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A BOOK OF

THE CEVENNES

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

MEHALAH

THE TRAGEDY OF THE C^SARS

THE DESERTS OF SOUTHERN FRANCE

STRANGE SURVIVALS

SONGS OF THE WEST

A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG

OLD COUNTRY LIFE

AN OLD ENGLISH HOME

YORKSHIRE ODDITIES

HISTORIC ODDITIES

OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES

THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW

FREAKS OF FANATICISM

A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES

UNIFORM Vi^ITH THIS VOLUME

A BOOK OF BRITTANY
A BOOK OF DARTMOOR
A BOOK OF THE WEST

I. DEVON
H. CORNWALL

A BOOK OF NORTH WALES
A BOOK OF SOUTH WALES
A BOOK OF THE RHINE
A BOOK OF THE RIVIERA
A BOOK OF THE PYRENEES

THE TAi.lAk»jUK 1-KoM LA SOUCHb.

A BOOK OF

THE CEVENNES

BY S. BARING-GOULD, M.A. , , ,

" ILI.E TERRARUM MIHI PRATER OMNES
ANGULUS RIDET, UBI NON HVMETTO
MELI.A DECEDUNT, VIRIDIQUB CEKTAT I

BACCA VENAFRO ; <

VKR UBI LONGUM, TEPIDASQUE PR^DET
JUPITER BRUMAS."

Hor. Od. ii. 6.

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imssmS^

n'>

<^::^i^

WITH FORTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
EIGHT OF WHICH ARE IN COLOUR, AND A MAP

London

John Long

Norris Street, Haymarket

[A/l rights reserziecf]

First Published in igo^

-689330.

Illustrations reproduced by the Hentschel-Colourtjrpe Process

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. The Crescent

PAGE

II.

Le Velay

III.

Le Puy

IV.

Round about Le Puy

L'AUBERGE DE PEYRABEILLE

VI.

LeS BoUTlkRES

103

VII.

The Volcanoes of the Vivarais

114

VIII.

The Canon of the Ard^che

137

IX.

The Wood of Paiolive .

153

The Ravine of the Allier

i6i

XI.

The Camisards .

177

XII.

Alais

203

XIII.

Ganges .

221

XIV.

Le Vigan

237

XV.

L'AlGOUAL

248

XVI.

The Land of Ferdinand Fabre

262

S.VU.

The H^rault
Index

282
305

ILLUSTRATIONS

IN COLOUR
The Tamargue from La Souche

From a photograph by Artige freres.

Lacemaker, Le Puis .
Lacemakers

From a photograph by Margerite-Br^mont.

Castle of Ventadour

From a photograph by Bigot-Croze.

Peasants of the Causses
The Goat's Leap, Le Vigan
Peasant Girls of the Causses
Dolmen of Grandmont

From a photograph by L. Froment.

Frontispiece
To face page 24

„ 128

177
>, 241

» 249

„ 292

IN MONOTONE

The Cyclopses at MouRfezE

From a photograph by L. Froment.

Le Sue DE Sara

From a photograph by Margerite-Br6mont.

La Voute-sur-Loire .

From a photograph by Margerite-Brdmont.'

Cascade des Estreys .

From a photograph by Margertte-Br^mont.

La Beate

From a photograph by Margerite-Br^mont.

Cevenol Peasant

From a photograph by Margerite-Bremont.

Cathedral, West Front, Le Puy

From a photograph by Margerite-Bremont.

Porch, Cathedral, Le Puy

From a photograph by Margerite-Bremont.

VIU

THE CEVENNES

L'AlGUILHE .

From a photograph by Margerite-Br^mont.

Basalt, Espaly

From a photograph by Vazelle.

La Roche Lambert

From a photograph by Margerite-Diimont.

Mezenc

From a photograph by Artige freres.

Gerbikr de Jonc

From a photograph by Artige freres.

The Tavern of Peyrabeille .

From a photograph by Margerite-Br^mont.

Mayres

From a photograph by Artige freres.

The Vivarais Chain .

From a photograph by Artige freres.

The Volane Valley .

From a photograph by Artiga freres.

Le Fauteuil du Diable

From a photograph by Artige freres.

Fall at Antraigues .

From a photograph by Bigot-Croze.

In the ARDfeCHE

From a photograph by Artige freres.

Crater of L\ Gravenne

From a photograph by Bigot-Croze.

Falls of Ruy Pic

From a photograph by Artige freres.

Gorges of the Ardeche

From a photograph by Artige freres.

Pont de L'Arc

From a photograph by Artige freres.

"The Cathedral"

From a photograph by Artige frferes.

Paiolive

From a photograph by Artige freres.

Castle of Ganges

From a photograph by J. Bernard.

. To face

pag' 43

»»

• »>

• i»

»»

»>

• n

f»

114

>»

120

»l

122

f»

125

128

»I

130

132

• J»

137

144

147

• >l

1S3

•»

221

ILLUSTRATIONS

Bramabiau . .

From a photograph by C. Bemheim.

Cheesemakers, Roquefort

From a photograph by E. Carrere.

S. GUILHEM-LE-D^SERT

From a photograph by L. Froment.

In the Cirque, MouRi:zE

From a photograph by L. Froment.

Group at Mour4:ze

From a photograph by L. Froment.

The Sentinel at MouRfezE

From a photograph by L. Froment.

On the H^rault

From a photograph by L. Froment.

S. Guilhem-le-Desert

From a photograph by L. Froment.

Mills on the Herault

From a photograph by L. Froment.

To face page 253

27s
282
284
287
288
296
297
298

IN THE TEXT
Sketch Map of the Cevennes

FAGS

PREFACE

THE Cevennes are a mountain fringe to the up-
lifted plateau of Central France, and are less
visited by English tourists than any other mountainous
district in la belle France. They have been most un-
justly neglected. The scenery is singularly varied. The
historical associations are rich, but mainly tragic.

This is not a guide-book, but an introduction to the
country, to be supplemented by guide-books. The area
is so extensive, that I have had to exercise restraint and
limit myself to a few of the most salient features and
most profitable centres whence excursions may be made.
The Cevennes should be visited from March to June,
afterwards the heat is too great for travelling to be com-
fortable. For inns, consult the annual volume of the
French Touring Club ; Baedeker and Joanne cannot
always be relied on, as proprietors change, either for
the better or for the worse. I have been landed in
unsatisfactory quarters by relying on one or other of
these guide-books, owing to the above-mentioned
reason.

The " Touring-Club de France," Avenue de la Grande
Armee 65, Paris, is doing excellent work in refusing
to recommend a hotel unless the sanitary arrangements
be up-to-date.

THE CEVENNES

CHAPTER I
THE CRESCENT

The great central plateau — The true Cevennes — The character of the
range— The watershed — The Garrigues — The Boutieres — M^zenc —
— The Coiron — The mountains of the Vivarais — The Ardeche —
< Volcanoes — The Camisard country — Larzac— The Herault — The
Espinouse — The Montagne Noire — Neglect of the Cevennes — Their
great interest.

THE great central plateau of France that serves as
the watershed between the Atlantic and the
Mediterranean, and severs France proper — the old
medieval France — from Languedoc, is due to a mighty
upheaval of granite, carrying with it aloft on its back
beds of schist, Jura limestone, chalk, coal, and red
sandstone. The granite has not everywhere reached
the surface, it has not in all parts shaken off the burden
that lay on it. The superincumbent beds do not lie in
position one above another, like ranges of books on
shelves. Many of them over a large tract have been
carried away by denudation through the action of water.
The plateau under consideration stretches over an
area of 3,ocx) square miles. It dies down towards the

2 THE CEVENNES

north-west, but reaches its highest elevation in the east
and in the south. This great upland district had to be
crossed before the peoples dwelling north and south of
it could be fused into one. The plateau extends
through the old provinces of Marche and Limousin,
Auvergne, Forez, the Velay, the Vivarais, Rouergue,
and the Gevaudan. But it was disturbed, broken up,
and overlaid by volcanic eruptions at a comparatively
recent date, pouring forth floods of lava and clouds of
ash in Auvergne, le Velay, and le Vivarais. In its up-
heaval, moreover, the granite turned up, snapped, and
exposed the superposed beds, and left them as bristling
ridges to the east and south. It is this fringe that con-
stitutes the Cevennes. These describe a half-moon,
with its convexity towards the basin of the Rhone.
Locally, indeed, the name Cevennes is limited to a
tangle of schist ridges and deep-cleft ravines, con-
stituting that portion of the arc which is between the
Coiron and the limestone plateau of Larzac. But such
is not the original limitation. The Romans un-
doubtedly, looking from the basin of the Rhone on
the long purple chain, behind which set the sun in a
glow of amber, as they passed up and down between
Aries and Vienne — designated that range Cebennae,
and geographers still are disposed to so name the
entire series, as constituting an orological entity,
although the several portions have received dis-
tinguishing appellations.

They all belong to the same system, were all in their
main lines thrown up at the same time, though not by
any means all of the same geological formation ; and
they are all peopled by the same race, all speaking the
Langue d'Oc.

The Cycloi'ses, Moureze

Page 3

CONTRASTS 3

It seems therefore reasonable to take the entire
curve as forming the Cevennes from the depression of
the J arret, through which runs the line from Lyons
to the coalfields of S. Etienne, as the northern limit,
and the Montagne Noire, east of the gap of Revel, by
which the road by which Castelnaudary and Castres are
linked, as the western termination.

" The Cevennes," says Onesime Reclus, " have this striking
feature, that they separate two climates, two vegetations, two
natures. To the north and to the west are rain, snow, light
fog silvered by the moon, and dense vapours which the sun
cannot pierce ; and the streams that water the smallest valleys
nourish rich green meadows ; to the south and east is a blazing
sun, are glare, heat, drought, barrenness, dust, the vine, the
olive, springs of water few and far between, but where they do
issue, copious and clear ; here — contrasts of colour, sharp-cut
horizons, more beautiful than those of the north. What a
contrast within a few leagues' distance between the verdure of
Mezamet and the vari-coloured marbles of Cannes, between
the Agout and the Salvetat d' Angles . . . between the valley
of the Dourbie at Nant and the Herault at Ganges, between
the Tarn at Pont-de-Montvert and the embattled gorges of
the Gardens, between the Allier at La Bastide and the ravines
down which rushes the C^ze, between the young Loire and
the terrible rapids of the Ardeche ... on one side a French
Siberia, on the other an Africa where the sirocco does not
parch up the harvests, but where the mistral shrieks, itself
producing a brief winter."^

The chain of the Cevennes, of which M^zenc may be
regarded as the hinge, forms a ridge on the right bank
of the Rhone, running for a while parallel to the French
Alps upon the left bank. But whereas these latter

^ France : Algerie et Colonies, Paris, Hachette et C'^.

4 THE CEVENNES

turn and curve to the east, forming the Maritime Alps,
the Cevennes have bent in exactly the opposite direction.

Geographically and historically the Cevennes divide
into two great sections — the Cevennes Meridionales and
the Cevennes Septentrionales. This continuous moun-
tain ridge, in fact, forms a line of separation of waters
very distinct, without solution of continuity, and which,
in spite of the variety of its geological structure, has
been determined by the same fold in the earth's crust,
by one and the same act of pressure.

From the main chain, like the rib of a fern, extend
lateral offshoots, between which are valleys watered by
the drainage of the principal spinal chain. On the east
side of the Cevennes these are all approximately at
right angles to the axis. But this is not the case on
the west side; nor is it so on the south. On this latter,
before the main range a sort of outwork has been
thrown up that deflects the streams, where they have
not cut through it. These bastions are the Garrigues
and the Espinouse.

The eastern face of the Cevennes towards the Rhone
is torn and steep. That towards the west exhibits a
different aspect altogether, as there the range starts out
of a high uplifted plain but little eroded.

The Garrigues above mentioned form a barren,
waterless bastion, with little growing on them but
the dwarf Kirmes oak {Quercus cocci/era) evergreen,
with spiky leaves, locally called garrus, giving the
name to the range. They are full of pot-holes (avens),
down which the rain that falls sinks to travel under-
ground and reappear often at great distances in
copious springs.

The northernmost portion of the Cevennes is the

Ptrpijnai

5k€tch Map of
THE CEVENNE5

wwumiMiiit,,

pyRenees

m«\\"»"<'"^

VOLCANIC VENTS 7

chain of the Boutieres, composed of granite and gneiss,
and they are the least interesting portion of the series.
Few of the summits surpass 3,6cx) feet, but they throw
out a spur that is a supreme effort, the Mont Pilat,
4,700 feet ; precisely as the Pyrenees, before expiring in
the east, have projected to the north-east, and tossed
aloft the noble pyramid of the Canigou. The Boutieres
attach themselves at their southern extremity to
M^zenc, the loftiest peak of the Cevennes, 5,750 feet.
So also does the chain of the Megal, separated from the
Boutieres by the valley of the Lignon. Seen from Le
Puy, this ridge is fine, broken into peaks. The Megal
itself attains to the height of 4,345 feet. This cone
formerly belched forth a torrent of lava reaching to a
thickness of 450 feet, and extending to a distance of
fifty miles by eight miles wide.

From the volcanic nucleus of Mezenc branches south-
east the chain of the Coiron, volcanic as well, stretch-
ing to the Rhone, where its last deposits of lava are
crowned by the ruins of Rochemaure. The geologist
Cordier, who had travelled in Auvergne, Italy, Syria,
and Egypt, declared that he had never seen a volcanic
region comparable to the Coiron, This chain is of
special interest to the geologist, and is full of surprises
to the ordinary traveller, for the lava bed caps the
mountains, composed of friable limestone, that once
formed a great calcareous plain. The Rhone has
lowered its bed a thousand feet since the liquid stone
flowed, and torrents have cut through lava and lime-
stone, fashioning deep and even broad valleys. Next,
the weather ate into the flanks where the stone was
soft, undermined the basalt, that came down for lack of
support in huge masses.

8 THE CEVENNES

Not only so, but man from the remotest period has
burrowed into the rock to form habitations for himself
Near S. Jean-le-Centenier are the Balmes de Montbrul,
a volcanic crater 300 feet in diameter and 480 feet
deep. Men have scooped out rudimentary dwelling
places in the sides in fifteen to twenty stages, one above
another ; a chapel and a prison were among these ex-
cavations. A troglodyte family lived in one of these
caves at the end of the eighteenth century.

The mountains of the Vivarais are the finest portion
of the Cevennes, so noble are their outlines, so deep are
the clefts that seam them, so tumbled is the aspect
of range heaped on range ; and they are supremely in-
teresting on account of the volcanic vents that remain
in good preservation, and the wondrous walls of pris-
matic basalt that line the rivers.

The Ardeche is certainly the most extraordinary river
in Europe ; after leaping, and burrowing, and sawing its
way through basalt, it passes down a cleft o( lias dis-
posed in beds completely horizontal, and rising like the
walls of houses. In fact, it traverses a long white
street, many miles in length, and then enters the great
ravine between lofty precipices of Dolomitic limestone,
where runs no road, and where one must descend in a
boat, shooting rapid after rapid in the midst of scenery
only rivalled by the noted gorges of the Tarn.

It is not necessary to do more than indicate the
general aspect of this portion of the Cevennes, to give
an outline that may be filled in with details later on.

But before quitting this department, I must quote
some words of Mr. Hammerton, no mean judge of
landscape : —

"The department of Ardeche on the right bank of the

CAMISARD LAND 9

Rhone is but little visited by tourists, and does not contain a
single mountain whose name is known in England. It is
natural that the hills of the Ardeche should be little known,
as the fame of them is extinguished by the Alps ; yet they are
highly picturesque and full of geological interest. As to
the altitudes, they are not considered high mountains in
France, but there are twelve of them that exceed Ben Nevis."

The volcanic region of M6zenc and the Coiron to the
east of the granitic plateau separates the southern
from the northern Cevennes. The first volcanic cones
are met with immediately north of Mont Tanargue
(4,785 feet). The southernmost is the Coupe de Jaujac.
There are six of these volcanoes lying at the foot of
the granite plateau, but they are insignificant in com-
parison with those of the principal range, which forms
the watershed between the Loire and the Rhone, in the
centre of which range is the three-toothed M^zenc,
surrounded by subsidiary cones, among which is the
Gerbier de Jonc (5,090 feet), which was 5,610 feet
high before a landslip occurred in 1821, that reduced
its height. On the flank of this mountain rises the
Loire.

The department of Gard takes it name from several
Gardons, a name as common in this part of the
Cevennes as Gave is in the Pyrenees.

We are now in the midst of the Camisard country,
an inextricable network of mountains of lacerated
schist and of deeply furrowed valleys, in which the
revolted Cevenols held at bay the armies of Louis XIV.
At the present day the department of Gard contains
more Protestants than any other in France, and whole
villages are entirely Calvinist, with scarce a Catholic in
them.

lo THE CEVENNES

The Cevennes are drifting westward. In Herault
they take a definitely western direction. Here comes
in the limestone plateau of Larzac, that feeds the
countless flocks from which are derived Roquefort
cheese. This is a barren land. It was not always so,
but man has devastated it with the axe, and the sheep
devour every plant that shoots, and kill the future of
Larzac. Little soil now remains on this elevated white
tableland ; what there is is swept away by the rains
and carried underground in the avens or pot-holes.
M. Martel says: —

"Nowadays that atmospheric condensation is weak, the
rains so soon as they touch the calcareous rock are engulfed in
its thousands of fissures, at once, as if evaporated by contact
with red-hot iron. The porosity of the soil is guilty of this
legerdemain. Save on the morrow of great storms, drunk up
thirstily by the parched causse in a few hours, there is not
a drop of water on the plateau. In the stony bed of the
torrents one may make almost a complete circuit of such a
peninsula as that circumscribed by the Vis on the east, and
the Virenque on the north, west, and south, where run their
trenches, cut to the depth of 600 to 900 feet, forming
tortuous chaplets of rubble beds, grey and sunburnt. Torrent
beds these, sufficiently large to accommodate the Dordogne
with ease, but now only rivers of ballast, where the flood of a
passing storm rarely troubles the sleep of the sand and
the solitary pebbles."

The river Herault, that gives its name to the de-
partment, flows through a ravine, up which runs no
road, save to S. Guilhem-le-Desert. Another river not
easy to be explored is its tributary, the Vis. One
can look down into the canon from above, but not
thread it.

THE ESPINOUSE ii

We come next to the coalfields that are more or less
energetically exploited. Some talk has been about
running a special line from them to Marseilles, so as to
furnish the vessels with home-produced steam-coal.
But the fuel here turned out has not the heating power
of the anthracite of Cardiff, and it has proved cheaper
to obtain a supply by water from Wales than to employ
that which is dug out of the flanks of the Cevennos
150 miles distant.

The Espinouse gives birth on one slope to affluents
of the Tarn, that discharges its waters into the
Garonne and finally into the Atlantic. On the
southern face, which is not a slope but a precipice,
through chasms it sends feeders to the Orb that throws
its waters into the Mediterranean. The Espinouse is
composed of gneiss and schist, penetrated by veins of
eruptive matter. Although the actual heights are
not great, rarely exceeding 3,300 feet, yet the sheer
cliffs, and the manner in which they have been cleft by
torrents, gives them a grandeur which makes this por-
tion of the Cevennes well deserving of a visit.

The Monts de Lacaune, almost wholly sterile, link
the Cevennes of Herault to those of Aveyron. The
highest crest is the Pic de Montalet, 3,810 feet. They
are composed of mica-schists, granite, and porphyry,
and stretch in barren plateaux, or monotonous rolling
ground, frozen for a great part of the year. The
Montagne Noire, on the other hand, is well wooded.
From its wretched hamlets come the men who help to
gather in the vintage in the more fertile plains.

"These mountaineers arrive," says Mme. L. Figuier,
"to earn in one month enough to support them and their
families all the rest of the year in their contracted valleys,

12 THE CEVENNES

rich in vegetation but very poor in products. The Languedoc
peasants treat them harshly. The unfortunate mountaineers,
who ought to inspire compassion, are often enough badly
treated, and serve as butts for chaff to the grape gatherers of
the country to which they have come as assistants. The farmer
who has hired a band of these montagnards gives them a granary
and some hay in and on which to rest after the fatigues of
the day. Here they are huddled together, men, women, and
children, living on the grapes and on a coarse soup which
they cook in common in the evening, and eat together out of
one porringer. But these veritable pariahs are linked together
by strong ties of affection. They rise, walk, work, eat, sleep
together always in herds. In the evening, on returning from
the vineyards, they dance their national bourses, not so much
for enjoyment, as to bring back to their minds their native
country, and sometimes great tears may be seen rolling down
the cheeks of the young girls, who think of the happy times
when they danced so merrily on the earthen floors of their
cottages. The most fertile plains, the most brilliant cities,
cannot compensate, to these poor people, for the century-
old nut trees and the chestnuts which nourish them in their
miserable hovels. Their hearts crave for the freshness of
their valleys, the fragrance of their meadows, their snowy
mountains, and the distaff over the fire of the winter's
evenings."^

I have not in this book included the Montagne Noire.
I have not described the range beyond the Espinouse
westward, nor the mountains about Annonais and Mont
Pilat, as these portions of the Cevennes are less interest-
ing than that which intervenes, and, also, lest I should
unduly extend the book.

It is strange that the region of the Cevennes should

^ FiGUlBR (L). Nos <U Lavene, Paris, Marpon.

THE DESERTS 13

have been neglected by tourists to such an extent as it
has ; but it is explicable.

Those who seek sunshine during the winter in the
Riviera leave the Cevennes far away as a bank of cloud
silver-fringed on their right hand beyond the Rhone.
On their way back to England in spring they are dis-
inclined to loiter, and break their home journey for the
sake of excursions into this region, so little explored.
In like manner, those who go to Pau are carried by the
railway far away to the west, and see nothing of the
plateau, because it slants downwards from the lofty
ridge to the east.

Those who travel from Toulouse to Montpellier by
the railway have their eyes attracted south to the snows
and glaciers of the Pyrenees, and do not turn their
heads to look north at the range that is so unassertive,
sheltering itself behind the desolate Garrigues.

