot speak to one another, their shared presence makes them company on the dusty roads. The account presents France less as a sequence of landmarks than as the ground over which Daniel’s persistence is tested and sustained.

A network of hospitality

At each town, Daniel finds an inn and waits for someone who knows English. He explains that he is travelling to seek his niece, then watches for people who might be Emily; when he finds no sign of her, he moves on. As he reaches new villages, poor people increasingly recognize his story. They bring him to their cottages, give him food and drink, and show him where he can sleep. Mothers who have daughters about Emily’s age sometimes wait for him at a cross outside the village to offer similar kindness; some have themselves lost daughters.

These encounters make the French leg of the search a story of hospitality as well as distance. Daniel’s appeal for Emily makes his private grief legible to people he has never met, and their practical aid gives sympathy material force. France’s narrative importance lies in this combination: it is the difficult route he must cross, but also a place where the search is borne, for a time, by the compassion of strangers.