The Red and the Black is set in Franche-Comté: Julien Sorel grows up in the fictional town of Verrières, studies at the seminary in Besançon, and meets his end after a church shooting based on a real 1827 crime near Grenoble.
The route follows Julien from Verrières-de-Joux, the village that may have lent its name, through Besançon's citadel, seminary and cathedral, to Brangues and Place Grenette, where the real Antoine Berthet who inspired the novel was tried and executed.
On 26 February 1815 Napoleon slipped away from Elba with some 1,000 men. Within a month he was back in the Tuileries, and by mid-July he had surrendered to the Royal Navy.
The route follows him stop by stop: his villa on Elba, the landing at Golfe-Juan, the meeting at Laffrey and the entry into Grenoble on the Route Napoléon, the Tuileries, the farms of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte at Waterloo, then Malmaison and Île d'Aix, where his journey ended. The pins at Golfe-Juan and Grenoble mark the towns, not exact spots.