In 1894 I published a book. The Deserts of Central
France, in which I described the great tableland high
uplifted that lies in the penumbra of the great crescent,
and I shall say nothing in this of the plateaux of Lot,
Tarn, and Lozere, dealt with in the former work, but con-
fine myself to the marginal range. Since M. Martel first
drew attention to the gorges of the Tarn, and possibly
due in a measure to my work, these gorges are becoming
annually frequented more and more by tourists. How-
ever fine they may be, there are others in the depart-
ments of Ardeche, Gard, and H6rault, that fall but little,
if at all, short of them in savagery and strangeness.

There are no great towns in the Cevennes. Such as
there are are sleepy and stationary ; but from Beziers,
Montpellier, Nimes, Le Puy, where every comfort may
be found, it is easy to run into the mountains, and

14 THE CEVENNES

return from them to recruit. Hotels are vastly im-
proved of late years owing to the insistence of the
Touring Club on the sanitary arrangements being at
least decent, which they were not ten years ago.

Enough has been said to show that the Cevennes
abound in scenes of great beauty, and that they are of
special interest to geologists. They are interesting in
another way. The limestone hills are overgrown with
aromatic herbs, mint, marjoram, thyme, sage, lavender,
rosemary, so as to be veritable spice mountains over
which the warm air wafts fragrance. The shrubs and
trees present to our eyes, familiar with northern vegeta-
tion, an unfamiliar appearance. They are for the most
part evergreens, where the chestnuts do not spread in
forests, or the mulberry is not cultivated for silkworm
culture.

For the geology of the volcanic district of Haute
Loire and Ardeche, an excellent guide is Mr. Paulett
Scrope's Geology and Extinct Volcanoes in Central
France, London, second edition, 1858.

Lovers of the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson
know his Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes — a
delightful book, but dealing very little with the Cevennes
proper, mainly with the Upper G6vaudan, and with that
portion of Lozere threaded by the Tarn, and with
neither of these do I deal in this volume.

CHAPTER II
LE VELAY

Haute Loire — Geological structure of the plateau — Trap dykes — Volcanoes
— Crater of Bar — The Lac de Bouchet — Legends — Offerings made to
lakes — Mezenc — Direction of the rivers — Peculiarities in their course —
How the basalt was broken through — The River Loire —The Borne —
The Ceysac — Process of valley formation — The climate — Lacemaking
— La Beate — The peasantry — Costume — History of Le Velay — The
Polignacs — The Mint — The Revolution.

THE department of Haute Loire is made up mainly,
but not wholly, of the ancient province of Le
Velay. It is situated at the limit of the Langue d'Oc,
on the confines of the region of the Langue d'Oil. Le
Velay forms a rude triangle of which the bounds are
the mountains of the Vivarais on the east, those of the
Velay on the west, and the broad basis of the triangle
is to the north towards Auvergne and Forez, fringed
there by lower heights. It consists of an uplifted
plateau with an average elevation above the sea of
2,700 feet, and is the least rainy portion of France.
The summers there are never oppressively hot ; but, on
the other hand, in winter it is a Southern Siberia. Origin-
ally composed of granite, it has been pierced by volcanic
cones, and covered with igneous dejections. As many
as a hundred craters have been counted in it, and
through the rents in the granite and schist opened
during the throes of eruption, dykes of trap have been

i6 THE CEVENNES

thrust, forming spires and truncated columns. The heat
of the molten matter so altered and disintegrated the
rocks through which it was driven, that in many places
these rocks have crumbled away, and have left the
dykes erect in black nakedness high above the surround-
ing level. Such is the Aiguilhe by Le Puy, 210 feet
high, to reach the summit of which a flight of steps has
been hewn in the side, and on the top, in 962, Truan,
Dean of Le Puy, erected a church in honour of
S. Michael, and called it Seguret, The Secure Refuge ;
the church was consecrated in 980. Another of
these obelisks is at Fay le Froid, another basaltic
monolith is La Roche Rouge on the banks of the
Gagne.

But sometimes the eruptive dykes are more massive,
and form stone tables with precipitous sides, as at
Polignac, the cradle of an illustrious family, and at
Arlempdes on the Loire.

There are few crags of basalt or tufa in the Velay
that are not crowned by a ruined castle, and to enu-
merate these would be a tedious and unprofitable task.

The last of all the volcanoes to explode was the
Denise, near Le Puy, and that erupted when man was
on the earth, for under the lava, in a bed of breccia or
volcanic ash, was found in 1884 the skeleton of a man ;
another was discovered shortly after, and a third is
reported to have been recently disinterred. In the case
of the first of these, the man seems to have been over-
taken by the shower of falling ash, to have sat down,
placed his head between his knees, and held his hands
over his skull to protect it, and so perished, and the
rain of cinders finally enveloped and buried him. No
weapons or ornaments have been found with these

LAC DE BOUCHET 17

bodies. The relics of plants and animals in the same
bed belong to species still existing in the neighbour-
hood.

Of the craters the most perfect is that of Bar, thus
described by Georges Sand : —

"This ancient volcano rises isolated above a vast plateau
that is as bare as it is sad. It stands there as if planted as a
boundary mark between the old Velay and Auvergne. From
the summit of its truncated cone a superb view is obtained
extending to the Cevennes. A vast forest of beech crowns
the mountain and clothes its sides, which are much rifted
towards the base. The crater is a mighty bowl full of verdure,
perfectly circular, and with the bottom covered with a turfy
sward in which grow pale birch trees thinly scattered. Here
was at one time a lake, dried up in the times of Roman
occupation. The tradition of the country is strange. It
was said that this tarn bred storms; and the inhabitants of
Forez accordingly came hither, sword in hand, and forcibly
drained it."^

The Lac de Bouchet is not a sheet of water filling an
ancient crater, but occupies a hollow produced by the
bursting of a great bubble of air in the molten lava.
It is almost circular, and the ground around it is very
slightly raised. Curiously enough, Roman substructures
have been traced in the lake. Probably some Gallo-
Roman noble had his summer villa there, overhanging
the water, as at Baiae.

" Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis prselucet amoenis,
Si dixit dives — lacus et mare sentit amorem
Festinantis heri."

This originated a tale told by the peasantry to the

^ Jean de la Roche, Paris, Calmann-Levy.

i8 THE CEVENNES

effect that a city lay submerged under the crystal water.
The story is this: Our Lord visited Le Velay to see what
way the Gospel was making there. He lodged with an
aged widow, who nourished herself on the milk of a single
goat. The people received Christ badly, and pelted
Him with stones. Then He laid hold of the widow by
the hand and drew her away ; and she, leading the
goat, followed. They had not proceeded far before she
turned and looked back. And lo ! where the town had
been was now a lake. Three stones mark the spot
where the widow took up her final residence, and on
one of these she is said to have sat to milk her goat.
The same story is told of another of these lakes, that
of Arconne, near Fay le Froid, and there also are found
three blocks ranged in a line.

That these lakes were held sacred admits of no
dispute.

Gregory of Tours, in the sixth century, says that in
the land of the Gabali (the adjoining Gevaudan) was a
Mount Helanus, where was a lake. Every year the
inhabitants of the country flocked thither and cast
oblations into the water — linen, weaving-materials,
cheese, wax, bread, and coins. They arrived in
wagons, bringing their food with them, and feasted by
the lakeside during three days. On the last day a
storm of thunder, lightning, and hail was wont to
break over the sheet of water. This usage lasted till a
bishop of Clermont went thither, and preached to the
people ; but as he found it impossible to dissuade the
natives from the practice, he built there a chapel to
S. Hilary, and exhorted them to leave their gifts there in-
stead of throwing them into the tarn. This lake is now
called Lac S. Andeol, on the mountains of Aubrac, and

MEZENC 19

the ruined chapel of S. Hilary remains. The people still
reverence the pool, which they call the Father of Hail
Storms, and till last century continued to cast offerings
into the water. The visible result of the efforts of the
good bishop so many centuries ago was no more than
the construction of a chapel now in ruins.

It is probable enough that were the Lac de Bouchet
drained, it would yield a rich spoil of coins. The lake
is 2,800 feet across and 98 feet deep. In the morass
occupying the bowl of Bar have been found a great
many early coins, a necklace, and bracelets of bronze.

The loftiest of the Cevennes is Mezenc, on the
frontier of Haute Loire. It is 5,750 feet high, and was
at one time the central point of violent Plutonic erup-
tions. Several craters poured forth trachyte, phonolith,
and basalt, which overflowed the granite, gneiss, clay
deposits, and limestone to a great distance.

One of the craters, La Croix-des-Boutieres, remains
very distinct.

" The phonolith of which Mezenc is composed," says Elisee
Reclus, "appears to have issued from the crater in a state of high
fluidity, and to have spread very rapidly over the slopes of the
crystalline plateau. The result is that the volcanic cones have,
relatively to the anterior formations that support them, but a
feeble elevation. The lavas which issued from the crater of
Mezenc, of very unequal texture, have been attacked by
storms, so as to represent a range of distinct cones on which
grow forests of oak and pine."

If the map be studied, it will be seen that there are
two features in the water system of this region that
merit notice.

In the first place, we have the Allier on the west, and

20 THE CEVENNES

the Loire in the midst of this tableland flowing due
north to shed their waters ultimately into the Atlantic.
Parallel with them, divided from the Loire only by the
chain just described, distant from it from forty to fifty
miles, is the Rhone, running in a precisely opposite
direction, due south, to discharge into the Mediter-
ranean.

Then, again, going west, we have the Lot, the Tarn,
the Jonte, the Truy6re, and the Dordogne, all in their
early youth streaming from east to west, their sources,
or those of some of them, twenty miles from the Allier,
which is racing as hard as it can run to the north.
The explanation of this last feature is easy. When the
granite was upheaved it lifted a crust of Dolomite on its
back like a huge shell, and in lifting split the shell in
many places.

The rivers, rising in the granite of the Margeride, the
Mont d'Aubrac, the Aigoual, the Monts de Loz^re, and
slipping off their impervious sides looking for outlets,
found these fissures, took possession of them, and
rushed down them on their way to the plains in the
west.

The average depth of these chasms is from 1,300 to
1,500 feet, and their width at the bottom varies from 160
to 1,500 feet. Their rocky walls are carved by rain and
frost into the most fantastic forms. At one time I held,
with M. Martel, that these canons were originally sub-
terranean watercourses, and that the caverns formed
by the underground waters became open valleys by the
falling in of their roofs. But this idea is untenable, as
I now see. The rivers descending from the granitic
range must have found a passage, and they found it in
the already cleft masses of the Gausses. They rise out-

RIVER-COURSES 21

side the limestone area, and cut right through it, sepa-
rating one Causse from another.^

A second feature in the river system of Haute Loire
is that a certain number of the affluents of the Loire
run into it from the direction in which it is flowing,
and their mouths are more or less against the stream
they are about to feed. A river usually affects the form
of a deciduous tree, of which the branches represent
the tributaries. The branches are attached to the
trunk at an obtuse angle, as seen from below. With
pines it is different ; with them the limbs are attached in
the reverse fashion, at an acute angle as seen from
below. Some of the affluents of the Loire come into
it in the way in which a fir branch grows out of the
main trunk. This is notably the case with the Arzon
and the Borne. The reason for this is that the basin of
Le Velay has a rim to the north, and the drainage from
the north naturally runs down to the lowest point in
the basin. But on reaching this spot the streams come
on the Loire, which has cut for itself a huge gap
through the northern lip of the bowl, and is able to
discharge its waters through that.

How this was done demands some explanation. The
Rhone is the mightiest of the rivers of France, but its
sources are in the Swiss Alps, and it does not enter
France till after it has passed through the Lake of
Geneva. But the Loire is next in size and importance,
and it flows through French soil only. The source is
under the Gerbier de Jonc, in the department of
Ardeche, but flows in it for a short course only. It is
still a feeble stream when it enters the department of

* See '* The Canons of Southern France," by A. T. Jukes-Browne, in
Natural Science ^ vol. vi., 1 895.

22 THE CEVENNES

Haute Loire, through which it makes its way till it
leaves it for Forez. The Loire rises 4,500 feet above
the sea, and when it quits the department it has fallen
to 1,450 feet. When the volcanoes of Le Velay were
in eruption and the tableland was overflowed with
molten lava, the Loire must have been arrested and
have mounted to heaven in a column of steam. In
time the lava cooled, and the stream groped for beds of
scoria and fallen dust through which it could nibble its
way with ease. But when it encountered a barrier of
basalt the case was altered. This blocked its course as
with rows of iron piles rammed into the ground and
running far back. But the crystallisation of the lava
into basaltic prisms helped the river to break through.

The molten matter, of the consistency of treacle,
flowing over the country followed its undulations, filling
hollows here and rounding obstructions there. When
it cooled it began to crystallise, and form hexagonal
columns that are upright. But when the surface of the
original soil would not allow of regular crystallisation,
there the columns shaped themselves in all directions
and in great confusion ; the result being that in many
places the basalt was fractured, fissured, and ruinous
from the very first. The water speedily detected these
weak points, worked at them, tumbled the columns
down, overleaped them, bored further, and did not rest
till it had cut its way completely through the barrier.

Hercules in his cradle strangled a couple of serpents,
and the infant Loire, a ridiculously small stream for the
work it effected, on entering the department laid hold
of and split the bed of Plutonic deposit, and held on its
way between basaltic escarpments. It is, however,
below Le Puy, after the Sumene has entered it, under

Castle of La Voute-suk-Loire

Page 23

Cascade des Estrkys

P^ge 23

GORGES OF THE LOIRE 23

the mighty rocks of Peyredeyre that begin its finest
achievements. The eruptions that took place in this
part were later than those which had obstructed it in its
infancy. They entirely blocked the exit, and the Loire
was dammed back in the basin of Le Puy, where it
spread into an extensive lake. In time, however, it
succeeded in sawing a way through. The railway from
Le Puy to St. Etienne runs through the furrow that it
formed. The barrier had been thrown up from both
sides by the meeting and overlapping of lava floods
from the volcanoes of Velay in the west, and those of
the Vivarais in the east, and the beds were piled
one upon another. It is marvellous to see the passage
which the river forced for itself through these super-
incumbent beds, from Peyredeyre to La Voute. The
rock at this latter place sustains a restored castle belong-
ing to the Duke of Polignac.

Below this point the gorge ceases for a while, till
another barricade was reached below Vorey, where the
Arzon enters the Loire.

There the river struggles between the Miaune and
the Gerbizon, in the defiles of Chambon and Cham-
alieres. The beds of phonolith of these mountains,
which formerly corresponded unbrokenly, are now
separated by a gash 1,500 feet deep, which the waters
of the Loire have achieved, cutting through the lava
to the granite beneath.

The Borne, on which is Le Puy, also traverses gorges,
notably that of Estreys, and passes the well-preserved
castle of the Leaguer Baron de S. Vidal. Then it
sweeps under the pillared rocks of Espaly and slides
beneath I'Aiguilhe. Perhaps as interesting an example
as any of the way in which an insignificant stream has

24 THE CEVENNES

overmastered all difficulties may be seen in the Valley
of Ceyssac. The rill flows into the Borne at an acute
angle against the current. The valley was choked with
a mass of tufa ejected from La Denise, and the current
was arrested in its downward course. The stream then
formed a lake that rose till it overflowed the dam in
two places, leaving between them a prong of somewhat
harder rock. When the water had poured for a con-
siderable time over the left-hand lip, and it had worn this
down to the depth of about seventy feet, it all at once
abandoned this mode of outlet and concentrated its
efforts on the right-hand portion of the barrier, where it
found that the tufa was less compact, and it sawed this
down till it reached its present level, leaving the prong of
rock in the middle rising precipitously out of the valley
with the water flowing below it, but attached to the
mountain-side by the neck it had abandoned. The Polig-
nacs seized on the fang of tufa and built a castle on the
top, only to be reached by steps cut in the face of the
rock ; and the villagers covered the neck with their
houses. They then proceeded to scoop out a great
vault in the body of the living rock, blocked the entrance
with a wall in which is inserted a pretty Romanesque
doorway, and so provided themselves with a parish
church at very little expense. On a saddle overhead
they constructed a belfry for three bells.

In no part of Europe can be studied with greater
facility the process of valley formation, for here that
process is comparatively recent. That which has been
accomplished elsewhere in hundreds of thousands of
years, has here been achieved in thousands only. The
great elevation of the valley, and the fact that it lies
open to the north cause it to be a cold country. The

A LACEMAKER, LE PUY

LACEMAKING 25

high tableland is swept by the winds, of which the most
dreaded is that of the south, le vent blanc, bringing with
it tempest that devastates the harvest.

" In these quasi-Alpine regions," says M. Malegue, " snow,
scourged by the blasts, flies in clouds, heaps itself up in drifts,
encumbers the roads that have to be marked out with poles to
guide the traveller, buries the cottages of the poor moun-
taineers, holding them prisoners for months at a time in their
dwellings, and by its long stay, as by the intensity of the cold,
makes administrative and commercial relations often im-
possible and sometimes perilous."

To this fact is due the creation of the great industry
of the land — lacemaking.

In feudal times Le Velay was a small province
inaccessible for half the year, obliged accordingly to
depend on itself for its existence. Auvergne, Forez,
the Vivarais circumscribed it ; these were rich provinces.
Moreover, the Velaviens had to pay tax and tithe and
toll to the barons, the clergy, the king. Such burdens
might be borne elsewhere with a grumble, but here they
ate into the sinews of life, unless the culture of the soil
were supplemented from some other source. And it
was precisely this that created the industry of Le Velay
— lacemaking.

So soon as the first snows appeared, the men aban-
doned their farms and cottages, and went, some to Le
Puy, where they occupied an entire quarter, and gained
their livelihood as tapsters, farriers, weavers, carpenters,
pin-makers, etc., or else departed for Lyons, Nimes
Montpellier, and Toulouse, to work as masons. All the
women of the country pressed into Le Puy. There
they formed congregations under the name and patron-

26 THE CEVENNES

age of some saint. Each of these congregations had
its hall, and in this gathered the wives and daughters of
the absent men, and spent their days and evenings
in making pillow-lace, in singing, telling tales, and in
gossip. There they remained working at their little
squares with flying bobbins, till the spring sun brought
back fathers and husbands and brothers, when the
women put aside their bobbins and returned to their
several farms.

Lacemaking was a flourishing business till the year
1 547, when a sumptuary law was promulgated by the
Parliament of Toulouse and sanctioned by the King,
forbidding the wearing of lace by any save nobles, for
the odd reason that there was no means of obtaining
domestic servants in Le Velay, as every girl was a lace-
maker.

Great consternation was caused by this edict. That
same year a late frost smote the vines, corn was dear,
and a pestilence broke out. In the midst of this dis-
content, Huguenot preachers appeared in the land, and
they did their utmost to direct the disaffection of the
people against the Church. Happily, S. Francis Regis
arrived in Le Velay on a preaching mission, and
speedily saw that the limitations imposed on the pro-
duction of lace was the real grievance angering the
people and inducing them to hit out blindly at all
authority. He hurried to Toulouse and obtained the
withdrawal of the law. He did more : his brethren of
the Jesuit Order, incited by him, spread abroad the
passion for lace in the New World, became in fact
commts voyageurs for the industry, and thus opened out
fresh fields for the produce. It is due to this that the
memory of S. Francis Regis is still fragrant in the

La Be ate

LA BEATE 27

land, and that his figure so often adorns the pillows on
which the lace is made, and that his tomb at Lalouvesc,
where he died on December 31st, 1640, receives such
streams of pilgrims.

The paralysis of the industry had hit more than the
women of Le Velay. It had affected the colporteurs who
brought to the market of Le Puy the linen thread out
of which the lace was made. It is remarkable that at
a time when roads were execrable, and means of com-
munication faulty, the lacemakers were dependent on
Holland for the material with which they worked. The
linen of the district was too coarse to serve, and all that
was used by them was derived from the Low Countries.

Lacemaking continues to be the main industry of the
country. In fact. Haute Loire is the most important
centre in the world. In the report on the lace at the
Exhibition at Chicago, it is stated that the number of
women there engaged on this dainty and beautiful art
was 92,000, whereas in Belgium but 65,000 are thus
employed.

In the most remote hamlets, in the most solitary
cottages among the mountains, the societies of lace
workers still gather, in summer before their doors, in
winter in the cottage of la beate. The house of this
woman is surmounted by a little bell-cott. One such is
to be found in the smallest cluster of cottages. The
house consists uniformly, on the ground floor, of one
large room that serves as chapel, refuge, school, and
place of assembly. In the upper story lives la Beate.
This woman, whose official title is Dame de V Instruction,
fulfils many duties. In a land where the children are
occupied in the fields throughout the summer, they can
attend school only in winter, precisely when communica-

28 THE CEVENNES

tions are difficult and are often impossible. It is then
that they flock to the house of the B6ate, who gives
them the first elements of instruction. She also teaches
the young girls how to use the bobbins. During the
summer she has a creche, and attends to the infants
whilst their mothers are in the fields ; she nurses the
sick, lays out the dead, and exerts her influence, which
is second only to that of the cur6, to counsel those who
are in perplexity, to console the sorrowful, and to
reconcile those who have quarrelled. She is the peace-
maker in every little agglomeration of cottages. As a
return for her services she obtains her lodging gratis,
corn and wood sufficient for her needs. Every well-to-
do peasant also contributes fifty centimes per month
for her maintenance. In her house in the winter even-
ings the women gather to work together, and each
meeting is begun and concluded with prayer. How
valuable are the services of these women may be judged
by the fact that in Haute Loire there are 265 parishes,
but made up of 3,300 widely-scattered hamlets.

The peasant of the uplands of Le Velay and Le
Vivarais is of medium height, is strongly built, and of
a vigorous constitution. Accustomed from childhood
to follow his sheep and oxen in their leisurely move-
ments, he also becomes a being of slow habit of body
and even slower of mind. He is shy, timorous, and
cautious of compromising himself in any way with his
neighbours, above all with the officials.

A writer in 1829 says : —

" His broad-brimmed hat shades a face that when calm
seems to be incapable of expression. Chestnut hair flows over
his shoulders. His eye is calm and assured. In speech he is
curt, to the point ; but he is often figurative in his expressions.

