The Path To Rome

Hillaire Belloc

Nov 2015 · Freshwater Seas · Narrated by Robert Bethune

About this audiobook

As Hillaire Belloc explains it, one fine day while walking about the town in norther France where he was born, he suddenly decided to take a pilgrimage to Rome. Not just any pilgrimage, mind you. He not only decided to walk the whole way, but he decided to make a beeline for the Holy City, doing everything possible to avoid leaving the straight path - a path across France to the Vosges Mountains, from their across Switzerland, across the Alps like Hannibal, across the Apeninnes into Italy and thence down the boot of Italy to Rome. All on foot, he vowed.

Well, he very nearly did it. He did make it to Rome, but he wound up riding on carts or in trains for about ten percent of the way. However, all the mountain travel was on foot, and he gained by it, for he constantly found himself in unexpected places, seeing unexpected things. He takes us with him all the way, sharing his heart and mind with us in the most guileless and pleasant fashion.

He was a devout, somewhat conservative Catholic, and his faith suffuses the book, but he does not proselytize, nor preach. Catholicism for him is a deeply rooted habit of mind and soul, not something to be dumped onto someone else like a load of firewood. Nor does he allow his faith to impose any load of solemnity on him. He is lighthearted, digressive, full of stories, perceptions, wisecracks, smart remarks and general playfullness. Underneath it, however, lies a will of iron; neither hunger, fatigue, lack of sleep, lack of money, lack even of decent footgear or the ability to speak the local language stops him. He is thwarted only once, and his tale of that time is thrilling.

An audiobook cannot do justice to the elegant, yet simple maps and drawings in the book. Fortunately, his discussions of them are as clear and direct as the maps and drawings themselves.

There is a reason why this book has been in print for over a hundred years, and it is a simple one: it is delightful. His journey through the heart of Europe is both a lark and a true pilgrimage, and we are his boon companions along the way.

About the author

Hilaire Belloc, 1870 - 1953 Hilaire Belloc was born in France in 1870, educated at Oxford, and naturalized as a British subject in 1902. Although he began as a writer of humorous verse for children, his works include satire, poetry, history, biography, fiction, and many volumes of essays. With his close friend and fellow Catholic, G. K. Chesterton, Belloc founded the New Witness, a weekly newspaper opposing capitalism and free thought and supporting a philosophy known as distributism. The pair was so close in thought and association that George Bernard Shaw nicknamed them Chesterbelloc. During his life, Belloc published over 150 books. Today, however, he is best remembered for only a few works, most notably his light verse, such as Cautionary Tales (1907) and A Bad Child's Book of Beasts (1896). Belloc died in 1953 from burns caused when his dressing gown caught fire from the hearth.