ABSTRACT
With few exceptions, the inn does not feature conspicuously in classical or medieval literature. Given that it owes its existence to basic human necessities, it is perhaps inevitable that it should be almost entirely excluded from the idealized topographies generated by epic poetry or classical and chivalric romances. The Quixotically deluded hero of Bougeants eighteenth-century Voyage merveilleux, Fan-Férédin, recognizes that such mundane considerations as food and lodging are largely alien to the world inhabited by the heroes and heroines of romance; upon his arrival in the mythical land of 'Romande', 1 he discovers the answer to a perplexing question: 'Je n'avais jamais compris dans la lecture des romans, comment les princes et princesses, les héros et leurs héroïnes, leurs domestiques mêmes et toute leur suite passaient toute leur vie, sans jamais parler de boire ni de manger.' The explanation, he discovers, is in the air ot Romande: 'cet air a surtout une propriété singulière, c'est de tenir lieu de nourriture à tous ceux qui le respirent.' 2