Cevenol Peasantj

Page sg

THE PEASANT 29

He makes no distinction in his address to any one to whatever
rank he may belong, and however wealthy he may be. Com-
municative when on terms of familiarity with him, an ex-
pression of goodwill steals out on and overspreads his usually
rugged and harsh features, like the flowers that open on
the face of a rock. But should one inadvertently offend his
pride, at once wrath, prompt and fierce, flames forth, an oath
breaks from his lips, and in a moment the weapon, hidden
but never quitted, is drawn and raised, and often blood flows
to efface a quite trivial offence."

Descriptions of character of a people are never
satisfactory. I shall give in a subsequent chapter
the story of the Tavern of Peyrabeille, that shows
what the character of this people is in a way unmis-
takable.

Robert Louis Stevenson's account of the people of Le
Velay is peculiarly unpleasant. He speaks of their dis-
courtesy, and accentuates their brutality of manner
and speech. I venture, with all due deference, to differ
from him. The peasant in Languedoc is much towards
you as you are to him. If you meet him with
courtesy and kindliness it is cordially reciprocated, and
my experience is altogether the reverse of his. I do
not think that R. L. Stevenson treated the French
peasant quite as he expects to be treated. Here is one
instance : —

"At the bridge of Langogne a lassie of some seven or
eight addressed me in the sacramental phrase, ' D'oii 'st que
vous venez ? ' She did it with so high an air that she set me
laughing; and this cut her to the quick. She was evidently
one who reckoned on respect, and stood looking after me in
silent dudgeon as I crossed the bridge."

30 THE CEVENNES

But I will quote again, and this time from Georges
Sand : —

"I find here a race very marked in its characteristics,
ahogether in harmony with the soil that supports it ; meagre,
gloomy, rough, and angular in its forms and in its instincts.
At the tavern every one has his knife in his belt, and he drives
the point into the lower face of the table, between his legs;
after that they talk, they drink, they contradict one another,
they become excited, and they fight. The houses are of an
incredible dirtiness. The ceiling, made up of a number of
strips of wood, serves as a receptacle for all their food and for
all their rags. Alongside with their faults I cannot but
recognise some great qualities. They are honest and proud.
There is nothing servile in the manner in which they receive
you, with an air of frankness and genuine hospitality. In
their innermost soul they partake of the beauties and the
asperities of their climate and their soil. The women have
all an air of cordiality and daring. I hold them to be good
at heart, but violent in character. They do not lack beauty so
much as charm. Their heads capped with a little hat of black
felt, decked out with jet and feathers, give to them, when
young, a certain fascination, and in old age a look of dignified
austerity. But it is all too masculine, and the lack of clean-
liness makes their toilette disagreeable. It is an exhibition of
discoloured rags above legs long and stained with mud, that
makes one totally disregard their jewellery of gold and even
the rock crystals about their necks."

The elder women alone preserve a distinctive costume,
and that is confined to the head-dress. Its main feature
consists in a white frilled cap with a highly coloured
broad ribbon forming a bow in front ; the ends are
carried back over the ears, and a little peculiarly shaped
black felt hat, fit only for a child, is perched on the

HISTORY 31

front of the head. It is not becoming, therefore the
young women will have none of it. But in flying
the smoke they fall into the smother, for in place of
this they adopt the most tawdry modern hats, a con-
geries of feathers and cheap sham flowers.

The history of Le Velay is involved in that of the
bishops of Le Puy, who were counts under the
sovereignty of the King of France. They were either
under the domination of the Polignacs, or were fight-
ing with them over the rights to coin money. This
right had been conceded to the bishops in 924. But
the viscounts of Polignac also had their mint, and
neither could debase his coinage lest his rival should
obtain a predominant circulation for his currency. In
the twelfth century Pons de Polignac fought the bishop
on this question. Louis VII. had to intervene. He
carried off the viscount and his son Heracleus prisoners
to Paris, and the strife was only concluded four years
later, in 1173, by a compact, by virtue of which the
bishop and the viscount were to share equally the
profits of a mint held in common.

The Polignacs were a thorn in the side of the Bishop
and Chapter of Le Puy. Sometimes by menace with
the sword they determined the elections to the see,
and when it suited them they appointed one of the
family to the throne. At the close of the eleventh
century, one of these Polignac prelates, Stephen Taille-
fer, surnamed " The Ravager," brought down on his
head the anathema of Pope Gregory VII. He had
been Bishop of Clermont, but in 1073, when the see of
Le Puy was vacant, transferred himself to it as the
wealthier of the two. Another Stephen had been elected
by the Chapter, and there was fighting in the streets.

32 THE CEVENNES

Taillefer summoned his kinsman of Polignac to his aid,
and drove the rival candidate out of the city. But as
the canonicity of his election was disputed, he deemed
it advisable to visit Rome with a valise stuffed with
gold, and establish his claim by the most cogent of all
arguments. He persuaded the Pope to consent to his
retaining the see, but the case was so gross, and his
hands were so steeped in blood, that Gregory imposed
the condition that he should not exercise episcopal
functions, which were to be delegated to a suffragan,
and that he should revisit Rome with another load of
gold somewhat later. This was in 1074, but in 1076
the Pope excommunicated him because he had not ful-
filled his promise of again visiting Rome. Gregory was
in the midst of his strife with the Emperor Henry IV.,
whom he deposed in that year, and he was sorely in
need of money wherewith to support William of
Utrecht, whom he had set up in opposition.

It is remarkable how sensitive Rome was to simony
when practised anywhere else save in Rome itself.

At a council held at Clermont in 1077, Stephen was
deposed by order of Gregory. Nevertheless, he managed
to retain the see till 1078.

After a while open oppression of the Church by the
Polignacs came to an end ; cadets of the family quietly
appropriated to themselves the canonries and best
benefices ; and the last bishop of the name, William de
Chalen§on, has left a memory that was even savoury.

But if the Polignacs were meddlesome neighbours of
the see, they lent lustre to Le Velay. These masters
of the rock were brave nobles. They fought in the
Crusades; they fought the English. They espoused the
faith, the passions, the fervour of their native land. In

HISTORY 1,^

every generation illustrious marriages added to the
splendour of their escutcheon. As the feudal towers of
Polignac dominated, and dominate still, the green and
flowery land that lies spread below it, so does the name
of Polignac dominate the history of Velay. The race
was one that abounded in energy, was robust and
patriotic.

Velay was ravaged by the Free Companies, and
summoned Du Guesclin to its aid against them. Of its
troubles in the Wars of Religion I shall have to speak
in the next chapter. Le Puy was occupied by the
Leaguers, who made themselves masters of nearly
every stronghold in Velay, and it was not till some
years after Henry IV. had come to the throne that
it submitted to his authority.

The Revolution brought the same results in Velay
as elsewhere ; the cathedral of Le Puy was pillaged,
the monasteries destroyed, and a certain amount of
blood was shed ; sixty priests were hung or shot, and
many nobles guillotined. Since then it has enjoyed
tranquillity, only recently ruffled by the taking of the
Inventories, leading to the breaking open of the church
doors.

CHAPTER III

LE PUY

The basin of Le Puy — Situation of the city — Mont Anis and I'Aiguilhe —
How to reach Le Puy — The Velauni — Their capital — Transferred —
The feverstone — Temple of Adido — Monument of Scutarius — Baptistery
— The Black Virgin — The cathedral — Murder of a chorister by Jews —
Western entrance and fa9ade — Cloister — Vaulting of nave — Tower —
Lay canonry — Paintings — Walls — Old houses — S. Michel de I'Aiguilhe
— How did the builders work? — S. Laurent — Du Guesclin — The Bible of
Theodulf — Wealth of the see — Bad bishops — Bertrand de Chalen9on —
William de la Roue — Revolt of the people — Murder of the bailiff — The
White Hoods — Antoine de S. Nectaire — His sister — Massacre ordered
— The bishop at Fay-le-Froid — Espaly — Vidal Guyard — Capture of
castle — Defence of Le Puy — Church militant — The old gunner —
Christopher d'Allegre — The Huguenots retire — The Revolution.

yf\SSUREDLY no city in Europe occupies a site so
jt\. fantastic as does the capital of the Velay. The
high wind-and-snow-swept tableland to south and west
falls away and forms a pleasant basin covered with
vineyards and sprinkled over with white villas or
summer-houses of the citizens, as if there had been a
giant's wedding and much rice had been thrown.

The Borne, that has hitherto struggled through
ravines and tumbled in cascades, here ceases to be
boisterous, and puts on an air of placidity as it glides
past the cathedral city.

In this basin the climate is mild compared with that
of the uplands, and the soil is fertile. The train from

West Front of Cathedral, Le Puy

Page 34

THE CITY 35

Arvant curves round the town before it settles into the
station, much as a dog turns about before he lies down
to snooze.

What at once arrests the eye on approaching Le Puy
is that out of the very midst of the basin up start two
rocks ; the largest is Mont Anis, and about this, up its
steep sides, the town scrambles. On a ledge above all
the houses is the cathedral, and soaring above that
again is the rock of Corneille, crowned by a colossal
statue of the Virgin fifty-two feet high, and the largest
in the world. It is run out of two hundred Russian
cannons taken at Sebastopol, and stands on a pedestal
of twenty feet. It is a disfigurement to the town, for it
dwarfs the venerable cathedral. The site was formerly
occupied by a ruined tower.

The other rock is the Aiguilhe, the Needle, on the
summit of which stands the church of S. Michel,
reached by 265 steps cut in the face of the rock.

The town is composed of houses grappling to every
ledge; the streets are stone stairs, and \he place is staged
on steps. When to this is added that the cathedral is
unique in its way, a marvel of Romanesque architecture,
treated in original fashion, then it will be conceived
that Le Puy is an attractive place to visit.

But when we come to consider how it may be reached
we are beset with difficulties. The direct line from Paris
is undoubtedly that leading to Vichy, but the trains
from Vichy onward do not correspond, and are more-
over omnibus trains that loiter for six hours and a half
over seventy-four miles.

Nor can we reach Le Puy by the main line from
Paris to Nimes in a day, for at the junction, S. George's
d'Aubrac, the trains do not communicate, and there is

36 THE CEVENNES

no tolerable inn at this junction where one can spend
the night.

The third way is by Lyons and S. Etienne, and this
is by far the best, for by it the whole journey can be
effected in a day ; but for that one must travel by
express first-class as far as Lyons.

The people anciently occupying Le Velay were the
Velauni, and they had their capital at Rheusio, so called
from rhew, the Celtic for cold ; and that was at
S. Paulien. There also was the first seat of a bishop,
but S. Evodius (351-374), whose name has been
corrupted into Vosy, transferred his throne to Le Puy,
then called Anisium. It is supposed that a dolmen stood
on the platform now occupied by the cathedral, and
that a large slab of trachyte laid down in the porch, its
blue colour distinguishing it from the rest, was the cap-
stone. This slab is called the Feverstone, and those
with fire in their blood were wont to sleep a night upon
it. The earliest mention of a cure performed by this
means is in the time of S. Vosy. To the dolmen, if it
ever existed, succeeded a Gallo- Roman temple dedicated
to a local deity, Adido, conjointly with Augustus.

When Scutarius, the second bishop of Le Puy, was
buried, a monument was erected over him. To save the
trouble of shaping a stone for the purpose, the mason
of that day took a slab on which was an inscription,
" Adidoni et Augusto Sex. Tolonius musicus D. S. P.,"
turned this about and carved on the other side a mono-
gram of Christ, and under that " Scutari Papa vive Deo."
The form of the letters, the title of Pope applied to the
bishop, not yet restricted to the pontiff at Rome, and the
expression of hope so like those found in the Catacombs,
speak for the antiquity of this inscription. But it was

THE BLACK VIRGIN z^

not allowed to remain where placed ; when the present
cathedral was built, this stone was employed as lintel to
one of the north doorways.

The oldest building in Le Puy is the baptistery of
S. John, near to the cathedral. It was much altered in
the Middle Ages, but is still an interesting relic of the
fourth century. From it was removed the white marble
sarcophagus of the fifth century, now in the museum of
the town, on which are figured the cure of the paralytic,
the cursing of the barren fig tree, and other scriptural
themes.

This baptistery was in use till 1791, as the exclusive
place where children of Le Puy could be christened. In
this Le Puy resembled Florence, Pisa, and other North
Italian towns, where baptism was a sacrament reserved
for administration at the Mother Church.

The fame acquired by Le Puy as the chief seat of the
worship of the Virgin dates from an early but unknown
period. Charlemagne in 803 founded ten poor canonries
la pauperad in connection with the church ; but the
great prosperity of the church as an attractive point for
pilgrims is due to a black image said to have been
brought from the East by Louis IX. But as it happens,
the Eastern Church does not tolerate carved images, and
contents herself with paintings of sacred subjects. Le
Puy was, however, an objective of pilgrimage long
before that, for in 1062, Bernard, Count of Bigorre, went
thither, and in a fit of devotion vowed himself and his
county to Our Lady of Le Puy, and undertook to pay
to this church annually a considerable sum of money.

High above the altar is now set up what looks like an
Aunt Sally at a fair. It has a black head, from which
the garments are spread out like the feathers of a

38 THE CEVENNES

shuttlecock. But this is not the original doll, for that
was burned at the Revolution. One might have
supposed, perhaps expected, that the clergy on return-
ing to the church would have rejoiced to be rid of such
an object of degrading superstition. But not so, they
had another black virgin made by a joiner, and dressed
it in frills and furbelows, and set it up to receive the
adoration of the ignorant and the stupid. One thing
they did change ; the new doll was made a little less
grotesque and uncouth than was the first, of which
representations remain.

The original image was of cedar wood, swathed about
with bands of papyrus glued to it and partly inscribed.
Upon this the features of the face, of negro tint, the
flesh of hands and feet and the draperies were painted
in distemper, in an archaic style. One story relative to
it was that it came from Mount Carmel, and had been
carved by the prophet Jeremiah in prophetic ecstasy.
What seems most probable is that it was an Egyptian
idol representing I sis and the infant Horus. S. Louis
may have found this on his crusade to Egypt, and have
frankly believed that it was a representation of the
Virgin and Child, and so have presented it to the
church of Le Puy. It certainly had a suspiciously
Egyptian appearance.

Devotion to the original image brought kings and
nobles to it, and made them open their purses and pour
forth gold, and sign charters delivering over to bishop and
chapter vast estates and privileges. The church became
extremely wealthy, and it was owing to its wealth that
the glorious cathedral was built. The basilica is ap-
proached from the west by the Rue des Tables, so
named on account of the stalls set out there at the

THE CATHEDRAL 39

time of the great pilgrimages. At the foot of the
ascent is a fountain erected in commemoration of a
choirboy, supposed to have been murdered by the Jews
in 1320 and thrown into a well. He was given up as
lost, when on Palm Sunday he reappeared, took his
place in the procession, and told how he had been
slaughtered, and how, by the intervention of Our Lady,
he had been resuscitated. The mob believed the story,
burst into the Jew's house, tore him to pieces, and cast
his dismembered limbs to be devoured by dogs.

If they had but looked closer into the matter, they
would have discovered that the urchin had been playing
truant, and disguised his idleness by a lie.

From the Rue des Tables the remarkable west front
of the minster may be seen in full. It is Romanesque
in style, of the Auvergnat character, the facade is en-
riched with stones white and red and black, arranged
in alternating bands, in lozenges and in lattice work.
The zebra-like appearance is not pleasing. The eye
desires repose, and is teased with the intricacy of the
pattern.

This western fagade is actually the frontispiece of a
vast porch or narthex that stretches back through four
of the bays of the nave, with flights of steps, eleven in
each, and with landings between. Half-way up the
porch are two chapels, one on each side, with large oak
doors carved and painted. They represent groups of
figures from the story of the Gospel. The background
is sunk, but the surface left smooth, and is painted.
The chapel on the right is dedicated to S. Stephen,
that on the left to S. Giles. Neither is now used.

On two of the steps of the ascent is inscribed in
Latin, " Ni caveas crimen, caveas contingere limen,

40 THE CEVENNES

Nam Regina poli vult sine sorde coH." " Unless free
from guilt shun this threshold, for the Queen of Heaven
will be worshipped only by a guiltless soul."

Formerly at the head of the fourth landing was a
central doorway leading into the nave by another flight
of steps continued inside the church ; and it was said of
Notre Dame du Puy, that you went in at the navel and
came out at the ears, i.e. at the lateral doors in the
transepts. But the central entrance has been walled up,
and a floor been laid over these steps. Access is now
obtained to the nave by a side flight that turns round
the church and gives admission in the south transept.
The corresponding lateral flight gives access to the
magnificent cloister, partially closed by a gate of intri-
cate and beautiful ironwork. The arcade in the cloister
rests on twin columns with richly carved capitals, no
two alike, and the wall space above the arcade is filled
in with mosaic work of red, yellow, white, and black.

The interior of the church is not less remarkable
than the exterior. Originally it consisted of a small
square basilica, now forming the retro-choir ; this was
prolonged into nave with aisles, and transepts were
added forming a Greek cross, with a dome at the inter-
section. Later on the church was carried further west-
ward, and the singular western portion, a nave over
a porch, was raised in the twelfth century.

Each bay of the nave is surmounted by an octagonal
cupola. Two sides contain windows looking north and
south. Two sides have also windows sustained on an
arch flung across the nave, and looking into it. The
four other sides of the octagons are in the depth of the
wall. The lateral south porch, opening on to the little
Place du For, where is the episcopal palace, is a noble

Porch, Cathedral, Le Puy

Page 40

SCHOOL OF PAINTING 41

piece of work. Two bold arches give access to it. To
the left is a doorway only opened for a pope to pass
through ; the other gives admission to ordinary person-
ages into the transept.

The tower is a campanile detached from the church,
unbuttressed, and though fine, is too small for the size
of the minster. But this is due to the fact that every
inch of space on the rock was precious, and had to be
economised. Accordingly a tower of greater bulk at
base would have encroached on the way of access to the
basilica. There are two more doorways, one, further
on, a bold and daring sweep that spans not the entrance
only, but also the little street. A third is on the north
side.

Until this year, 1906, the head of the French State,
King, Emperor or President was ex officio lay canon
of Le Puy, just as our King is a lay canon of
S. David's. But with the separation of Church and State
in France, this has ceased, and M. Loubet was the last
of the lay canons of Le Puy.

At one time there existed a promising school of
painting in Le Velay, but it was killed by the troubles
of the Wars of Religion. The frescoes in the cathedral
and in some of the churches exhibit great merit. Such
as remain, unfortunately very few, may be best studied
in the Museum, where are accurate copies.

The finest of all represents the liberal arts, and was
discovered by Merim6e in the capitular hall of the
cathedral, in 1856. It is of the fifteenth century, and
is conjectured, but on insufficient grounds, to have been
the work of Jean Perreal, painter to Kings Charles IX.
and Francis I. In the Museum may be seen reproduc-
tions of some paintings from Langeac, in which the

42 THE CEVENNES

figures are in gold on a brown diapered background.
One series represents the Annunciation, the Nativity,
Christ among the Doctors, speaking from a pulpit, and
the Good Shepherd. The Incarnation is figured alle-
gorically by the Blessed Virgin alluring to her the
Lamb of God.

The city of Le Puy was formerly surrounded by walls
erected by the citizens against the Routiers, the Free
Companies, and those troublesome near neighbours the
Polignacs. But their house was divided against itself,
for bishop and chapter were continually at strife with
the citizens, and to protect themselves against the tur-
bulence of these latter, the ecclesiastics drew an inner
ring of walls about themselves on the height above the
town.

In the tortuous streets may be seen many specimens
of medieval domestic architecture, angle-turrets, door-
ways richly carved, and if one can look into the court-
yards, some dainty subjects for the pencil may be
obtained.

But after having seen the cathedral and the old town,
the feet are attracted to S. Michel I'Aiguilhe.

" The rock of S. Michel," says M. Paulett Scrope, " seems
to contain a dyke, which may probably have been erupted on
this spot. It is, however, of course evident that the conglom-
erate of which it is composed must have been originally en-
veloped and supported by surrounding beds of softer materials,
since worn away by aqueous erosion."

The plan of the church on the pinnacle of rock is
peculiar, resembling the attitude of a sleeping dog.
The chancel lies beside the main entrance, at a higher
level, and the nave is curved and has an aisle also on

L'AiGUii.HE, Le Puy

Page 43

S. MICHEL 43

a curve, divided from it by columns and arches, the
former with carved capitals of the end of the twelfth
century, but with one or two of an earlier date. The
entrance is a superb specimen of Byzantine-Romanesque
work. The carving in tufa is delicate, and every portion
of surface not sculptured is inlaid with mosaic. The
chancel is the oldest part of the church, and may
possibly belong to the original structure consecrated in
980 ; but all the rest is two centuries later, and the tower
is a copy in small of that of the cathedral.

How did the builders of those days construct churches
and donjons on the tops of these obelisks ? The Rabbis
say that an angel can pirouette on the point of a
needle, but the work done here is more wonderful than
that of balancing for a few minutes on an acute point,
for the masons had to fill in all the rifts of the rock so
as to form a terrace on which to build. They must
have been let down in cradles. As to the tower, it was
probably built up from within, as is done nowadays
with a factory chimney. On a lower level than the
doorway are the ruins of the habitation of the chaplain
who served the church. He could obtain plenty of
fresh air there to fill his lungs, but could not get exer-
cise to circulate his blood, save by running up and down
the stair in the face of the rock.

On the way up to the chapel may be noticed recesses
cut out of the cliff. These formerly contained statues
of saintly helpers in all kinds of difficult and unpleasant
situations. Among these was S. Wilgefortis, a young
lady with beard and moustache, much invoked by
women with vexatious husbands, who wanted to be rid
of them. A fine statue of her is in Henry VH.'s Chapel
at Westminster. The Huguenots destroyed all these

44 THE CEVENNES

figures in the niches. They were restored and again
broken up at the Revolution, but have not been rein-
stated.

In the same hamlet of I'Aiguilhe is a circular
Romanesque chapel, called the Temple of Diana, but
which is actually a structure of the twelfth century. It
is now undergoing repair.

