Why did Conrad Decide to move to France? The simplest explanation, suggested discreetly in a letter to Redmayne, is that it was—and particularly in the country—much cheaper than England. Jeffrey Meyers supposes that Conrad’s purpose was to dominate Jessie, who did not know French and had never been abroad; but to dominate a much younger and rather simple girl did not require such elaborate scheme. However, Conrad must have realized that his social position in England was problematic and curious. There, politeness and tolerance were not quite sufficient to allow the full integration of an alien who talked with a strong foreign accent. In this respect the French were more open, and he spoke their language like a Frenchman from the South. A foreigner writing in English and living in Brittany would make an emblem of his peculiarity, would flaunt his will to be different. Would change into a open declaration of originality the weakness of his position. But to play it safer he did not terminate the renting of the rooms at Gillingham Street; apparently he thought he could afford it.

Colorful and somewhat implausibly dramatic best characterize Jessie Conrad’s description of her honeymoon. One day after their marriage, the Conrads left by train for Southampton, and then by boat for St. Malo, in Brittany. The night crossing of the English Channel was rough, and Jessie found to her consternation that not only she but also her husband, an experienced sea-traveler, suffered from seasickness. When they went ashore in France Conrad kept astonishing Jessie with his strange behavior, and when he ordered rum instead of milk with their pot of tea, she found it “a trifle shocking to my English mind.”

After a night at St. Malo, the couple took a bus to Lannion, a small village in northern Brittany, where they registered on 27 March at the Hôtel de France. It was to serve as their base while they looked for a small house to rent. They were after something secluded—“out of the way of absurd French tourists that stream through better known places during July and August”—preferably on an island.