In his account, Flohr does not settle for simply reproducing the route that the Royal Deux-Ponts traveled, but his account is punctuated by descriptions of the spaces they crossed, glimpsed, or observed, and as such it shows in its own way the place held by geography in the culture of the eighteenth century. At the time geographic publications were “descriptive”, which resulted in a more and more clearly defined link between description and geography. The proposed definitions in the different editions of the Dictionnaire de l’Académiedemonstrate this. In 1694 the first edition of the dictionary defines geography as simply “a science that teaches the position of all regions of the earth, in relation to one another, and in relation to the Heavens”. But in the fifth edition of 1798 geography is defined this time in relation to its purpose, but also in relation to a kind of discourse: “a science that teaches the position of all regions of the earth, in relation to one another, and in relation to the heavens, and with the description of their primary contents”.

In the sixteenth century, and under the name “universal cosmography”, a system of writing and composing texts was developed which renewed the compilations inherited from the Middle Ages. In 1528 Sébastien Münster explained that descriptions should be founded upon precise observations and linked to an experience that could be called experience in the field; that they should not merely be summaries and a measurement of position and distance, but also an inventory of natural and human elements of the described regions, their goal was therefore one of totality that requireed the mobilization of a community, even though the focus and the publication of the results fell only on one man: Münster himself as it would happen.1 In Cosmographia, which he published in 1552, he claimed to put in writing all the information available about the surface of the globe as it is divided into continents, regions, or particular areas. This work has the appearance of an encyclopedia organized in order of geographical procession, as if its purpose was to imitate real movement in a described space. The linearity provides a sort of cohesion to this succession of descriptions, breaking away from the simple juxtaposition of sites. It is a listing of places on the earth’s surface in the form of an itinerary. Thus, the travelers’ texts, like those of geographers, look like itineraries; they have the same way of listing places in topographic order. Münster took up this tradition inherited from Pausanias’s Periegesis , and the texts by Strabon and Denys d’Alexandrie.2 Furthermore Münster writes in Cosmographie that he wants to allow his reader to embrace and become familiar with the towns, mountains, rivers, mines, animals, plants, national traditions, customs, religions and important events, the succession of kings and princes, and the foundations of the places as if the author were leading him from country to country and was pointing everything out to him. The description that takes on the form of a trip allows the reader to carry out a journey in his mind that reproduces the first-hand experience.

This importance of descriptive geography contributes to the success of several editorial genres that reserve a major place for this particular area of knowledge.In the eighteenth century “universal cosmographies” are not the only works to appear, but also specific descriptions of certain territories: for France there is Piganiol de la Force’s Nouvelle description historique et géographique de la France (1715); but these undertakings concern far away territories as well: French Guyana (see Bellin’s Description géographique de la Guyane, 1763), China (Du Halde’s Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique de l’empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise, 1735) and even America (Bellin’s Remarques sur la carte de l’Amérique septentrionale (...) avec une description géographique de ces parties, 1755). This genre is ultimately applied at the level of provinces. Only citing French production, there is Duplessis who in 1740 published a Description géographique et historique de la Haute Normandie qui comprend le Pays de Caux et le Vexin, or Durival, who between 1778-1779 comes out with his Description de la Lorraine et du Barrois. This form of geography is often validated, notably in the prefaces, by the political usefulness of such descriptions.

Geography dictionaries also attest to the place held by descriptive writing in publishing production of the eighteenth century.3 Like all other dictionaries, these publications were often reedited over the course of the century and adorned with additions. Such is the case of Moreri’s dictionary;4 we can also mention Vosgiens, who gave numerous editions of his translation of L. Echard’s Dictionnaire géographique portatif, ou Description de tous les royaumes, provinces, villes, patriarchats, évêches, duchés, comtés, marquisats... des quatre parties du monde. And finally the Dictionnaire géographique universel by Baudrand was originally published in latin, then in 1701 the author produced a French version; yet that same year, Charles Maty came out with a work entitled Dictionnaire géographique universel... tiré du Dictionnaire géographique latin de Baudrand, des meilleures relations, des plus fameux voyages et des plus fidèles cartes. a growing number of portable geography dictionaries — that is octavos or duodecimo, were also in circulation, for example the Dictionnaire géographique portatif de la France, où l’on donne une connaissance exacte des provinces, gouvernements, villes, bourgs, villages, fleuves, rivières, abbayes, etc, qu’il y a dans ce royaume (1765); the Dictionnaire historique et géographique portatif de l’Italie (1775).