The church of St. Laurent has been given a modern
gable with pinnacles to the west front out of keeping
with the character of the original architecture. The
western doorway was once rich, and had on it two
ranges of angels, twelve in each. The Huguenots
broke the figures in their hatred of everything beautiful,
and mutilated the delicate foliage as well.

The church has a broad nave with narrow side aisles.
It contains a carved stone organ gallery once rich with
statuary, but the niches are now empty. On the north
side in the aisle is the tomb of Du Guesclin, who did
more than any other, except the Maid of Orleans, to
drive the English out of France. Even this monument
did not escape the iconoclastic rage of the Calvinists ;
but it has been judiciously restored.

Guyenne, Poitou, Saintonge, Perigord, Brittany
had been in turn the theatre of his victories ; but the
war continued in Languedoc. Bands of the Free Com-
panies desolated the Gevaudan, Auvergne, and Le
Velay. The nobles and towns unassisted could not
expel them, and appealed to Charles V. to send them an
experienced captain who would aid them against these
brigands, and he despatched thither Du Guesclin. In
August, 1380, the Constable entered Le Puy, and in a
few days had assembled an army. He then departed
for the Gevaudan to lay siege to Chateauneuf Randon,

THE BIBLE OF THEODULF 45

the head-quarters of the English routiers. The Constable
besieged the place, attempted to take it by assault, but
failed ; and he vowed that he would not withdraw till
it was captured. The garrison defended themselves
valiantly, but at length agreed to capitulate. Du
Guesclin was suffering at the time from a mortal sick-
ness, and he lay on his deathbed when the terms of
capitulation were agreed upon.

He died on the 13th of July according to history, on
the 14th as stated on his monument ; and upon the
day fixed for the surrender the Governor laid the keys
on the coffin of the deceased Constable. Charles V.
ordered the body to be transported to S. Denys ; but
it was first taken to the Dominican church of Saint
Laurent, there to be embalmed. The intestines of the
great warrior that were removed alone occupy the tomb
there erected.

The recumbent statue well answers to the description
he gave of himself: "Les epaules larges, le col court,
la t^te monstreuse ; je suis fort laid, jamais je ne serai
bienvenu des dames, mais saurais me faire craindre des
ennemis de mon roi."

The cathedral library of Le Puy contains a copy of
the Bible written by Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans
(788-821), a friend of Alcuin of York. This MS. was
written by his own hand whilst in prison at Angers for
having been involved in the conspiracy of Bernard,
King of Italy, against Louis " le Debonaire," a son of
Charlemagne. On Palm Sunday the King was at
Angers and rode through the streets. As he passed
under the prison, Theodulf thrust his head out of the
window, and at the top of his voice chanted a poem he
had composed in honour of Louis. The prince drew

46 THE CEVENNES

rein and listened. Flattery, however fulsome, goes a
long way. He was pleased with it, though " laid on
with a trowel," and ordered the release of the Bishop.
It is said that, when in captivity, Theodulf had vowed
to give to the church of Le Puy the Bible he had
transcribed in his dungeon.

The MS. is written partly on white vellum and partly
on vellum stained purple. On the white sheets the
letters are in black, with the capitals in vermilion ; but
on the purple pages are in silver, and the capitals in
goldleaf. The cover was repaired in the reign of
Francis I., the velvet of the ninth century being over-
laid with velvet of the sixteenth. At the Revolution
this precious relic would have been flung into the
flames that consumed the Black Virgin had it not been
for the richness of the cover, with its ornaments of
silver-gilt and the precious stones with which it was
encrusted. The text is not divided into verses, and
there is no punctuation, for the use of punctuation did
not become general till the tenth century. The text is
that of the Vulgate as corrected by Alcuin. Several
of the passages in the Vulgate as now used differ from
those in the version employed by Theodulf; and the
Psalter is not that of the Vulgate. The preservation
of the writing is due to pieces of fine tissue having
been placed between the leaves, and of these fifty-three
remain, and are interesting specimens of the textures
of the time of Charles the Great. The Bible has poems
composed by Theodulf prefixed to and following the
sacred text.

Five of the early bishops of Le Puy are accounted
saints, though almost nothing is known about them.
They must have monopolised the stock of sanctity

BISHOPS OF LE PUY 47

allotted to that Church, for of their successors none
could lay claim to much holiness, and many were a dis-
grace to their order. But Le Puy was one of the richest
sees in France, as the bishop was count as well as
prelate. The volcanic soil was extraordinarily fertile,
and the Black Virgin acted as a magnet, attracting to
it an inexhaustible stream of gold ; and this made the
see to be coveted by ambitious and appropriated by
unscrupulous prelates. Add to this that the bishop
was under the jurisdiction of no archbishop, and was
responsible to the Pope alone, who was too far off and
too busy with affairs of greater importance to trouble
himself about the misdeeds of the prelate princes of
Le Puy.

It is open to debate which does most harm to
the Church, the occasional torrential rush through the
ranks of the episcopate of some wild blood, whose life
is conspicuously at variance with his profession, or a
continuous and unabating flood invading every see of
smug, smooth, and colourless nonentities, who dilute
the quality, abate the force, and lower the temperature
of the Church to insipidity, lukewarmness, and inertia.

Some instances will suffice to show what manner of
men they were who now and then were bishops of
Le Puy.

Adhelmar (1087-98), who died at Antioch as a
Crusader, was succeeded by Ponce de Tournon, who
was an assassin. Bertrand de Chalengon's hands were
also stained by blood ; he exasperated his flock to mad-
ness by his exactions, heavily fining widows who re-
married, and levying exorbitant fees on burials. When
Innocent III. proclaimed a holy war against the
Albigenses, and promised pardon for all sins to such

48 THE CEVENNES

as should outrage, rob, and murder these heretics,
Bertrand headed an army of Crusaders, composed of
the riff-raff of Velay, Auvergne, and the Gevaudan,
and marched south. The citizens of one town at his
approach, terrified at the prospect presented to them,
fired their city and fled to the dens and caves of the
earth. . They were premature. Bertrand was more
greedy of gold than of blood, and he made the towns
as he passed buy exemption from destruction, and
pocketed the money himself, to the rage and resent-
ment of his followers. But they had full scope for
their brutal instincts at B^ziers on June 22nd, 1209,
when, at the most moderate calculation, 20,000 persons,
men, women, and children, indiscriminately Catholics
and heretics, were butchered, and the papal legate look-
ing on, is reported to have said, smiling, " Kill all ; God
will know His own ! "

Bernard de Montaigu (1237-48), to enforce recogni-
tion of his seigneurial rights, subjected the city to an
interdict, and excommunicated the flock he was set to
feed.

William de la Roue (1263-82) had appointed
De Rochebaron as his bailiff. This man fell in love
with the beautiful wife of a butcher in the town, lured
her within the precincts of the ecclesiastical fortifica-
tions, and outraged her. The guild of the butchers
complained to the prelate, who scoffed at the deputa-
tion, and refused to reprimand his bailiff. The city
was in commotion. When a party of the prelate's
men-at-arms returned from an expedition, after harry-
ing the peasantry in the country, and were laden with
the spoils, the people rose. The tocsin sounded. The
butchers came down with their cleavers. There was

PESTILENCE 49

fighting in the streets. The troopers were despoiled
of their plunder, and were obliged to take refuge
within the walls of the bishop's fortress, William de la
Roue was furious. He sent down the obnoxious bailiff
with all the force he could muster to chastise the
citizens. But they were surrounded by the enraged
populace, and driven to take refuge in the Franciscan
convent. The butchers with their choppers hewed
down the door and slew the provost and six sergeants.
De Rochebaron fled up the tower. The butchers
pursued, caught him hiding among the bells, flung him
down, and his mangled body was hewn to pieces.

Eventually the bishop reduced the city to subjection.
He had its consuls hung in chains, and put to death
all the butchers on whom he could lay his hands. The
old town, built about a volcanic dyke, was ill provided
with water. The wells tapped no springs, and were
filled with surface-water only, and the soil was im-
pregnated with sewage soaking down from every street
and yard and lane through the joints in the rock. As
a natural result typhoid fever — or the Pestilence, as
the people called it — broke out, and became endemic.
Frantic at this, the citizens looked about for a cause,
and looked in the wrong direction. It did not occur
to them that they poisoned their own wells. They
assumed that the sickness was due to a league among
the lepers, jealous of the health and happiness of sound
men, and that they insidiously poured poison into the
pits. In 1 32 1, after a great outbreak of the plague,
the citizens complained to the bishop, Durand de
S. Pourcain. Perhaps he shared their conviction, perhaps
he sought only to gratify the people. He swept together
all the lepers in the county and burned them alive.

50 THE CEVENNES

Le Puy saw the formation of a remarkable con-
federacy that promised at first to achieve the liberation
of the country from the scourge of the routiers.

These bands of lawless men, under captains of their
own selection, overran the country, levying blackmail,
and pretending that they were in the service of the
English King ; or, if it suited them better, in that of the
King of France. They passed from one allegiance to
the other indifferently. Actually they served neither
one side nor the other, but themselves. The merchants
were robbed, the farmers despoiled, towns plundered.
Existence became intolerable. Castles were erected on
the top of rocks accessible only by a goat-path, or by
steps cut in the stone, and there nests were built by
the robbers for themselves. In these strongholds the
captains and their companies lived riotously with bold
women, sometimes nuns, whom they had carried off.
The routiers held churches in special aversion, and
plundered them without scruple. At their orgies they
drank out of chalices, and vested their harlots in the
silks and velvets of ecclesiastical wardrobes.

Such was the condition of affairs when, in 1 1 82, a
carpenter of Le Puy, named Pierre Durand, announced
that a paper had fluttered down to him from heaven
bearing on it a likeness of the Blessed Virgin, and that
he had been commanded to found a society to combat
and extinguish the routiers. At first the Bishop of
Le Puy looked coldly on the carpenter. But the man
obtained adherents. The need of combination to rid
the country of a general nuisance was so largely felt,
that Durand readily obtained a hearing and enrolled
followers. According to the Laon Chronicle, the car-
penter was a tool in the hands of one of the canons,

THE WHITE HOODS 51

who got a young man to dress up and pose as an
apparition of the Virgin and so influence Durand. Be
that as it may, the movement grew with rapidity.
Durand gave to his adherents a white hood, with a
medal to be worn on the breast, bearing a representa-
tion of N, D. du Puy, and the invocation, " Lamb of
God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant us
Thy peace." Bishop Peter IV., now that the movement
promised to be a success, thought well to assume a lead
in it. He had a platform erected, on which he took his
stand along with the carpenter ; he flourished the
heaven-sent daub, asserted its genuineness, and ex-
horted his hearers to assume the white hood. The
growth of the confraternity was now rapid. Clergy,
monks, merchants, farmers, artisans, nobles joined it.
Great armies of these Brethren of Peace marched
against the routiers, defeated them in pitched battles,
stormed their castles and burnt them. After a victory,
no quarter was accorded. For the nonce the free-
booters were quelled, and quailed before the people
risen in a body to lynch their tormenters. But the
victories they had won, the applause they had drawn on
themselves, made the White Hoods headstrong and
presumptuous. They knew well enough that the
routiers only existed because the princes and nobles
were at strife with one another ; and now they pressed
on the feudal lords, to insist on the abolition of private
war, and to threaten such as would not submit, with the
same treatment as that dealt out to the routiers. At
the same time they adopted communistic notions, and
refused submission to all authorities save those of their
own election. They swarmed over the country and
devoured the produce of the land. They had lost all

52 THE CEVENNES

appetite for peaceful avocations ; and they threatened
to become as great a peril as had been the freebooters.
The nobles leagued against them, the royal forces were
set in motion ; the White Hoods were defeated and
butchered without compunction, and the society founded
for a good purpose came to an end, and its disappear-
ance gave free scope for the great Companies to
reorganise and resume their depredations.

When the massacre of S. Bartholomew was deter-
mined on in 1572, sealed orders were sent to the Count-
Bishop of Le Puy as to all other governors to order a
butchery of the Huguenots. Antoine de S. Nectaire
was bishop at the time. He was the brother of the
famous Madelaine who had been married to Guy de
Miremont. Left a widow when young, beautiful, and
rich, she was surrounded by aspirants after her hand.
Madelaine had embraced the reform of Calvin. She
enrolled her sixty lovers in a corps to serve as body-
guard. A word, a look sufficed to send this enthusiastic
corps to smash crucifixes, burn villages, and storm
castles. She rode in armour at the head of her suitors,
and of an army that had gathered about her eager for
plunder. She advanced to the gates of Riom and
Clermont at its head, taking fortresses and burning
towns and villages on her way. The King's Lieutenant,
the Sieur de Montal, was routed by her in several en-
counters, and he, exasperated at his humiliation, resolved
on storming and destroying her castle of Miremont, to
which she had withdrawn. So soon as he appeared
before it, at the head of the royal troops, she issued
from the gates, her visor raised and mounted on a
noble steed, sword in hand, followed by her bodyguard,
engaged the lieutenant in single combat and smote

FAY-LE-FROID 53

him from his steed. Finally, after an ineffectual siege
that lasted forty days, Madelaine forced the royal host
to retire. "Ventre saint gris!" exclaimed Henry ot
Navarre, "if I were not king, I would desire to be
Madelaine de Saint Nectaire !" This by the way.

Her brother was Bishop of Le Puy, and by no means
inclined to accept Calvinism. When the order came to
him requiring a massacre of the Huguenots in Le Puy,
he called the consuls together, and read to them the
royal letter. " Messieurs," said he, " this concerns
only rebels and disloyal Calvinists, and there are none
such here. We read in the Gospel that the love of God
and of our neighbours form the sum of the Law and
the Prophets. Let us live together as a Christian
people in all good charity."

This was excellent. If we knew no more of him
than this, we would set him down as an enlightened
prelate and a man of high principle. But unhappily it
is not all.

Next year the Calvinists had entered the Province,
and had captured several places ; amongst others Fay-le-
Froid. The Bishop at once, with promptitude, marched
thither at the head of five hundred men. He rode a
richly caparisoned mule, clad in black armour, with a
gold cross on his breast, and his arms, five silver
spindles on a field azure, emblazoned on his mantle.
He was a magnificent man, ruddy-faced, with bright
blue eyes and a flowing white beard. He was of
Herculean strength, and as canon law forbade a Church-
man shedding blood, he bore a heavy club with which to
brain the enemies of the King and of the Church. In his
train were two cannons. As he arrived unexpectedly
before Fay-le-Froid, the town surrendered. He swept

54 THE CEVENNES

the inhabitants and the rebel garrison together, and hung
as many as were involved in the insurrection. " What
a lamentable scene it was," wrote a contemporary-
author; "poor women weeping, tearing their hair, plead-
ing for the lives of their husbands, their brothers, and
their friends ; but Mgr. de Saint Nectaire would not so
much as vouchsafe them a look."

Then, with the bodies dangling from the gibbets, he
had an altar erected in the public square and a Mass
sung, whilst his pikemen prodded the Calvinists at
the proper moment to oblige them to cross themselves
and to kneel.

The Bishop returned to Le Puy highly elated at his
success, but his elation was damped on his arrival by
hearing that in the meantime the Huguenots had
captured his castle at Espaly, at the very door of Le
Puy, and were menacing the capital. He made his way
in with all speed, and despatched a courier to the Baron
de S. Vidal to come to his aid.

Espaly was then a walled town at the foot of a trap
dyke that shoots above the Borne, and on which stood
a castle, the summer residence of the bishops.

The castle had been erected in the thirteenth century
by William de la Roue, of whose misdeeds I have
already told. It was completed by Jean de Bourbon
(1443-85). The part taken by this prelate in the
League of the Public Good brought on Espaly the
horrors of a siege. But it suffered especially in the
Wars of Religion. Within thirty years it was taken
and retaken by Huguenots and Catholics eight times.

The story of the last siege is sufficiently curious to be
told.

In 1 574, Vidal Guyard, a hatmaker of Le Puy, placed

SIEGE OF ESPALY ' 55

himself at the head of a hundred and twenty Cal-
vinists, and, favoured by the moon, on the night of
January 9th approached Espaly, and by penetrating
into the castle by a drain succeeded in surprising the
garrison and making themselves masters of the place.
The news reached Le Puy through fugitives from the
town, and next day the young men of the city, acting
against the advice of the Bishop, determined on retaking
the fortress. A crowd of citizens armed, assumed a
white cross on their breasts, and marched against the
place. But heavy rain came on, they were drenched to
the skin, and their powder and courage were damped,
so they returned having effected nothing. The Cal-
vinists now set to work to destroy the houses in the
little town, sparing only such as were redeemed by their
owners with a heavy money payment.

On January 20th the Baron de S. Vidal, whom the
Bishop had summoned to his aid, assembled troops at
Le Puy and marched to Espaly, forced his way into the
town, but could effect nothing against the castle, that
was accessible by one path only, cut in the face of the
rock. One of the garrison with his arquebus wounded
S. Vidal in the shoulder. After that they made a sortie
and did much execution among the besiegers.

S. Vidal, despairing of reducing the place by force of
arms, resolved on trying negotiation. But Guyard
demanded such an exorbitant sum for its surrender that
it was refused. S. Vidal now tried stratagem. He
framed a letter, as from Guyard, addressed to the
consuls of Le Puy, offering to deliver up the castle, his
lieutenant Morfouse, and the garrison, if his own life
were spared and he were liberally rewarded. This
letter was smuggled into the fortress, read by Morfouse,

56 THE CEVENNES

and in a paroxysm of jealousy and alarm he and the
rest fell on Guyard and killed him. Then they entered
into communication with S. Vidal, and surrendered on
February 3rd, the day on which the baron received the
news of his nomination by the King to be governor
of Le Velay. Le Puy itself had undergone a siege by
the Huguenots twelve years before this.

In 1562 the terrible Baron des Adrets, who was in
Dauphine stamping out every spark of Catholicism,
deputed his lieutenant, Blacons, to secure Le Puy.
Blacons was a man as ruthless as his commander, but
without his military genius. It was settled that Blacons
should assemble an army at Pont-en-Peyrat, a village
on the borders of Forez and Velay. Thither accordingly
gathered the Calvinists and a horde of adventurers
thirsting for the pillage of the wealthy city and the
shrine of the Madonna. The consuls of Le Puy sent
the brother of their seneschal, Christopher d'Allegre,
with 20,000 livres to treat with Blacons, and offer this
sum if he would divert his column on some other town.
Christopher d'Allegre, who was himself a Calvinist, and
had been selected for the embassy on that ground,
pocketed the money without intimating to Blacons the
purpose for which it had been confided to him, and was
instant in urging the Huguenot captain to capture
and sack the city. The consuls, bishop, and chapter
met in consultation and armed all the male inhabi-
tants of the place, and hastily repaired the fortifica-
tions.

On August 4th arrived the citizens of S. Paulien,
escaping with their goods and chatels from the Calvinists
with terrible stories of outrage and murder committed
by them. The alarm-bells pealed ; a message was sent

SIEGE OF LE PUY 57

to the Viscount PoHgnac for aid, but he remained inert
on the top of his rock, alleging that he had not a force
sufficient at his disposal to be able materially to assist
the citizens.

On the night of the same day the siege began. The
Huguenots crossed the Borne, which was then dry, and
planted their cannon. After a steady bombardment
they rushed to the assault, and a desperate struggle
ensued. Towards evening of August 5th the resistance
of the citizens slackened, and the Calvinists pressed on,
when a postern was thrown open and out poured a body
of monks and friars variously armed. They fell upon
the enemy in flank and put them to rout. The members
of the monasteries and convents round Le Puy had fled
to the city at the approach of Blacons, and had been
clustered on the top of the rock Corneille watching
events. Observing the progress of the Huguenots, and
knowing that if the city fell every one of them would
be hung or hurled down the rock, they had gone to the
episcopal armoury and seized whatever weapons came
to hand ; and these men determined the fate of the
engagement.

The disconcerted Huguenots retired for the night to
Espaly. Next day they returned to the assault, and
planted their cannon on a height whence they could play
on the town. The suburb of Aiguilhe fell into their
hands and was sacked. The hospital and the monasteries
were burnt, the church of S. Laurence and the chapel
of S. Michael were plundered and the carved work
mutilated. If the latter escaped better than the former,
it was due to the height at which it stood, and the
danger attending any who climbed aloft to smash the
sculptures with axes and hammers.

58 THE CEVENNES

On the third day the Calvinists met with no better
success. One man troubled them greatly, an aged
hermit from the Mont Denise, who had been an artillery
officer in his younger days. He was now very old and
bent double ; but the fire of battle kindled in his veins,
and he undertook the disposition of the artillery and
pointed the guns. " That holy man," says a con-
temporary historian, " did so well that he killed more
men than did all the arquebusiers together."

The Huguenots lost heart and demanded a parley.
They sent Christopher d'Allegre as their envoy into
the city. This man must have been endowed with con-
siderable effrontery to accept such an office, after having
betrayed and robbed his fellow-citizens. He appeared
before the consuls with a confident air, and demanded
that the gates should be thrown open to Blacons.
" How can you suppose," said he, " that we intend
harm, we who are zealous propagators of the Reformed
religion and the defenders of the oppressed? We are
incapable of committing acts of violence. We will not
exact of you any contribution, not even food for our
men. All that we seek is to hew in pieces the gods of
wood and stone and emblems that profane the temple
of the living God."

But the consuls knew what such protestations were
worth, by the experience of the refugees of S. Paulien,
which had offered no resistance to the Huguenots.
They dismissed the envoy, and he returned to stimulate
the investing army to renewed exertions. At once, in a
paroxysm of zeal, the host rushed again to the attack ;
but the citizens sallied forth, cut them down, and made
many captures.

Next day the consuls and the bishop hoisted flags on

REPULSE OF CALVINISTS 59

every tower, and minstrels paraded the walls playing
lively tunes on hautboys, fifes, and clarions.

