What is the setting of A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter?

The entire story takes place in France. As it opens, the narrator and Philip Dean are both living in Paris, though neither of them particularly likes the city. It is too busy and too artificial; it is not, as they say, the "real France." It is for this reason that the narrator goes to Autun, a small town in the French countryside, several miles outside of Dijon. The population of Autun is probably around 20,000—the narrator objects when Billy Wheatland says it is only 15,000—and its main source of employment are its several factories.