Just like descriptions and geography dictionaries, travelers’ accounts contribute to promoting geographic knowledge in eighteenth-century Europe.5 In Histoire de l’édition française Roger Chartier points out that travel literature makes up one of the most successful genres of the modern era.6 Boucher de la Richarderie, in Notice complète et raisonnée de tous les ouvrages de voyage anciens et modernes dans les différentes parties du monde, publiés tant en langue française, qu’en langue étrangère (6 volumes, 1806-1808) takes inventory of 456 travel logs published in the sixteenth century, 1566 published in the seventeenthcentury, and 3540 published in the eighteenth century, and this is still not a complete inventory.7 In order to construct a complete panorama of eighteenth-century travel literature, this growth in the number of published volumes must be placed opposite the new distribution of genres. Indeed, the areas concerned in these accounts evolved: the spot that was traditionally held by journeys to the Holy Land, journeys to barbaric lands and to the distant lands of the Americas loses ground while, on the other hand, oriental journeys to Persia and Turkey, to the Indies, to China and Indochina occupy a more and more important place. In the eighteenth century, journeys to Asia and America each occupy 13% of all titles, voyages to Africa occupy 7%, and those to the southern hemisphere, 2%. Journeys to Europe therefore occupy the largest place, which was indeed reinforced in the eighteenth century, they represent 53% of the total, compared to only 35% in the seventeenth century. The remaining 12% are works dedicated to different regions.

Alongside individual travel accounts, anthologies of travel writings and authentic collections became widespread starting at the end of the seventeenth century. The first is Thévenot’s Relations des divers voyages curieux published in four volumes in Paris between 1666 and 1672, then republished. In order to produce this work, which was widely circulated, Thévenot had works translated from English, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Spanish, or Arabic, unveiling narratives that were previously unheard of; he inserted maps into his work, in particular a map drawn by the Dutch of Northern European regions drawn by the Dutch, and maps of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. In addition to this 17th-century publication the Jesuits’ Lettres édifiantes must also be included. They remained respected and widely circulated through to the following century. This admiration diminished little by little in the eighteenth century when the Jesuits’ behavior in the New World was condemned; de Pauw rebukes them for their prejudice and lies. a sorting out of the Lettre édifiantes was carried out in the second half of the eighteenth century. It was based on this principle that Rousselot de Surgy published an anthology in 1767 entitled Mémoires géographiques, physiques et historiques sur l’Asie, l’Afrique et l’Amérique; in the preface he indicates that he tried to “assemble all the interesting elements from the Lettres édifiantes, the anthology of the missions to the Orient, and a few other Jesuit expeditions, and to eliminate the absurdities and prodigies that are so numerous in the work”.

These anthologies became more and more thematic at the beginning of the eighteenth century.In this way Jean-Frédéric Bernard published Recueil des voyages qui ont servi à l’établissement et au progrès de la compagnie des Indes orientales (1702-1706), and later Recueil des voyages du Nord (1715-1718), and Recueil des voyages dans l’Amérique méridionale (1738) etc. Each time extracts are gathered from expeditions to the same place, with the information contained in the text taking precedence over the very act of traveling. In contrast Abbe Prévost’s Histoire générale des voyages, ou nouvelle collection de toutes les relations de voyages par mer et par terre qui ont d’abord été publiées jusqu’à présent dans les différentes langues, distinguishes itself from all these collections. Firstly, it probably remains the most ambitious collection, the one that comes closest to the encyclopedic ideal. In total, sixteen volumes appear between 1746 and 1761. The first seven volumes are the result of a simple translation from an English collection. The authors of that collection had carried out a compilation, but unlike their predecessors they had visibly intervened in the text. In this way, the diary of each traveler and the account of his adventures were separated from his “observations”, which were put together with those made by other travelers on the same regions. The travelers’ “extracts” were thus followed by “reductions” which grouped together all the remarks about the traditions, customs, religions, and sometimes “specific writings on the core of the problem” would be proposed when a question seemed to require more attention. Nevertheless, after the seventh volume appeared the publication was suspended. Between the eighth and twelfth volume Prévost, who was no longer just a translator but an author, progressively transformed this method. Starting from the twelfth volume, Prévost adopted a new order. He suggested opening with a general exposition containing the history of the discoveries and establishments proceeded by a critical examination of the sources of the New World’s history.8 Finally Abbe Prévost set himself the goal of establishing “a complete system of history and modern geography that will represent the current state of all nations,” in any case, this goal is announced in the subtitle of the work. Here is found the most standard definition of geography which appears to be a description of the earth. Prévost carries out a true critique of his sources and, according to Michèle Duchet he inaugurates the critique of travel accounts in France, and, by reducing the anecdotal and miraculous parts, he accentuates their documentary value”.9 These great collections are quite sought-after in the eighteenth century, the most well-known are found in the great libraries and they are praised for their documentary merits, notably in scholarly periodicals.

While it is difficult to know what printed documentation Flohr used to gather information and complete his field observations, he had evidently acquired a certain familiarity with geography books, whether they be descriptive, dictionaries, or travel accounts. He not only drew a certain amount of data from these, but also models of discourse — and figures of speech that are omnipresent in the geographic literature of the Age of Enlightenment.