Blacons supposed that they must have received
reinforcements. He called his officers together and
said, " See, gentlemen, how the citizens of Le Puy
mock us ! Let us chastise them, severely for such im-
prudent and unseemly mirth." But he could no
longer rouse his host to venture on another assault.
His soldiery dispersed over the open country to sack
and burn villages, desecrate churches, and hang such
priests as they could take. They completely wrecked
five or six monasteries, the castles of the bishop, and
they set fire to the peasants' harvests, so that a sheet of
flame ran over the country as far as the eye could see.
In a few days the cannon were withdrawn, and not a
Calvinist in arms remained before the walls of Le Puy.

So the city can boast proudly, " Civitus non vincitur,
nee vincetur," or in the words of Odo de Gissey, " Ne
fut oncq' surmontee, ni le sera."

CHAPTER IV

ROUND ABOUT LE PUY

Limitations of language — Guides to Le Velay — Espaly — The castle —
Death of Charles VI.— The Orgues— Baron de S. Vidal— La Roche
Lambert — Polignac — The oracle of Apollo — S. Paulien — Roman re-
mains — Julien, the sculptor — Barrier of the Loire — Vorey — La
Lepreuse — Chamalieres — Mezenc — Les Esiables — Ascent — La Foire
aux Violettes — The violet harvest — Flora of Mezenc — Gerbier de
Jonc — View — Lake of Issarles — Menaced — A man without a chance
in life — Le Monastier — Stevenson's estimate of the people — The abbey
— Change of names — Arlempdes — Caves of Chacornac — Mandrin —
The haunted mill of Perbet.

THERE exist but a limited number of terms where-
with to describe an infinite variety of natural
objects that possess one common character, but differ
from one another in every other particular. Needle,
spike, pinnacle, spire, obelisk have to serve for all rocks
that start up from the soil and terminate in a point.
Ravine, gorge, fissure, chasm, cafion have to be employed
indiscriminately for those clefts in the surface, rents
formed by the contraction on cooling of the earth's
crust, or by the erosion of water. And yet all the
difference in the world exists between spires of tufa
and trap and those of granite or of limestone. The
gorge down which swirls the river between calcareous
walls is one thing, that which is cleft into a street lined

Basalt, Espaly

Page 60

ESPALY 6i

with basaltic columns is another, yet the same term
must be employed for both.

If it fell to me to describe all the most remarkable
sites in Le Velay, I should have to use these expressions
ad nauseam, and leave off with the consciousness that I
had conveyed to the mind of the reader but a poor idea
of the wonders of a wondrous land.

Happily for me, my purpose is not so extensive. I
have not undertaken to write a guide-book. Baedeker
has given us the skeleton of a tour in this region in five
pages. Joanne has clothed the bones with flesh and
blood in thirteen or fourteen, and Ardouin Dumazet
has breathed into it the breath of life in three hundred
and seventy. Moreover, a Syndicat d'Initiative exists at
Le Puy that distributes gratis a capital guide to the
sights around. But it does more than this. Throughout
the summer, at a trifling cost, it organises excursions,
provides vehicles to every point of interest that can be
visited in a day.

A farmer does not take to market all the corn
thrashed out of his stack, but a sample of his produce.
He opens his hand and displays the grain to a would-be
purchaser, and all I can pretend to do in this chapter is
to give a few samples of what Le Velay has to show to
a visitor, and I shall begin with Espaly, easily reached
by electric tram. There, out of the valley of the Borne,
rise two volcanic crags, washed by the river. One of
these is surmounted by a toy castle, a battlemented
summer-house that belongs to a gentleman of Le Puy.
The other, and by far the finer, was once capped by the
castle of the bishops of Le Puy. In this a bishop-
designate halted the night before making his entry into
the city, and here, before he was suffered to enter, the

62 THE CEVENNES

consuls of the town exacted from him an oath to
respect its liberties. Charles the Dauphin, son of
Charles VI., was staying in this castle in 1422, on
October 25th, when, at 7 p.m., he received the tidings
of the death of his father, which had taken place five
days before. He at once ordered the De profundis to
be chanted, and put on mourning, which he quitted on
the 27th to array himself in purple velvet. Mass was
performed, and then the banner of France was unfurled
to shouts of " Vive le Roy ! " After that he departed
for Poitiers, where he was crowned.

By far the finest view of the rocks is to be had from
the bridge over the Borne.

Of the castle almost nothing remains. It was blown
up by order of S. Vidal, and now the fragments are
incorporated in a wall set with peepholes, and sur-
mounted by what looks like a gigantic gasholder, but
which is intended to serve as a pedestal for a colossal
statue of S. Joseph.

The Orgues d'Espaly attract visitors. The organ
front forms the face of a spur of Mont Denise, and is
composed of ranges of basaltic columns. We shall see
others far finer in the gorge of the Allier and in the
mountains of Vivarais.

Some way up the valley of the Borne stand the well-
preserved ruins of the castle of Saint Vidal, the sturdy
Leaguer. Near this are a cascade of the Borne and
the ravine of Estreys.

Antoine, Baron de la Tour, and de Segard, and de S.
Vidal, Governor of Le Velay, made a desperate and
ineffectual effort, conjointly with the Governor of the
Vivarais, in 1572, to capture the castle of Beaudine in
Velay, held by the Huguenot captain, La Vacheresse,

S. VIDAL 63

who had secured it by stratagem, and who from it
issued to ravage the country, destroy churches, hang
priests and monks, and levy blackmail on the villages.

Two months later he was wounded at Espaly, as
related. In the same year he was successful in dis-
possessing the Calvinists of five other castles. Then
he besieged and took the town of Tence, hung the
pastors, and gave up the inhabitants to massacre.

In 1577 he laid siege to Ambert in Auvergne, but
failed to take it, and retired discomfited. By royal
command, in 1580 he advanced upon S. Agreve, which
had become the head-quarters of the Calvinists in the
Vivarais. During the siege he lost an eye. After
having taken measures for the defence of Le Puy,
which was menaced by Polignac, who was at war with
the city, he hastened to the relief of Bedoues in the
Gevaudan, that was besieged by the redoubted Captain
Merle, but was unsuccessful.

A few years later, in 1586, he left Le Puy with six
cannons to assist the Duke of Joyeuse in the siege of
Malziac. It was taken, and he was appointed governor;
he also obtained the governorship of Marvejols, which
capitulated after a siege of eight days. In 1588 he was
before S. Agreve for the second time, and he took it
and levelled the town walls. Devoted to the cause of
the League, he hotly and zealously contested the
governorship of Velay with De Chattes, who had been
appointed by Henry IV. In 1590 he beseiged Espaly
again, burnt the town, and blew up the castle. In a
negotiation in 1591 between the Royalists and the
Leaguers the quarrel took so personal a turn that
S. Vidal and the commandant of Le Puy challenged
De Chattes and another to duel, and in it S. Vidal fell.

64 THE CEVENNES

Still further up this picturesque stream is the Castle
de La Roche Lambert, the theatre of Georges Sand's
novel Jean de la Roche.

"I may say without exaggeration that I was reared in a
rock. The castle of my fathers is strangely incrusted into an ex-
cavation in a wall of basalt five hundred feet high. The base
of this wall, with that face to face with it of identically the
same rock, form a narrow and sinuous valley, through which
winds and leaps an inoffensive torrent in impetuous cascades,
athwart delicious meadows shaded by willows and nut trees.

" This Chateau de la Roche is a nest — a nest of troglodites,
inasmuch as the whole flank of the rock we occupy is riddled
with holes and irregular chambers which tradition points to as
the residence of ancient savages, and which antiquaries do not
hesitate to attribute to a prehistoric people.

"The castle of my fathers is planted high up on a ledge of
rock, but so that the tops of the conical roofs of the towers just
reach above the level of the plain. One detail will illustrate
our situation. My mother having poor health, and having no
other place to walk save one little platform before the castle
on the edge of the abyss, took it into her head to create for
herself a garden at the summit of the crag on which we were
perched."

The castle, which Georges Sand describes as in a
dilapidated condition, and a " vrai bijou d'architecture,"
is small, and its chambers are scooped out of the
rock. It has been carefully restored, and is a mu-
seum of medieval antiquities, armour, old cabinets, and
tapestry.

The road from Le Puy to Paris quits the valley of
the Borne, and ascends the slopes of Mont Denise. As
it mounts it commands grand views. To the east is
stretched the long chain culminating in Mezenc, and

Castle of la Roche Lambert

Page 64

POLIGNAC 65

Megal with its group of sues. M. Paulett Scrope's
panorama should be taken so as to identify the peaks.

After turning the flank of Mont Denise, the most
modern of the volcanoes, a basin opens before one, out
of which starts up the lava mass, like a huge pork-pie,
that supports the scanty remains of the Castle of
Polignac, the eagle nest of this mighty family. At the
foot of the crag lies the village like a red girdle encirc-
ling it. Only the donjon of the fortress remains perfect,
repaired in 1893-7 by Heracleus Armand XXV., Duke of
Polignac. The entire platform was at one time covered
with buildings ; now only foundations can be traced.
But the fallen masses have revealed the fact that this
was a stronghold before the Polignacs were thought of.
It was certainly a prehistoric fortress, then a Gaulish
oppidum, next a Roman station. The name has been
supposed to derive from Apollo, who is thought to have
had a temple here, whence oracles were delivered.
Within the precincts is a vault in which is the mouth of
a well 250 feet deep reaching to a spring. It is con-
jectured that a colossal mask of stone, with open
mouth, represents the bearded head of a local Apollo,
and that priests concealed in the subterranean chamber
uttered oracles which were made to issue from the
mouth. What is more certain is that an inscription of
the time of the Emperor Claudius has been found here,
and that Roman tablets are built into the walls of the
little Romanesque church below the rock.

The Paris road leads onwards to S. Paulien, the
ancient Ruessio capital of the tribe of the Velavi. It has
little to interest the visitor. A stone now surmounted
by a cross is called Lou Peyrou dou tresvirs, the
stone of the Triumviri, on which are carved three heads;

66 THE CEVENNES

the church, reconstructed in the ninth century, stands on
the ruins of an edifice of the fourth. Some Roman
fragments are incrusted in the walls. Above the town,
trailt into modem constructions, are many fragments of
the old city. The chapel of N. Dame du Haut-Solier
has been regarded as occupying the site of a temple
dedicated to the sun, and is built up of Gallo-Roman
materials. Hereabouts the spade is continually turning
up relics, among others were found a head of Jupiter
Serapis, and inscriptions, of which one is commemorative
of Etrusdlla, wife of the Emperor Decius. The chapel of
the Sisters of S. Joseph possesses a Romanesque door-
way with bold zigzag ornament, removed from the
ruined commandery of Montredon.

S. Paulien was the birthplace of the sculptor Julien,
of whose work some specimens may be seen in the
museum at Le Puy. He was a shepherd boy, the son
of very poor parents, but he had an unde in the Jesuit
Order. One day this priest, walking on a tnt of wild moor
scantily covered with coarse grass and juniper bushes,
lit on his nej^ew, then aged fourteen, guarding his
flock, and engaged in modelling a figure out of clay
with a bit of stick. The lad looked up with his brown,
intelligent eyes, coloured, and said —
** Sorry, mon pere, that the figure is so bad."
"Bad!" exclaimed the priest. ''Do you call that
bad ? On the contrary, I pronounce it admirable. Go
on and prosper." He hastened back to S. Paulien,
burst in on the Julien family, and insisted on their sur-
rendering the lad to him. " He is moulding a saint out
of clay," said the Jesuit. "Give me that lump of
humanity, and I will shape it into a great artisL" So
the uncle carried off young Julien and committed him

DEFILES OF THE LOIRE 67

to the sculptor Samuel at Le Puy. The pupil speedily
surpassed his master, and went to Lyons, and thence
to Paris, where he was under Coustin, sculptor to the
King. He was elected to the Academy in 1778, and
was highly favoured by Louis XVI. But evil days
came, not for nobles only, but also for artists. The
Revolution broke out, and men were more busy in
framing constitutions than in fostering art. Not till
the times of the Consulate and Empire was occupa-
tion found for sculptors and painters. However, Julien
had made sufficient money before the upheaval to
be able to purchase for himself a little estate near
Le Puy, and to that he retired till better days came.
He was born in 1731, and died in the Louvre, in 1804.
His bust as a shepherd boy adorns a fountain at S.
Paulien.

After traversing th^ basin of Emblaves below Le
Puy, the Loire enters a second defile, where its passage
was barred by a great current of clinkstone, or laminated
lava, poured forth from M^zenc, and of this two colossal
remnants exist, the rocks Miaune and Gerbison, rising
one on each side of the river to a height of 1,800 feet
above it. This enormous dyke suddenly thrown across
the valley must have caused the waters of the Loire
to accumulate into a vast lake, till they effected their
escape by sawing through it.

Where, further up, the Arzon flows into the Loire is
Vorey, lapped in a fold of the mountains, facing Gerbi-
son, which is striated with rills descending in small
cascades.

On June i6th, annually, is celebrated at Vorey a Mass
"de la Lepreuse," which is attended by the people of
the hamlets of Vertaure and Eyravazet. Once upon

68 THE CEVENNES

a time a ragged leper woman arrived at the latter cluster
of houses and begged for food. No one would give her
even a crust of bread or a bowl of milk. She went on
to Vertaure, and there fared as ill ; and she crept for
the night into an abandoned shed, where she remained
too exhausted to proceed further, and there she died.
Whereupon the people dug a deep pit and cast in the
corpse and the woodwork and thatch of the shed,
and heaped earth over the grave. The spot is still
pointed out, and is called Las Cabannas. After that,
for several years in succession, hailstorms smote the
harvests and blighted the vines, whereas about Las
Cabannas all remained green and flowery. Then the
inhabitants of the two hamlets conceived that they
were being punished for their lack of charity, and vowed
a Mass in perpetuity for the repose of the leper-woman's
soul. Her body was exhumed, conveyed to Vorey, and
there buried in holy ground, and she herself received a
popular canonisation as Ste. Juliette.

The Loire receives a goodly addition of water through
the Arzon, and below Vorey descends through profound
gorges to Chamalieres, a village inhabited by quarry-
men, and preserving one of the most curious and
interesting Romanesque churches of the department.
It is of the twelfth century, and has an arcaded clere-
story. There are three windows in this clerestory on
each side, and between the windows blind arches, some
circular, some trefoil -headed. The tower is of two
stages, with four windows on the first and two on the
second, on each side ; it is capped by a curious octagonal
stone spire, rising from an octagonal lantern, with
trefoil-headed windows, and nothing but a slight
moulding indicates the junction.

MEZENC 69

The M^zenc, the highest of the Cevennes, rises out of
a dreary plateau. It is, says M. Paulett Scrope : —

" The most elevated of an extensive system of volcanic rocks,
resting partly on granite or gneiss, and in part on the Jurassic
formation, which by their position and constitution prove
themselves to be the remains of a single and powerful volcano,
of the same character as those in the Mont Dore and Cantal.
Its products, however, are disposed in a somewhat different
manner, being spread over an almost equally extensive surface
without accumulating into such mountainous masses around
their centre of eruption. Two causes seem to have contributed
to occasion this diversity of aspect, namely : first, that the
eruptions of this volcano appear to have been less frequent
than in the other instances ; secondly, that its lavas consist
either of basalt or clinkstone almost exclusively. They there-
fore were possessed of great comparative fluidity ; and having
burst out on one of the highest eminences of the primary
platform, which afforded a considerable slope in most direc-
tions, they appear to have flowed to great distances immediately
upon their protusion from the volcanic vent.

" We shall be fully justified, by the universal declination of
these volcanic beds from the Mont Mezenc, in fixing the site of
the eruptions in its immediate proximity ; and on the south-
east of this rocky eminence, in the vicinity of the Croix des
Boutieres, there still exists a semicircular basin whose steep
sides are entirely formed of scoriae and loose masses of very
cellular and reddish-coloured clinkstones."

The desolate tableland over which one travels to
reach Mezenc is well described by Georges Sand in her
novel Le Marquis de Villemer, and the backward and
unprogressive character of the inhabitants has not
altered since her time.

The carriage is left at the village of Les Estables, a

70 THE CEVENNES

poor and dirty place, where the natives shiver through
half the year. Their condition is indeed miserable.
Their cottages, built of lava-blocks, are thatched with
straw, or roofed with clinkstone {phonolith). The street
is filthy, encumbered with stones and deep in slime.
Were it not for the lace industry and for the violet
harvest, the place would be deserted. The cattle are
lean and poor in quality, from lack of lime in the soil ;
the harvests ripen so late that when gathered in the
crops are frequently spoilt.

At Ste. Eulalie, on the Sunday after the 12th July, is
held the Foire aux Violettes. To that stream the
cottagers from Les Estables and all the hamlets about
Mezenc, laden with baskets heaped up with violets, and
not violets only, but also the thousand aromatic herbs
that luxuriate in this desolate region. The violets of
M6zenc are so numerous and so large that in spring the
mountain is arrayed in royal purple. The Mezenc
violet is, moreover, more intense in colour than that
of the Alps, and it retains its colour longer when dried.
To this fair come the merchants of Lyons, Marseilles,
and Nimes, Every kind of simple used by druggists,
every herb used for the production of essences, is there
to be procured. But the violet is the staple of the
trade. The air is scented with it, but the sweetness
cannot neutralise the bad savour of the village — that
defies suppression.

The flowers are gathered at the end of May by
women and children. Then they are dried in the hay-
loft, never allowed so to do in the sun. And when we
buy the crystallised violet at Gunters, or try the withered
flowers as a cure for cancer, ten to one but we are
employing the produce of Mezenc, and putting a few

GERBIER DE JONC 71

petits sous into the pockets of those leading a hard life
in this southern Siberia.

The flora of Mezenc is subalpine, with many gaps.
One rare plant alone is found on it, the Senecio leuco-
phyllus, that flowers in August and September, and is
found also on the Pyrenees at heights between 3,000
and 6,000 feet. It resembles the Senecio maritimus
that grows on the Mediterranean littoral, which is
cultivated in our gardens as an ornamental plant on
account of its imbricated and silvery foliage.

Oaks here are low-growing and yield acorns once
in six years, and beech once in four, whereas the
service tree gives its fruit every year. This arrest of
oak and beech is due to spring frosts when the trees
are in flower, and an early winter forbids the glands
and mast to ripen even when formed.

It is quite easy to " do " Mezenc from Le Puy in a
day. That admirable institution, the Syndicat d' Initia-
tive, provides a conveyance, starting from the capital
every Sunday morning in summer at 5 a.m., and from
Estables the mountain may be climbed in an hour and
a half. The conveyance is back at Le Puy at 10 p.m.,
and the cost of a seat is but five francs. But if
the visitor desires to extend his expedition, he should
seek the Gerbier de Jonc and the lake of Issarley and
return by Le Monastier. But this will occupy two
days.

The Gerbier de Jonc is a conical clinkstone moun-
tain, not so high as the Mezenc, but commanding quite
as fine a prospect. It has been compared not inaptly
to a pine cone, bristling with foils of phonolith that make
the ascent by no means easy. Indeed, from the source
of the Loire at its foot it is but a climb of 530 feet, but

72 THE CEVENNES

the dislocation of the rock and the steepness make the
climb somewhat laborious.

" Yet — how one is repaid for the labour ! The view over
the Vivarais is one of inexpressible beauty. No other bel-
vedere offers a view of such an ocean of peaks, puys, ridges,
and precipices, such folds of mountains, such abysses, and
such plateaux. I do not know any impression I have received
quite comparable to that produced by the view from the
Gerbier. The glare of southern sunlight gives extraordinary
relief to the rocks and woods, the vast stretches of turf, to this
illimitable world of mountains of every shape. There are
panoramas more vast and sublime, but none more striking.
The clouds drifting across the sky cast great patches of shadow
over the storm-tossed and solidified ocean ; and when the wind
disperses the veil, it seems as though the abysses gaped suddenly
under one's eye, so deep are the clefts, so tumultuous are the
crests of the mountains. And the Alps ! yonder they are, far
away on the horizon. To the south is the immeasurable mass
of the tossed Cevennes ; blue to the north stands the great
boundary heap of Mont Pilat. Above the haze to the east
calcareous walls rear themselves, much hacked about, and
some heights thrusting forward their cliffs like the beaks of
birds. On the side of Le Velay is a platform bristling with
sues. At the foot of the Gerbier is the nascent rill of the
Loire crossing the road and flowing through a vast prairie in
which ooze forth a thousand springs that plunge into the ravine
in which the Loire gathers its waters." — Ardouin Dumazet.

The lake of Issarles is indisputably the most beauti-
ful of the sheets of water in the Cevennes. It is circu-
lar, and has no visible exit. It swarms with trout, yet
they do not breed in it, as these fish will not spawn
unless they can go up stream to a suitable gravelly bed,
and no stream enters Issarles.

ISSARLES 73

But if no stream issues visibly from the lake, numer-
ous springs rise at the bottom of the bank that bounds
it, due doubtless to filtration through the scoria, and
unite to form a current sufficient to turn a mill before
it reaches the Loire distant three-quarters of a mile.

This beautiful tarn, 330 feet deep in the middle, has
been menaced more than once. The lake belonged in
the Middle Ages to the Chartreuse of Bonnefoy, the
ruins of which are in the neighbourhood, and which
was founded in 1 1 56 by a Seigneur of Mezenc. The
Carthusians used the lake not only as a fishpond to
furnish their table, but also as a reservoir for the irriga-
tion of their meadows by means of canals.

In 1793 it ran its first risk. With the laudable object
of draining marshy land and rendering such lake
bottoms as could be reclaimed serviceable for culture,
a law was passed on the 14th to i6th Frimaire (4th to 6th
December), and at the beginning of 1794 the Citizen
Auzillon was deputed to inspect and report on Issarles.
But he was driven back by storms of snow, and obliged
to postpone his examination of the lake. He started
again in July, and was accompanied by the deputy sent
down from Paris to organise an expedition for hunting
out and bringing to the lamp-post or the guillotine the
priests and royalists who were supposed to be in conceal-
ment in the neighbourhood. Auzillon declared in his
report that the draining of the lake would cause an un-
warrantable expense and prove unprofitable. It lay, he
said, in the crater of an extinct volcano, and that he had
been unable by sounding to discover the depth.

The lake has been again threatened, this time with
conversion into a reservoir for the water-supply of
factories, to be established at a lower level.

74 THE CEVENNES

A scene, however beautiful it may be, always acquires
additional charm when with it is connected something
of human interest. And this must serve as an excuse
for my introducing here a story that attaches to
Issarles.

Beside the lake some years ago resided a man of
singular character, a man over whose fortunes Fate
seemed to have decreed " pas de chance." A memoir of
this man was written after his death by an acquaintance.
Pierre Noirot was born at Nimes of a Protestant father
and a Catholic mother. His father, Jacques, was a
descendant of one of the Camisards, who had run his
knife into the heart of the Abbe du Chayla at the Pont
de Montvert. Noirot pere had inherited from his
ancestors nothing but an implacable hatred of Catho-
licism. He was a coarse-minded man of a brutal
character, and was wholly uneducated. Having become
a soldier, he passed from barrack to barrack, always
quarrelsome, always discontented, always finding fault,
so that he acquired the name of Captain Grumbler.
When he left the army, he retired to Nimes and lived
on his pension. Inconsistently enough, he married a
Catholic, a little needlewoman. Pierre was the fruit of
this union. Mme. Noirot had him baptised privately
by a priest of her religion. Jacques heard of this the
same day, and mad with rage he fell on his wife and
beat her so severely, though only just recovering from
her confinement, that she died of the injuries inflicted
upon her. From this moment the father bore an im-
placable dislike to his son. He sent him into the
mountains to be fostered by peasants in the village of
Issarles, and thenceforth cared no further for him than to
send grudgingly the meagre sum necessary for his keep.

PIERRE NOIROT 75

Pierre grew up in rough surroundings. His foster-
parents, Antoine and Veronique Vidil, had three children,
two boys and a girl, but lost their sons in one day by
typhoid fever. Only the little Genevieve remained to
them, and the orphan, Pierre, whom thenceforth the
Vidils regarded as their own. But among these rude
peasants affection displayed itself uncouthly. Antoine
Vidil was a man who rarely spoke, and expressed him-
self in monosyllables only, and when he corrected the
children it was without discretion and with a heavy
hand. The woman Vidil, stout and florid, was the re-
verse of her husband. She was effusive, noisy, variable
in temper. Sometimes she treated the little Pierre with
plenty of food and smothered him with caresses, at
another time she stinted him in his diet and scolded him
for nothing at all.

Pierre's sensitive soul was wounded by the injustice
wherewith he was treated, and he found his only happi-
ness in the society of Genevieve.

The Vidils, without consulting the " Captain," brought
up Pierre in the Catholic faith, and sent him to the
village school. There from the first he became the butt
of the children. Pale, delicate, taciturn, and a dreamer,
he consorted with none, and he obtained the nickname
of lou mou, the Dumb One. Endowed with exceptional
intelligence, he rapidly made his way, and in three
months had learned to read. Then he begged to be
sent to college. The case was embarrassing. It was
necessary to consult the Captain. Vidil wrote in two
lines to the pere Noirot : " The child desires to go to
college. Where shall he be put ? " The Captain replied
even more laconically, " Where you will." The Vidils,
at their own cost, sent him to the college at Aubenas ;

76 THE CEVENNES

and by the death of an aunt he was furnished with
small means to relieve them and to defray the cost of
his education. He was not more happy at Aubenas
than he had been at Issarles. He had no friend. Always
alone, he spent his time when out of class in reading.
His father held no communication with him, and
Aubenas was too far from Issarles for the Vidils to see
him. He tasted of happiness only in the holidays, when
he returned to Genevieve. Study was his great consola-
tion. Philosophy and mathematics proved an irresitible
attraction to his eager mind. Always first in his class,
he surprised the professors, and sometimes alarmed them
by his precocity.

At the age of seventeen he entered the Polytechnic
School, and was the first to pass in his examination.
The regimen of this institution suited him. He spent
all his spare hours in the library. Pierre read vora-
ciously books treating of the destiny of man and the
problems of the universe, even at this early age. He
felt assured of being able to enter one of the learned
professions, when an event occurred that dashed his
hopes. On the eve of All Saints, 1856, he was seated
at his examination, when a despatch, " Very urgent,"
was put into his hand. On opening it he read : "Nimes,
31st October, 1856. Captain Noirot is dead. Apoplexy.
Come at once. Doctor Moulon."

Pierre packed his valise and departed. He found that
his father's affairs were in a deplorable condition. He
had taken to cards and to drinking. Pierre paid all old
Noirot's debts with the money left him by his aunt, but
in so doing exhausted that sum. He was consequently
unable to return to college, and nothing else was left
him but to enlist. He was, however, too young by six

PAS DE CHANCE ^^

months, and accordingly returned to the Vidils, who
received him with a warm welcome. These good people
had planned to marry him to Genevieve, but he was too
shy to speak, and when he departed left without a word
to her to intimate his affection. He was sent to garrison
Toulouse. There he proved quiet, orderly, attentive to
his duties, respectful to his officers, and courteous to his
comrades-in-arms. But he made no friends. One day
he received this letter : —

"IssARL^s, May \st, 1859.
'* My Little One,

"I am obliged to apply to the beate, who is more
skilled in writing than myself, to inform you that misfortune
has overtaken us. Father is dead — may God rest his soul ! —
and Genevieve has died of a languor. I am growing old, and
am alone. Come and comfort maman Veronique, who loves
you, and has none but you left to her in the world.

" V. ViDIL.

"P.S. — You will find in a fold of this letter a thousand
francs wherewith to buy a substitute."

Genevieve was dead — had died of despondency,
perhaps because he had not spoken that which would
have given her an object for which to live. From that
day no smile ever brightened up his features. He
returned to Issarles. The Vidils had done well, and
had amassed a little money.

Twenty years passed. In 1879 M. Firmin Boissin,
who had been at college at Aubenas with Noirot, went
to Issarles to visit his friend there, the Cure T^raube ;
and when there learned that his old schoolfellow lived
near, but in strange fashion — solitary, speaking to few,
spending his time in study and in contemplation, still

78 THE CEVENNES

wrapped in philosophic pursuits. He had brought
away with him from Nimes some of the doctrinal
books that had belonged to his ancestors, but which
pere Noirot had not read. All his spare cash was
expended in the purchase of others.

M. Boissin visited him. Noirot's first words were :
" Explain to me, if you can, the contradiction that
exists between the foreknowledge of God and free-will
in man. How can man be a free agent when his course,
his every act is irrevocably predestined ?"

The iron of Calvinism had entered into his soul, and
was festering it.

M. Boissin and he had many disputes on this per-
plexing theme. Pierre was ever revolving the question
in his mind fruitlessly, making no further progress than
does a squirrel in its rotating cage. At last, one day, he
exclaimed bitterly, " How well I can understand the
saying of Ackermann, ' I have lost all faith — I believe
now in nothing but in the existence of evil.' And the
evil is the Great Cause — is God."

A few days later Pierre disappeared. Mme. Vidil
came in alarm to the presbytere to inform the Cur^
that she could not find her foster-son, and that she
fancied he had fallen into the lake. The alarm was
given, the whole village turned out, and he was
discovered in the water. The Cur6 managed to drag
him out by the hair of his head. Pierre Noirot was
conveyed to his bed. Life was not quite extinct. The
Abb^ T^raube, stooping over him, said, " Monsieur
Noirot, do you recognise me ? " The dying man made a
sign in the affirmative. " Do you commit yourself into
the hands of God, and put your trust in the infinite
mercy of Christ ? "

MONASTIER 79

At these words the eyes of Noirot opened ; he looked
up and said in a whisper : " Je vois — ^je sais — je crois —
je suis desabuse."

The Abb6, laying his hand on the unfortunate man's
head, pronouned Absolution. Then kneeling at his
side, he recited the Lord's Prayer. At the words, " Thy
will be done," the spirit of him, qui n'avait pas de
chance, passed away.^

Le Monastier is the place whence Robert Louis
Stevenson started with his donkey after having spent
there a month.

He says : —

" Monastier is notable for the making of lace, for drunken-
ness, for freedom of language, and for unparalleled political
discussion. There are adherents of each of the four French
parties — Legitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists, and Republicans
— in this little mountain town, and they all hate, loathe, decry,
and calumniate each other. Except for business purposes, or
to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid
aside even the civility of speech. 'Tis a mere mountain
Poland. In the midst of the Babylon I find myself a rallying
point; everyone was anxious to be kind and helpful to a
stranger."

The book was published in 1879. Since then
Legitimists, Orleanists, and Imperialists are no more
such. They have acquiesced in being good Republicans.
Perhaps they have found other themes on which to
contend. I do not think that the peasant has much
respect for the Republic, but he is content to live
quietly under it. As for the deputies he sends to the
National Assembly, for them he has no respect at all.

^ R^vu du Vivarais, 1893.

8o THE CEVENNES

They go up needy attorneys and return flush with
money.

A peasant said to me one day : " Have you been at a
chase and seen the poor brute down, all the hounds tear-
ing at it and fighting each other for scraps of the
carcass ? That prey is France, and the hounds are the
parties."

In 680 Calminius, Count of Auvergne, founded a
Benedictine monastery under the red crags of La
Moulette that rises to the east of the monastery.
The abbey buildings which had suffered in the Wars
of Religion were rebuilt in 1754 and are character-
less. They have been converted into mairie and corn
market. Everywhere in France we see Virgil's Sic vos
non vobis exemplified. Monks erect monasteries that
serve as barracks and schools, asylums and municipal
buildings to a future generation.

The abbatial church remains, an edifice of the
eleventh century, but with an apse of the fifteenth. The
fagade is Romanesque with mosaic work of lava, and
the arcades of window and doorway are striped in the
same manner.

On the south side of the choir is the pretty renais-
sance chapel of S. Chaffre, the second abbot, who was
martyred by the Saracens in 732. This chapel with its
painted roof dates from 1543. Names of saints be-
came marvellously altered in the south. Theofred has
been transformed into Chaffre, we have seen Evodius
become Vozy, and in Herault we come on St. Agatha
disguised under the form of Ste. Chatte, and in Ardeche,
M^lany is rendered Boloni. At the entrance of the
town is another church, built of blocks of lava, of the
twelfth century, S. Jean, but it has undergone alterations.

MANDRIN 8i

From Monastier one can drive to Goudet and thence
walk to Arlempdes, distant but three miles, one of the
most picturesque sites, with one of the most interesting
castles in the Velay. At Goudet itself are the ruined
castles of Goudet and Beaufort. At Arlempdes the
Loire has cut its way through a mass of lava exposing
prismatic columns, and the village is commanded by a
castle flanked by round and square towers on a basaltic
rock above it, and looking down from a sheer precipice
on the Loire that glides below. The summit of the rock
was irregular, and the feudal remains were grouped
about on the platform equally irregularly. The chapel
of Arlempdes is of the twelfth century. The Lac du
Bouchet has been already spoken of. It is visited from
Cayres. It is not the only object worth seeing in that
direction ; three-quarters of a mile ofif the main road
from Le Puy to Langonne at Chacornac are caves
excavated by the hand of man, that served Mandrin as
one of his mints for forged coins. He was a native
of S. Etienne ; his principal factory of coins was at
S. Andr6 on the sea coast, but when disturbed there he
set up his workshop at Chacornac. Caught repeatedly,
he managed to break out of prison again and again, but
finally was broken on the wheel in 1755 at the age of
forty-one. For some time he used an old castle as his
place for coining, first scaring the owner out of it by
spectral appearances and keeping up the idea among
the peasantry around that it was haunted.

Some commotion was caused in the spiritualistic
world in 1903 by stories circulating relative to a haunted
mill at Perbet between Le Puy and S. Front. It was
occupied by a miller, Joubert, and his wife and two
daughters, Marie aged fourteen, and Philom^ne aged

82 THE CEVENNES

twelve. On November 27th, 1902, three peasants were
returning from market at Lausanne, and had reached
the glen of the Aubepine, when they heard startling
noises issue from the mill of Perbet accompanied by
screams of terror, and the bellowing of the cattle in the
stable that was under the same roof Next moment
they saw the miller's wife — he himself was absent at
the time — at the door gesticulating and calling for help.
The men hastened to the door, and beheld the two girls
writhing in convulsions on the floor, the crockery flying
about the kitchen, and the furniture performing a waltz.
Next moment a volley of stones was discharged at their
heads. The men, panic-struck, crossed themselves and
departed to talk about what they had seen. Next day
and during several that followed crowds visited the
ramshackle mill of Perbet, to witness the performances
that continued till the clock, the sacred pictures, the
window-panes, the crockery, every article the poor
dwelling contained, had been reduced to wreckage.
The children were conducted to the parish priest, who
exorcised them, but all to no purpose. The editor of
the Radical VAvenir at Le Puy went to the scene, but
saw none of the performances. He contented himself
with collecting evidence from eye-witnesses, and con-
vinced himself that the phenomena were due to some
supernatural cause.

That the two girls were at the bottom of the diablerie
admitted of no doubt. It was obvious to all. When
they were removed to their uncle's elsewhere, the pheno-
mena ceased at the mill and recommenced in the house
into which they had been received.

Nevertheless it occurred to no one, not even to the free-
thinking editor, that all was due to clever legerdemain.

THE HAUNTED MILL 83

A precisely similar exhibition took place in my own
neighbourhood many years ago, and was investigated
by my father. In this instance there was one girl instead
of two who called the performances into existence.
My father speedily satisfied himself that they were due
to sleight of hand. When a stone flew across the room
and smashed a window every eye was turned in the
direction taken by the projectile, and the girl obtained
thereby an opportunity of providing herself with some-
thing fresh to throw. Plates and bowls were made to
dance by horsehairs which had been attached to them
by dabs of wax.

In the case of the mill of Perbet, it was noticed that
the stones flung were warm, in itself a significant token
that they had been in the hands of the children or
secreted about their persons.

The witnesses at Perbet were doubtless all honourable
men and disposed to speak the truth, but it is open to
question whether there was one among them capable
of observing correctly.

An account of the manifestations at the mill at
Perbet found its way into the transactions of the
Psychical Research Society in London. But one may
say without hesitation that the whole " show was run "
by Marie and Philomene, and that the only spirits re-
sponsible for the disturbance and damage done were
the spirits of the two mischievous girls, who ought to
have been exorcised by the use of a stick across their
backs instead of Latin prayers.

CHAPTER V
L'AUBERGE DE PEYRABEILLE

Roman road — The inn — Pierre Martin, his wife, and man— Haussmann
at the inn — Number of murders committed never known — Claude
Beraud — Assassination of an unknown man — A body boiled — Vincent
Boyer — Murder of an old man — Marriage of the youngest daughter —
Michel Hugon — Robbery of a pedlar woman — Marriage of the eldest
daughter — Murder of Anjolras — Testud and the barrel of bran — Arrest
of the Martins and their man — Difficulty of procuring evidence —
Execution.

TH E story of the Tavern of Peyrabeille is, perhaps,
the most ghastly in the annals of crime, but I
give it here partly because it has been so overladen and
altered by fiction that the facts have disappeared in a
cloud of fable ; mainly because that story reveals, in a
manner nothing else could, some of the characteristics
of the Cevenol peasant.

The facts have been gathered from the archives of
the Court of Justice at Privas, and published there by
M. Paul d'Albigny. But the book is very scarce, long
out of print, and I had great difficulty in procuring a
copy. It is a book of 495 pages, and I shall have to
compress the contents into one chapter.

In the valley of the Ardeche, above Aubenas, at
Pont de la Baume, is a Roman milestone now bearing
a cross on its summit. Above the road tower the ruins
of the castle of Ventadour commanding the valley.

THE LONE TAVERN 85

Both indicate that a great high road of ancient date led
this way. In fact, that road was the main artery of
communication between France proper and Languedoc.
It was up this road that Caesar pressed in his memor-
able winter march when he surprised the Arverni.

The great road came down from Clermont to Le Puy,
passed over the tableland to near the source of the
Ardeche, and followed down that river to Aubenas and
thence into the Rhone valley. At almost the highest
point, 3,850 feet above the sea, in a bleak spot away
from other human habitations, stood a hostelry, Peyra-
beille, at which travellers were almost bound to halt to
refresh or to pass the night. Faujas de Saint Fond, who
was almost the first man to draw attention to the
volcanic phenomena of the district, visited Peyrabeille
in or about 1770, and he wrote : " There is no habitation
so isolated as this inn ; and not a year passes that
solitary travellers do not find their safety in this
shelter." If he had lived seventy years later he would
not have used the same flattering language about it, for
after that the family of Martin-Blanc took the tavern ;
for twenty-five years it became a murderous den, in
which the travellers who lodged there were robbed and
sent to their long rest. It was never known how many
were there murdered, but it was believed that some sixty
had become the victims of Pierre Martin, his wife, and
his serving-man, and with what was taken from them
the taverner bought up land and extended his posses-
sions on all sides. Not till 1833 was this murderous
band convicted and guillotined beside the inn, the scene
of their crimes.

Pierre Martin, called also Blanc, with his wife Marie,
came first of all as tenant farmer to a man named

86 THE CEVENNES

Beyraud, in a small habitation near the inn, in or about
1802. They had two daughters, Jeanne, born in 1800,
and Marguerite, born after they came to this farm, in
1805. Martin and his wife did well there, by what
means we do not know, but he speedily grew so easy in
his circumstances that he purchased a site and land of
Beyraud, and built a new inn which was completed in
1808.

This building still stands, very slightly altered. It is
a long, low structure of granite and lava, with a huge
stable, coachhouse, and loft over it adjoining. The
front door from the road gave access to the kitchen,
dimly lighted by one small hole of a window. In this
kitchen was a large fireplace, beside which was the stair-
case leading to the upper floor, where were the principal
bedrooms. On the left a door gave access to the
salle-a-manger, lighted by two small windows. Beyond
this was a washhouse, within it a huge oven in which
Martin and his wife cremated the bodies of their
victims. It must have been contrived for this purpose
when the house was built, for it could serve no other, and
since their time it has been destroyed. There was and
is still an oven for domestic purposes in the kitchen.
Behind this range of apartments was the bedroom of the
Martins, husband and wife, adjoining it that of the two
daughters and the servant-man Jean Rochette, and in
rear of the washhouse a cellar. From the kitchen
access was obtained by a door to the coachhouse. The
vast stable had a door on to the road, and another at
the further end. Above the stable the hayloft was
reached by a sloping ascent from the ground. In the
upper story of the dwelling-house were four bedrooms
opening out of a wide passage in which was a fold-up

THE MARTINS 87

cupboard bed, and from which a doorway led into the
hayloft.

Pierre Martin, towards the end of his life, had an
appearance somewhat patriarchal, with long flowing
hair almost white. He had a high colour in his cheeks,
and was a short, thick-set man. His forehead was
retreating, his mouth firm. In manner he was unctuous,
and he affected to be gracious.

His wife Marie, or Marion as commonly called, was a
woman of avaricious, violent character, with a strength
of will and decision capable of urging on her husband
and servant to the worst deeds. Their servant, Jean
Rochette, was born in 1785 ; he was a strongly built
man, with auburn hair, large bright eyes, and a face at
variance with the ferocity of his character ; he was aged
forty-eight when executed.

The new inn at Peyrabeille (the Old Stone) was
much frequented, lying on the main road from
Clermont and Le Puy to Aubenas and Viviers, con-
sequently linked with the Rhone valley as also with
Langonne, the great cattle market for the farmers and
cattle-breeders of the Margeride ; merchants, dealers,
colporteurs passed and repassed it, and as habitations
were few and inns still fewer, and such as there were of
the most wretched description, Peyrabeille could not
be gone by without some refreshment being taken
there, and in stormy and cold weather the blazing fire
kept up in the kitchen out of wood from the forest of
Bauzon lured travellers to stay.

Baron Haussmann, in his Memoirs^ relates a visit
made to this inn in 1832. He was then sous-prefet of
Yssingeaux : —

"It was six o'clock at night. We decided reluctantly to

88 THE CEVENNES

stay anywhere for the night, dine, and rest our horses. We
halted at a lonely inn at the crossing of two roads on a bleak
plateau of most melancholy appearance. Darkness settled
down, and the stars did not suffice to show the way. We
were reluctantly induced to spend the night there. But it
was stifling in the kitchen, which served also as salle-a-manger
and as salon, and to take a breath of air we had opened the
door, which the host had already barricaded. A light appeared
between the mountains, and we soon became aware that the
moon was about to rise. The prospect of escaping from beds
of doubtful cleanliness to go elsewhere to rest where less
suspicious, made us, late as it was, determine to proceed. We
ordered our horses to be saddled, turning a deaf ear to the
solicitations of our hosts, whom we urged to draw up our bill.
Midnight struck when we arrived, greatly exhausted, at Le Puy."

Eight months later the papers rang with news of the
arrest of the host and hostess and servant of the inn
for repeated murders of their guests, whose bodies they
burned in an oven. Among those who had disappeared
was a stout cattle-dealer whom Haussmann and his
companion had that night met in the tavern, and with
whom they had held discussion.

It is doubtful whether the Martins would have ven-
tured to assassinate two men so well known as Hauss-
mann and his comrade, M. Dumoulin. Possibly, had
they stayed the night, it would have saved the life of
the cattle-dealer.

The Martins were cautious to treat well and leave
unmolested persons of some condition, whose dis-
appearance would rouse inquiry. Moreover, they did
not always assassinate their victims in the house, but
waylaid them at a distance, and disposed of the bodies
in lava chasms or snow-drifts.

CLAUDE BERAUD 89

Only a fraction of their misdeeds came to light. At
their trial such cases alone were brought up against
them of which evidence was procurable to convict.
Indubitably other persons were involved, sending in-
formation of intending lodgers well furnished with
money, in advance of the arrival of the guests. Further-
more, Andr6 Martin, the nephew, aged thirty-five, was
acquitted, although no doubt whatever existed that he
had assisted in some of the murders. I will give a
summary of the cases proved against the Martins and
their man.

In 1808 Europe was the theatre of considerable wars,
there was the continental blockade, the war in Spain and
Portugal. The difficulties with Rome obliged Napoleon
to raise 27o,ocxD conscripts, torn from their families to
lay their bones on foreign battlefields. The dislike to
conscription caused many young men to retire into
hiding away from their homes, and others to desert
after enrolment. These were the object of incessant
research by the imperial gendarmerie. Among such
was a young fellow of twenty called Claude Beraud,
son of well-to-do parents near Le Puy, who had already
lost one son at Jena, and another was with the army of
occupation of Naples, but had not been heard of for
long. His parents furnished Claude with money sewn
into a leather belt he was to wear next his skin, and
bade him hide till the search was over. One winter
night, in 1808, this unfortunate young man came to the
inn at Peyrabeille and asked to be taken in. Snow
was falling, and a storm raging. He was received, and
incautiously told his hosts what he was and that he
was well supplied with money. They made up for him
a roaring fire, and gave him hot spiced wine as he sat

90 THE CEVENNES

over it. The change from the cold without to the heat
within made him drowsy, and as he nodded, Pierre
Martin struck the leg of his chair and upset the youth,
about whose neck Rochette at once slipped a thong
and strangled him. The body was searched, the belt
taken off, and the pockets emptied. From the belt
350 francs were taken ; from the pockets a peculiarly
ornamented knife, which Jean Rochette appropriated,
and a watch from which hung a piece of cornelian in
the form of a disc. It was by identifying these latter
articles twenty-five years later that the parents of
Claude first learned his fate.

When he was dead, Pierre Martin and the serving-
man carried the body to a distance, leaving a little
loose silver in the pocket, and threw it into a snow-
drift that filled a ditch. Not till late in the spring was
the corpse found, and then it was so disfigured by
wolves that identification was impossible, and the
money in the pocket led the police to suppose that the
death was due to accident.

In the month of July, 18 12, Jean Rochette received
news through a wagoner who halted at the inn that a
stranger, presumedly a merchant and well-to-do, was
on his way thither, and might or might not spend the
night at Peyrabeille. He was riding on an apple-grey
horse with a long tail, and had holsters to his saddle
with pistols in them.

At six o'clock in the evening this man arrived,
looked at the tavern, and not relishing its appearance
was pushing on, when Jeanne, then aged fourteen, ran
out, and standing before the horse, entreated the man
to make proof of her mother's kitchen ; at the same
time Rochette came out and joined in persuading him

THE TRAVELLER MURDERED 91

to alight. The traveller was on his way, he said, to
Pradelles, and could not reach it till well on in the
night. The merchant allowed himself to be persuaded,
and surrendered the horse to the servant, who took it
to the stables and at once removed the pistols from
their cases. The stranger, whose name never transpired,
remained in the inn and dined there ; he did not leave
till eight o'clock, when night was falling. He had not
observed that whilst he was at his meal the two men,
Martin and his servant, had disappeared.

After departing, he had gone some way on the road
to Pradelles, when from a coppice the host and Rochette
leaped out on him, and Martin dealt him a blow with
a cudgel on the back of his head which sent him from
his horse. Martin then laid hold of the bridle and bade
his man finish the stranger. So soon as the traveller
was dead he was robbed, despoiled of most of his
clothes, and then the body flung across the saddle, the
horse led to a great distance, and the corpse thrown into
a cleft in the rock, and pieces of granite heaped upon it.

Some days later a couple of poachers after a fox
pursued the animal till it took refuge in this very cleft,
and in removing the stones to reach it discovered the
dead man. The tidings of what had been found was
buzzed about, but the police acted in such leisurely
fashion that they did not go to the spot till three days
after its discovery, and then — the body had disappeared.
Pierre Martin had removed and cremated it in his oven.
He took the horse, after having docked its tail, to
Le Puy to sell it at a fair, but a dealer there seemed
to recognise it, and asked inconvenient questions, so
Martin hastily left, and he and Rochette killed the
beast and buried it.

92 THE CEVENNES

In the same year a farmer named Brisac, living at no
great distance, having sold some hay to Pierre Martin,
went one morning very early, as dawn was breaking,
to claim his money. On reaching Peyrabeille his sur-
prise was great to see a strong light gleaming from the
crevices of the door and the curtained window. He
knocked with his stick, but only after some delay did
a voice from within ask who he was and what he
wanted. He stated his business ; the woman Martin
opened, and seemed to be somewhat disconcerted and
in a very bad temper. The morning was raw, and
Brisac went to the hearth, where he saw it piled up
into faggots, making a huge blaze about a cauldron sus-
pended in the flames, and the ebullition was so great
that the lid of the cauldron was in constant agitation
to emit the steam. At the same time, whatever was
boiling sent forth a peculiar and disagreeable odour, as
from something decayed.

Pierre Martin and his wife were obviously impatient
to be rid of their creditor, and Pierre left the room to
fetch the money that was due. Brisac seized the oppor-
tunity as Marie Martin's back was turned to lift the lid
of the cauldron, and to his horror beheld a human
hand. As he dropped the lid Pierre re-entered, ob-
served what he had done, and fixing his eyes on
Brisac, said to him sternly : " Here is your money. Be
off, and take care that not a word as to what you have
seen here passes your lips. If you forget my warning,
you are a lost man."

Brisac took the money and fled the house, and never
again set foot across its threshold. Such, however, is
the cowardice of the peasant, his fear of compromising
himself, his shyness of having anything to do with the

VINCENT BOYER 93

police, that it was not till the Martins were in prison
that he ventured to relate what he had seen, and he
appeared in court with his evidence only when it was
certain that they could do him no harm. The next
case illustrates this timidity even more clearly. I will
quote the deposition of the witness textually. It is
that of Vincent Boyer, tinner, aged twenty-nine.

" One day, in the winter of 1824, I was going to my family
at Aubenas, when I was surprised by the bad weather (the
land was covered with snow), and I was forced to stay at the
Martins' inn at Peyrabeille. I saw several persons there,
notably an old man also delayed by the bad weather and
forced to pass the night there. Martin's wife having invited
me to draw near to the fire, entered into conversation with me,
and questioned me on my gains in my trade, and as to how
much money I had with me. She told me that there was a
band of robbers in the neighbourhood, and she asked me
what I would do if attacked by them. ' I would give up to
them the thirty sous I have with me and be off.' ' But,'
said she, 'supposing that they were disposed to kill another
man and let you alone, what would you do?' 'I would
defend him at the peril of my life if I saw there was a chance
of saving him. If not, I would let be.' 'Are you a heavy
sleeper ? ' ' Very. When once asleep you might remove the
house without awaking me.'

"This strange questioning frightened me; I saw clearly
enough into what company I had got. However, I did my
best to disguise my suspicions. After having catechised me,
the woman Martin went to the old man and asked him the
cause of his journey. He replied without mistrust that he
had sold a cow and was taking the money back with him. This
lack of reticence further alarmed me.

" Bed -time arrived. The people of the house told us
plainly enough to go to our respective chambers aloft. Then

94 THE CEVENNES

only did some suspicion cross the mind of the old man, and
he asked to share the same room with me, but this was peremp-
torily refused.

" They led us to our separate bedrooms at some little dis-
tance apart. I heard the old man make some demur as to
his, and a voice replied : ' Manage as you will. There is no
other room for you.' Then I heard the door of his chamber
shut, and whoever had led him to his room descended. One of
the girls had conducted me to my chamber, and she recom-
mended me not to leave my door open, speaking in a tone
that expressed an order.

" As soon as the girl Martin had left I examined my bed,
and was horrified to find on the bolster splashes of blood as
big as the bottom of a pail. I went to bed more dead than
alive. At the end of about an hour some one entered my
room, thinking that I was aleep — I made good pretence that
I was so — and searched my pockets, and finding in them no
more than the thirty sous, left them there and descended again

" Two or three hours later I heard strokes at the old man's
door, and a voice call, ' Get up, it is time.' There was, how-
ever, no response. Then those who had made this noise
went back below, but returned in half an hour. They knocked
again at the door, repeating the words as before. But seeing
that the stranger persisted in reftising to reply, they burst in
the door. Immediately I heard cries of ' Help ! Help ! ' But
soon the victim uttered no more articulate cries, but such as
I can only liken to the squeals of a pig that is being killed.
During the accomplishment of the crime — that is to say, whilst
the unhappy man was uttering these cries of distress — the two
Martin girls, aged twenty-eight and thirty, were keeping guard
at my door, laughing in fits and singing. I could compare
them only to demons from hell.

" Next morning I rose late, to give the scoundrels time to
conceal their crime, and by this means make it safer for myself.
The woman Martin asked me how I had slept and if I had

MARGUERITE'S MARRIAGE 95

heard anything. I said that I had been sound asleep all
night. I was so frightened, that when I had got a hundred
paces from the house I ran the rest of my way as hard as my
legs could carry me."

This self-revelation of abject cowardice and meanness
in a young man drew from the judges no comment. It
was in the nature of the peasant to be such, and com-
ment would be useless. Only they remarked on Boyer
having said nothing of what had occurred to the police
or any one else for fourteen years. But this also was
characteristic.

By means of repeated crimes Pierre Martin had
amassed a good deal of money. He bought more land
to round off his property, also another house, at a few
paces from his own. He was also able to announce
that he would give a handsome dot with each of his
daughters. This brought a suitor, Philemon Pertuis, son
of a well-to-do farmer, above the Martins in position, to
ask the hand of Marguerite. They were married, and
installed in the house that Pierre had bought. Young
Pertuis was a mild, inoffensive man. There is no
evidence that he took any part in the crimes, but he
became aware of them, and cautioned his father-in-law
to be more circumspect ; and finally, in 1830, four years
after his marriage, quitted the house and went to a
distance so as to avoid implication in the misdeeds of
the old man and his wife. He also said nothing to the
police or to any one else of what he knew or suspected.

In 1826, just two months after the marriage, another
crime was attempted, that came to light later.

A farmer, named Michel Hugon, was at the fair at
Jaujac, where he sold a drove of young bullocks. He
was annoyed at being followed and watched by a little

96 THE CEVENNES

hunchback named Pannard, who endeavoured to get
into conversation with him and learn where he intended
to pass the night on his way home to Pradelles. He
curtly informed him that he would sleep at the house of
a friend at Mayres.

Hugon was on his way home when he was passed by
Pannard riding a mountain pony, and going the same
way as himself. In fact, the hunchback was on the
road to Peyrabeille to announce to the Martins that
some good game was coming to their net. After sleep-
ing at Mayres, Hugon pursued his journey on the
following morning, and halted at the inn of the Martins
to breakfast, but saw none there save the women.
When about to leave, Marie Martin strongly advised
him to take a short cut which she pointed out, and which
would save him over a mile. Without suspicion he
followed her directions, and had gone some way, when
out of the bushes leaped Pierre Martin and Jean
Rochette, armed with picks ; and the former with his
weapon dealt a blow at Hugon that cut his head open and
wounded his back, but happily failed to stun him or split
his skull. The farmer at once whirled his cudgel and
struck Martin under the knee with such force as to bring
him to the ground. Rochette, who was behind, yelled to
his master, " Strike on ! strike on ! " But Pierre was un-
able to rise for a moment, and Hugon took to his
heels and ran before Jean could deal him another blow.
Pierre got up now, and he and Rochette pursued the
farmer, who fled and did not draw breath till he reached
the high road on which were passengers, and where he
felt himself safe. He also breathed not a word of his
adventure and escape till the Martins were under lock
and key. Not long after this Pannard was arrested on a

ROBBERY OF THE PEDLAR 97

charge of theft and imprisoned for six months. In gaol
he opened his mouth and complained to his fellow-
prisoners that he had helped the innkeeper at Peyra-
beille to do a good stroke of business, and that he had
not been paid for his assistance ; for he could not
believe that Hugon had escaped with his money. This
got spoken of Moreover, ugly rumours began to circu-
late relative to the tavern, but no one was willing to
speak out and lay a definite charge against the Martins.

The attempt on Hugon was in May. In June of
the same year a pedlar-woman, named Catherine
Vercasson, on a very hot day, came to the inn and
showed her wares to the Martin girls and their mother,
in the hopes that they would purchase. They bought
a few trifles, and then Catherine locked her box with a
key that she carried suspended to her belt. As she was
hot and tired, she asked leave to lie down on a bed for
a rest. This was readily accorded. She was given a
tumbler of drugged wine, and led to one of the upper
rooms, where she was soon fast asleep. As she lay un-
conscious Jeanne Martin possessed herself of the key,
opened the box, and took from it several articles of
jewellery, and the mother relieved the pedlar's purse of
some of its contents.

Catherine Vercasson woke after a long sleep and
unsuspiciously went on her way, but had not gone far
before she sat down to count her money, when to her
alarm she found that she had been robbed of two louis
d'or. She went into the nearest village to sell more of
her goods, and, on opening her box, found that that also
had been rifled. She was now positive that she had
been pillaged at Peyrabeille. She confided her distress
to the innkeeper at Lanarce, the village where she was.

98 THE CEVENNES

He shrugged his shoulders and bade her put a good face
on it, and not venture back to reclaim the money and
goods. But Catherine was not disposed to accept her
losses so easily, and with great difficulty she induced
two young men to accompany her to Peyrabeille. They
went with her, but no persuasion would induce them to
enter the house. The determined woman went in and
charged the mother and daughters with the theft, which
they stoutly denied. " I will not leave till I receive my
money and goods," said she. The women exchanged
glances, and the mother bade one of her daughters go
out and fetch Pierre and the servant. The girl returned
in haste to say that two men were watching the house,
but hiding their faces so as not to be recognised. Under
these circumstances the three women deemed it expe-
dient to restore the major part of what they had taken,
and to pretend that the whole was a practical joke.
The story got wind, and increased the suspicion with
which the Martins were regarded.

In 183 1, the eldest of the daughters was married to a
man named Deleyrolles, he also occupying a better
social position than the Martins ; he was drawn to
ask for her by the rich dot that went with her, and he
took his wife with him to Vans.

One would have supposed that now all reason for
amassing money by crime was taken away. The
Martins had no more children for whom to save, and
they were very comfortably off themselves. But avarice
is insatiable.

Other crimes and attempted crimes I will pass over,
to come to the last which led to the arrest of the
Martins and their man.

In October, 1831, an old man of seventy-two, named

ANOTHER MURDER 99

Anjolras, a relative of Pierre Martin, had sold to him a
cow at the fair at S. Cirgues, and as he wanted his
money asked Martin to pay for it at once. The
taverner said he had not the sum by him, but invited
Anjolras to accompany him to Peyrabeille, where he
would give him what was owed. The old man con-
sented, and went with his kinsman to the fatal inn,
which they reached at nightfall.

There were in the house at the time Andr6, the
nephew of Pierre Martin, and a girl named Marie
Arnaud, the betrothed of Andre, engaged there at
needlework, a pale, serious-faced girl, whose part in
what follows is difficult to discover. There was also in
the house at the time a beggar named Laurent Chaze,
who had asked to be taken in for the night. Pierre
Martin, as soon as he entered, demanded roughly what
this fellow wanted, and when Chaze stated his require-
ments he was bidden be off, there was no bed at his
disposal. Chaze went forth into the dark, walked some
way along the road, then bethought himself of the
hayloft, stole back, and finding the loft door unbarred
went in and concealed himself in a corner beneath the
hay. When bedtime arrived, under some excuse the
host induced Anjolras to sleep in the loft and not in
one of the bedrooms, and the beggar heard Martin
bring his kinsman in and point out a place where he
could lie, near the door of communication with the
house. About an hour later Chaze saw Jean Rochette
with a lamp enter and examine Anjolras to ascertain if
he were asleep. Then he descended, but returned with
Marie Martin, she carrying a large iron ladle full of
scalding soup. Having satisfied themselves that the
old man was sound, she said to Jean Rochette, " Strike ! "

loo THE CEVENNES

and he brought a hammer down on the sleeper's head.
As Anjolras started and opened his mouth she threw
the scalding contents of the ladle into it. The old
man fell. " Strike again," said the woman, " he is not
dead yet." Jean obeyed till the skull was beaten in.

Before dawn the beggar had fled the scene.

The disappearance of Anjolras caused a commotion,
and search was made for him in all directions. It was
heard that he had been last seen along with Pierre
Martin on his way to Payrabeille.

The murder had been committed on the night of the
1 2th October. On the 25th, thirteen days after, the
authorities began to bestir themselves, and as every
trace pointed to the inn, the Mayor of Lanarce, accom-
panied by a party of young men, went to Peyrabeille
to institute inquiries. On entering the kitchen, Marie
Martin informed him that the Juge de Paix of Cou-
couron was already there in the parlour, and would
speak with him. No one knew what passed between
these magistrates, but presently the mayor came out
and said to his attendants : " Gentlemen, you may
depart, there is nothing to be done " ; and, in fact, nothing
was done. No search was made ; some politenesses
passed between the two officials and the hostess, and
they retired with bows. Yet the corpse, all the while,
was within a few yards of the house. It was discovered
in a startling manner.

Philemon Pertuis, son-in-law of the Martins, who had
left the house in which he had been for a few years at
Peyrabeille, had retained the little farm about it, and
employed the sheds and stable and cellars for his
crops, etc.

One day he sent his servant, Jean Testud, with a

MURDER OF ANJOLRAS loi

tumbril to fetch away his potatoes that were in the
cellar. Testud went in with a lamp and saw in a corner
a barrel of bran. He was aware of an unpleasant smell
in the cellar, which he could not explain. On one of his
journeys the lamp went out, and he returned to grope
for it. In so doing he put his hand into the barrel and
encountered the cold remains of a human body. Frozen
with horror, he staggered to the inn, sank in a chair,
and said he was ill, and must go home to his parents
at Banne.

Pierre Martin and his wife were uneasy. They went
to the cellar and found there the lamp of Testud, and
at once saw that the corpse must be removed. This was
done during the night on the back of a mule, and was
conveyed to a precipice at Lesperon and flung over it, so
as to give an idea that Anjolras had fallen accidentally.

The body was discovered on October 26th, was
identified and examined, and it was soon seen that
this was no case of an accidental fall, but of murder.
On November ist, Martin and his wife and his nephew
Andre, and after that Jean Rochette, were arrested, but
were not brought to trial for three years, as the prosecu-
tion met with extraordinary difficulty in getting together
evidence against them, so timorous were the peasants,
so afraid of appearing in court and being subjected to
cross-questioning, and of incurring the resentment of
the relatives of the Martins, who were numerous. The
two daughters were not arrested. Nothing could be
wrung from the girl Marie Arnaud, who preserved
throughout remarkable self-possession and self-restraint.
Andre, as already said, was acquitted, but Pierre and
his wife and Jean Rochette were guillotined close to
the inn on October 2nd, 1833.

I02 THE CEVENNES

Pierre Martin affected to be penitent, made loud
professions of remorse. Rochette was sullenly penitent,
but Marion literally kicked the prison chaplain out of
the cart in which he purposed attending her to the
gallows, was resentful and hardened to the last, and
when, on the scaffold, another priest held up the crucifix
before her eyes as she was being bound to be placed
under the fatal knife, she turned away her face from it
with a scowl.

Vast crowds attended the execution, and when the
bloody scene was over and the scaffold removed, the
crowd spent the rest of the day till late into the night
dancing over the spot where the blood had flowed, to
the strains of a piper, whilst the old folks got fuddled
over the liquor from the cellar of the inn, sold to them
by the nearest relatives of the Martins, who had
inherited it through the execution a few hours previ-
ously. To Peyrabeille may be applied the words of
Jules Claretie, relative to Paris after the Terror : " II
y avait encore dans Paris une odeur de sang, et Paris
cependant s'ammusait ; folle de joie."

CHAPTER VI

LES BOUTIERES

Geological formation — Characteristics of the Boutieres and of the people —
S. Peray and its wine— Castle of Crussol — Valley of the Erieux — A
masterpiece of engineering — La Voute — Its decay — The chapel of the
castle — Vernoux, the Geneva of the Huguenots — The Momiens — Party
feeling — Massacre of S. Bartholomew — La Pourasse — The Cachard
family — The drummer — Gorge of the Dunniere — La Tourette —
Chalen9on — Diana of Poitiers — Le Cheylard.

E3 BOUTIERES have already had some sentences
devoted to them. They differ geologically, and
consequently in scenery, altogether from the high range
of volcanic peaks of the mountains of the Vivarais
below Privas. They are composed of granite and
gneiss, and continue the Cevennes chain northwards.
There are among them no craters, no floods of crystal-
lised lava. Their heights are not extraordinary ; they
throw out long lateral spurs towards the Rhone. The
scenery is tamer than in any other part of the Cevennes ;
that portion from Annonay to S. Etienne is given up to
factories, which makes the country people prosperous
but the country unattractive.

But from Annonay south to Privas there is pleasant
if not fine scenery, and it is very rarely visited.

" It is," says Dr. Francus (A. Mazon), " a land that has a
stamp of its own ; its mountains, its agriculture, its customs,
even its religion are peculiar to it. A land of steep slopes,

103

I04 THE CEVENNES

boisterous rivers, rude summits, with pines above and chestnut
trees below, with Biblical types of men, bullet-headed, and
with brains not altogether like other men's brains. Nature
herself puts on a severe countenance; the woods look like
gloomy conspirators, the wind seems to chant psalms, and
with a little imagination it is possible to fancy that one hears
a far-off echo of some Assembly of the Desert that Time has
forgotten to sweep away in its onward march."

Looking westward from Valence is seen the little
town of S. Peray, and towering above it the ruined
castle of Crussol on a limestone cliff,

S. Peray is famous, with a limited fame, for its spark-
ling wine.

The white wine of S. Peray always had a certain
celebrity. The wine merchants of Burgundy and
Champagne, seeing that very good juice of the grape
was to be had there cheap, bought it up and sold it as
their own crus, or else doctored it. They purchased
whole vintages at the time of the gathering in and
crushing of the grape, and by means of the navigation
of the Rhone and Saone, were able to bring them into
the heart of France.

But after a while the owners of the vineyards of
S. Peray saw their way to selling direct to the con-
sumer. In 1798 one of them discovered the secret how
to make the wine effervesce, and he set to work to
produce sparkling S. Peray, which soon obtained great
favour.

The phylloxera came in 1874 and devastated the
vineyards. But they have been replanted with stocks
from America, grafted with the indigenous vine, and
these are strong and flourishing, and yield abundantly,
the wine somewhat coarse at first, but mellowing as

CRUSSOL 105

the vine becomes more and more accustomed to the
soil.

The huge crag surmounted by the ruins of the castle
of Crussol is extensively quarried. The stone is of a
fawn colour, and receives a polish. The huge castle,
with its rifted donjon called the Horns of Crussol, at
one time contained a town within its enclosure. Now,
all is ruin.

The family of Crussol was not of much note till
Louis de Crussol gained the favour of Louis XL, and
was appointed governor of Dauphine, The son married
the heiress of Uzes, and with her the title of viscount
passed to their son Charles, whose son Antoine was
created Duke of Uzes. The ruined castle belongs still
to the Uzes family.

The castle was destroyed by Richelieu in 1623.

In my book, In Troubadour Land^ I have told the
story of how the Uzes race sprang from a strolling
company of three travelling comedian brothers, and so
will not here repeat it. On a terrace above the Miolan
that enters the Rhone at S. Peray is the castle of Beau-
regard, formerly a State prison, now a cafe restaurant
with a speciality in tripe. So the whirligig of Time
brings about its revenges.

The most interesting excursion among the Bouti^res
is up the valley of the Erieux, that takes its rise above
S. Agreve. It is a capricious river, at one time a small
stream, at another a boiling torrent. In the great flood
of 1876 it rose forty feet, and rolled down three times
the amount of water that does the Seine at Paris. It
brings with it from the granite particles of gold, but not
in sufficient amount to make it worth while searching
for the precious metal.

io6 THE CEVENNES

The line up the valley is a masterpiece of engineer-
ing ; in places it is carried in cornice along the face of
the gorge, now cut out of the rock, and now on a
terrace built up on arches. The river enters the Rhone
a couple of miles above La Voute, but the junction of
the line to Le Cheylard is at this place. La Voute sur
Rhone is an ancient town planted at the foot of and
scrambling up a rock crowned with the ruins of a castle
of the great family of Ventadour. The old town, with
its tortuous streets, its venerable but crumbling houses,
its steep, ladder-like ascent, is almost deserted, life has
run down and settled in modern houses at the foot.
But even the new town is death-struck.

The iron mines which made the place prosperous,
and in 1870 yielded 60,000 tons of ore, produced but
12,683 tons in 1891, and in the following year only
520; and now, none. Ruin has fallen on La Voute,
and it is doubtful if it will ever recover. In the old
castle of the Ventadours was set up the bureau of the
company that worked the mines. Now the offices are
ruinous and deserted, like the halls and towers of the
feudal princes.

The fortress was begun in 13 19, and enlarged and
made splendid in 1582. Ichabod ! Its glory is departed.
The beautiful Renaissance chapel with its marbles and
sculpture is crumbling away. The chapel is vaulted
with delicate ribs, and against the walls are carved a
Resurrection and statues of the Duke and Duchess
of Ventadour. But all, sculptured capitals of pilasters,
dainty cornices, figures, have suffered under the hammers
of the Revolutionary fanatics.

In the valley of Erieux, where it opens out, vineyards
have been staged up the mountain sides, in narrow

PROTESTANT VERNOUX 107

walled terraces, with infinite labour, and where there
are not vines there are chestnuts and cherry trees. At
S. Fortunat, the Duniere enters the Erieux, and hence
a road leads to Vernoux, the Geneva of the Protestants
of Upper Ardeche. It is mainly occupied by descen-
dants of the Huguenots, but there are Catholics as well,
living in a separate quarter. The Protestants are much
divided among themselves. One sect is that of the
Momiens, whose head-quarters are S. Agreve and
Vernoux. They represent the original Huguenots far
more truly than those who call themselves Evangelicals,
for these latter have lapsed into Freethought, Indiffer-
ence, Agnosticism, and the best are Deists. The
Momiens do not attend the " Temples Protestants,"
but hold their assemblies in the open air, in fact have
camp meetings. Every one brings his provisions with
him ; they have exercises of prayer, psalm-singing, and
exhortation, and then all dine peaceably under the
chestnut trees. They come into town only on Sundays
and market-days, and do not frequent the public-
houses. They have the character of being scrupulously
honest.

Many of the Evangelicals never attend public wor-
ship. Out of eleven thousand inhabitants of Vernoux,
about eight thousand are Protestants ; they are able,
accordingly, to engross all the offices and determine the
elections. Conversions one way or the other are most
rare, perhaps four or five in thirty years, and these only
on account of marriages. The Protestant young men
are desirous of getting Catholic wives, as the girls of
this latter confession have a better moral character —
being more carefully looked after by the clergy and
sisters than are the others ; but the cures in every way

io8 THE CEVENNES

oppose mixed marriages, which is a mistake, for no
more effective missionary can be found than a God-
fearing, consistent wife.

Unhappily party feeling runs strong. An old cure of
Vernoux named Chifflet, with the help of a M. Demars,
who was a large contributor, founded a hospital, and
when it was complete handed it over to the town for
general use without regard to denomination. At once
the town council elected a governing board, from which
it excluded the principal donor, M. Demars, because he
was a Catholic, and struck off the name of M. Lanthois,
the only Protestant in the place who had given a sou
towards the hospital.

So when the Calvinist temple wanted rebuilding
a rate was imposed on all the citizens, and the Catho-
lics had to contribute as well as the Evangelicals.
But when the Catholics desired to erect a church
for themselves a rate was refused. If the propor-
tions had been the other way on, without a doubt the
Catholics would have acted with precisely the same
intolerance.

As a cure said to me the other day : " Live and let
live is not a principle we understand in France, and
never have. We who are bullied to-day, if we get the
upper hand to-morrow would bully in our turn."

Charles IX. could not have made a more grateful
present to French Protestantism than the massacre of
S. Bartholomew. It is to them a perpetual and cherished
grievance. They would not be without it any more than
a professional mendicant would be without his sore.
The massacre is introduced into every sermon, alluded
to in every contingency, thrown in the face of a Catholic
in every dispute, flourished even at a wedding-breakfast.

LA POURASSE 109

A Calvinist infant is brought up on it. It is the first
historic fact he has to acquire, and often when grown to
man's estate is the only historic fact that he remembers.
The massacre has been so rubbed into the minds of the
Evangelicals that they cannot look in the face of their
fellow-citizens of the other persuasion except through
blood-red glass.

This temper sometimes produces vexatious results.
In a village in the Boutieres, where the meeting-house
happened to possess a bell, one Sunday an old woman
went to sleep during the discourse, and did not wake
when the congregation dispersed ; and being over-
looked, was locked in. When she roused from her
slumber, she went to the bell-rope and pulled long and
hard. At the sound of the tocsin all the Protestants
within hearing were roused. Now at last the long-
expected massacre was coming off. Women and
children fled to the woods. The men barricaded their
houses, loaded their rifles, and prepared to sell their lives
dearly. The bell pealed on, every scrap of courage
save among the most heroic sank to their stocking-soles,
when the old woman, having failed to summon relief,
took to relieving herself from her situation by flinging
the rope out of a window and crawling down it.
Parturiunt monies nascetur ridiculus mus.

In 1885, when at the election for the Legislature
the Conservative list passed in its entirety, the
Protestants of Les Boutieres were so impressed with
the revival of Catholic hopes and their successes that
one of these panics fell on them. Indeed, they have
a name for such, la pourasse.

Before the outbreak of the Revolution there were
many little nobles and landed gentry in the country

no THE CEVENNES

whose chateaux are now in ruins or turned into farm-
houses. They lived sociably, giving dances, meeting
for shooting-parties or games of tennis.

One of these was the Monsieur de Cachard. On
June 24th, 1786, he gave a dance to his neighbours, but
found a difficulty in getting musicians. He applied to
the garrison at Valence, and was offered the drummer of
the regiment, who could also play the fife, and courte-
ously he extended the invitation to any of the officers
who would care to take a part in the entertainment.
A young lieutenant accepted, his name was Napoleon
Bonaparte, and he brought with him the drummer,
Victor Beausoleil. Towards the conclusion of the ball,
M. de Cachard went to the musician and asked how he
could repay his services. " Only by letting me have
a dance with mademoiselle your daughter." " By all
means," replied the master of the house, and Beausoleil
led out the young lady.

The Revolution came. The family of Cachard was
dispersed ; some were guillotined, some emigrated.
At the Restoration, the head of the family went to
Paris to solicit the restitution of some of the confiscated
and sold estates. He solicited an audience with Marshal
Victor, Duke of Belluno, minister of war. No sooner
was he introduced, than the Duke started forward,
grasped his hand and said : " Monsieur ! we have not
met since Midsummer Day, 1786, when I piped, and had
the honour to dance with mademoiselle." The minister
was, in fact, the drummer from Valence. He interested
himself in the case and obtained for M. de Cachard the
recovery of the ancient chateau and a portion of his
lands. The Duke was wont to joke over his title. " As
a drummer-boy I was Beausoleil. I have lost, not

LA TOURETTE iii

gained, by becoming a duke, for now I am only Belluno
(Belle Lune)."

The river Duniere sweeps past Vernoux, and the
road from S. Fortunat to this town presents a succes-
sion of striking scenes. The gorge through which the
Duniere enters the Erieux has precipitous sides, above
which the mountains rise bare, or but meagrely dotted
with evergreen oaks, that grow low and stunted.
Below rolls, leaps, and foams the torrent. In the con-
tracted throat of Pontpierre, after the bursting of storms
in the Cevennes, the water rises and writhes to escape,
and issues from it into the valley of the Erieux as from
a spout. The road follows the edge of the chasm as
far as Roumezoux, after which the hills fall back and
allow of cultivation. Then again they contract, but the
gorge is less savage, and is commanded on the left bank
by one of the noblest ruins in the Vivarais. The Duniere
flowing from the east receives a torrent descending from
the north, and at this point rises a mighty crag on the
top of which two lofty towers stand out sharply against
the sky. They belong to the castle of La Tourette,
close to Vernoux. According to popular tradition it
was built by the Saracens ; it was the feudal centre of
the district and occupied by a Marquess de La Tourette.
The castle was intact till the Revolution, and was a
scene of much hospitality extended to the bourgeoisie
of Vernoux, who danced in the great hall, hung with
stamped and gilded leather. At the Revolution the
castle was unroofed and ruin set in rapidly, as every one
who wanted to build a pigsty or a factory used its walls
as a quarry. Happily of late years the family of La
Tourette, that has its residence at Tournon, has re-
purchased the eagle nest of its ancestors and has put

112 THE CEVENNES

a stop to the destruction. From its isolated rock the
castle was connected by a drawbridge with a terrace,
beyond which was the farm, a building of the sixteenth
century, that had not been molested. The terrace is
sustained by a wall and was originally planted with
trees, and must have been a delightful walk, suspended
above the precipice, and from which one could look down
on the birds of prey darting and fluttering in the depths,
and which also had their habitations in these rocks.

In 1 67 1, the Marquess de La Tourette bought the
barony of Chalengon to the south of Vernoux. This
was at one time one of the most powerful baronies in
the country. It extended its jurisdiction over eighty
parishes, all of which were bound to furnish men-at-
arms when summoned to do so by the Seigneur of
Chalengon.

In 1523, Jean de Poitiers, father of the famous Diana,
Baron of Chalengon, was condemned to death for
felony. But the beauty and the tears of his daughter
saved his life ; and after her father's death Diana be-
came Baroness Chalen^on and Privas. She seems never
to have set foot in either. This left-handed queen died
in 1 566, and bequeathed the barony to the youngest of
her daughters, Louise, who had married in 1 546 Claude
de Lorraine, Due d'Aumale. In the square of Chalengon
may be seen a gigantic elm, a Sully, one of the trees
planted in all parishes on the conversion of Henry IV.
The old castle was flanked by three towers, but was
almost totally destroyed. It has been reconstructed.

The railway from S. Fortunat, where we abandoned it,
deserves to be followed to its terminus at Le Cheylard,
as it runs through some of the finest scenery in the Bou-
tieres to the cone of M^zenc, to which the chain hitches

LE CHEYLARD 113

itself on. Moreover, it has been finely engineered
the whole way. But Le Cheylard itself is not a place
of interest, being a modern manufacturing town, created
by Lyons speculators calculating on the cheapness and
abundance of labour in that part, where agriculture is
hampered by the elevation. The chateau of La Mothe
is picturesque, but has had the tops of its towers knocked
off and rehatted.

Le Cheylard may be employed as quarters for a visit
to Mezenc and the Gerbier de Jonc, if these have not
been made an object of pilgrimage from Le Puy, and
from this side they present a better appearance than
from the other.

CHAPTER VII

THE VOLCANOES OF THE VIVARAIS

Attraction of cohesion — Vals — Aubenas — Factory girls — Anomalies in
the department — View from the terrace — When the volcanoes ceased to
erupt — The castle — The Ornano family — The poisoning of the Marshal
— Attractions of Vals — Intermittent spring — Castle of Boulogne —
The Lestranges — Antraigues — The Count — Cascades — The Marquesses
— Fete of S. Roch — The Coupe d'Aizac — Castle of Ventadour —
Pretended Jewish origin of the family of Levis — Valley of the Lignon —
Jaujac — The Coupe — The Gravenne — Castle of PourcheiroUes — The
Flandrins — Bourzet — Good Friday there — Prismatic basalt — Montpezat
— Le Pal — Huge crater — Sue de Bauzon — Thueyts — Pave des Geants —
The royal ladder — Mayres — The great eagle — What medieval men
thought about basalt — First discovery of the Vivarais mountains being
volcanoes.

THE attraction of cohesion is one of the mightiest
and most active forces in nature. It went to-
wards the formation out of molecules of the terrestrial
globe, it acts in the accumulation of large fortunes in
the hands of millionaires, and it draws together great
masses of human beings to one spot. Even when the
heat of summer and the dispersion of schools scatter
them to the north and south, east and west, out of
cities, they draw together and coagulate in knots. But
why one of these centres of concentration should be
Vals and not Aubenas is to me a puzzle. Why when
engaging a lodging should one select the cellar instead
of an upper suite of apartments ?

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FACTORY GIRLS 115

Vals-les-Bains lies in a hole shut in between steep
hills, it commands no view, it trails like an ugly worm
along the bank of a petty stream ; whereas Aubenas,
hard by, accessible by electric tram, is throned on a
height, sits as a queen on a platform of rock, and com-
mands such a prospect as is worth going thither from
England to see if that were its only attraction.

Are there good hotels in Vals? So there are in
Aubenas. Shops? As good in both. Electric illumi-
nation, telegraph and telephone? Each is similarly
supplied. That which draws a crowd in the season
to Vals is the baths. But the baths are a mere excuse.
The fashion has set in and the crowd follow the fashion.

The river Ardeche, after having ploughed its way
through beds of basaltic lava, runs between the prismatic
columns as though sweeping through a forest of petrified
bulrushes. It emerges above Aubenas into a broad,
luxuriant, and well-peopled valley, where white walls
smile and glass windows wink in the sun as far down
as the eye can reach, and as far up the sides of the hills
as folk choose to climb to their homes.

Moreover, factories stretch their long roofs below the
rock of Aubenas and throw up their smoke, but without
disfigurement to the scene or vitiation of the limpid
air.

Come to Aubenas from the junction at Vogu6 on a
Sunday evening, and you will see something of merry
girl-life. The factory-hands from the lower country are
returning from their homes to resume their work on
Monday morning. They swarm into every carriage,
crowding in at every station, each with a basket in one
hand and a sack over the shoulder or under the arm.
All are chattering, laughing; one wiping away a tear

ii6 THE CEVENNES

either because she is suffering from toothache or heart-
ache at parting with her intended. But neither ache is
very enduring. Before the train has gone a thousand
metres, she is laughing and chirping like the rest.
When settled into their seats they open their baskets to
show each other the posies of flowers they are taking to
Aubenas to brighten the poor little attic bedrooms and
diffuse through them a fragrance and memory of home.
But the sacks — what do they contain? As I helped
some of the girls to heave these into the carriage and
stow them under the seats or into the shelf above,
I could guess from the feel, and see when the sack
mouth gaped and discharged some of its contents. It
holds their factory clothing washed by their mothers —
aprons, bibs, and among them huge loaves of bread and
greasy sausages, these latter wrapped round with a
newspaper that has transferred its information reversed
on to the skin of the saucisson.

These mill-hands do not wear the pretty scarlet or
blue handkerchief over the head that adorns the
Lancashire and Yorkshire factory girl, the theme of
one of our most charming folk-songs.

" Why wear you that kerchief tied over your head ?
'Tis the country girls' fashion, kind sir, then she said ;
And the fashion young maidens will always be in.
So I wear a blue kerchief tied under the chin.

Why wear a blue kerchief, sweet maiden ? I said.
Because the blue colour is not one to fade.
As a sailor's blue jacket who fights for the king,
So's my bonny blue kerchief tied under the chin."

These Vivarais girls wear no costume. There is not
much beauty among them ; but their honest faces are
good to look on. The glorious southern sun has

THE DEPARTMENT 117

penetrated to their hearts and shines back on you from
their merry eyes.

They do not leave the train at the Aubenas station,
but go on to the next, the group of factories at the
foot of the hill at the head of the basin, between the
town and the opening of the Valley of Vals.

From the station is a long ascent to the town ; there
is a gradual inclined road for carriages, and a short,
steep climb for foot travellers.

Aubenas is, next to Annonay, the most important
town in the Vivarais ; neither is the seat of the prefet,
nor of the bishop, nor of a university.

The department of Ardeche has been treated some-
what perversely in this respect. Its capital is Privas, of
difficult access at the extremity of a branch line served
by trains that run forward and back, advance and
retreat again to pick up or to discharge luggage trucks,
and that is ignorant of any other train than an
omnibus.

The cathedral city is at one end of the department
at its extreme verge, at Viviers, one of the deadest of
dead cities, with a population of three thousand. The
lycee is near the other end of the department, also at
its eastern limit, with only a streak of water between it
and Drome. That is Tournon, which has indeed a
population of a little over five thousand, whereas in
Annonay it is seventeen thousand, and in Aubenas
above eight thousand. Moreover, Aubenas is not
even a chef-lieu d arrondissement, which Largentiere is,
numbering 2,780.

Aubenas stands 930 feet above the sea. You can
breathe there ; you stifle at Vals. And what a prospect
it commands ! To the west the wild heights of the

ii8 THE CEVENNES

mountains of the Vivarais, volcanoes that have burst
through the rocks, and flung them aloft in rents that
reveal to this day the agony through which the earth
passed when fire and fury broke forth. To the north the
Coiron, a chain of huge lava beds overlying other
rocks, that have given way and left the chain a mighty
hacked and battered saw standing up against the sky.
A look at a geological map of the Vivarais shows the
Plutonic deposits extended like the fingers of a hand or
the nerves of a vine-leaf over the mountain tops.

When did these explosions cease? Some of the
deposits are of great age, others are comparatively
recent. As we have seen, the bones of men have been
found under the lavas of Mont Denise, near Le Puy.
Nothing of this kind has been so far discovered in the
Vivarais, only the skeletons of the mastodon. But
there is historic evidence that leads us to suspect that
the last expiring throe was in A.D. 468. S. Mamertus,
Bishop of Vienne, instituted Rogation processions, and
drew up a litany for use there, because the people were
panic-stricken by the earthquakes, by a glare of light
in the sky and the falling of ashes, and by loud ex-
plosions that were heard. The stags, the wolves even,
fled from the Cevennes and took refuge in the towns,
laying aside their instinctive fear of men.

Aubenas was erected about a large castle that was
begun in the twelfth century and completed in the
sixteenth by the Ornano family. It afterwards passed
into the possession of the Count of Vogue, who held it
till the Revolution. It has happily not been destroyed,
and now serves as mairie, tribunal of commerce, etc.
The fagade is imposing, flanked by round towers and
commanded by a square keep. The whole was roofed

THE ORNANO FAMILY 119

with glazed brown and yellow tiles. A portion was
ripped by a storm and has been repaired with green
tiles, and the effect is singular, as if a huge pot of green
paint had been spilled over the roof.

The church, with a vulgar modern west-front, is
wholly modernised within, but without, where not built
into houses, shows that the original church was of the
fourteenth century. The buttresses were round turrets
that have been deprived of their tops. In a chapel of
the church is the monument in black marble of the
Marshal Ornano, raised by his wife the Duchess. It
was mutilated at the Revolution.

The Ornano family was that of the Sovereign Counts
of Corsica, descended from Ugo Colonna whom
Leo III. charged with the expulsion of the Saracens
from that isle. He was invested with the title of Count
by Charlemagne, and he obtained at the same time
sovereign rights.

The Genoese, by making themselves masters of Cor-
sica, drove out the Ornanos, and Sanpietro, who went
into the service of France, was engaged all his life in
fighting the Genoese ; and he succeeded in gaining the
whole island for France, but Henry II. basely restored
it to the Genoese. His son, Alphonso d'Ornano, born
in 1548, died in 1610. He fought the Genoese like his
father, and with equal success, and was created Marshal
of France. His son, Jean Baptiste, was born in 1583,
and died in 1626. He was brought up at the Court
and was appointed governor of Pont-Esprit, and he was
there when tidings reached him of the assassination of
Henry IV. He married the Countess of Montlaure, an
heiress. Under De Luynes he was appointed tutor to
the Duke of Orleans, the King's brother, and governor

I20 THE CEVENNES

for the King in Normandy. The favour in which he
was held raised him many enemies, and they persuaded
Louis XIII. to withdraw his offices from him, and bid
him retire to his estates. Ornano at once demanded
admittance to the young King, and placed his person at
his disposal. Let him be sent to prison, he urged, for
he was resolved not to go back into Languedoc with
the stigma of disgrace upon him. This bold conduct
confounded his foes, and satisfied the King as to his
innocence. His former offices were restored to him,
and he was named Marshal of France. But Ornano
was a bad courtier. He refused to go cap in hand and
thank Richelieu for his restoration to honour, and he
was so imprudent as to advise the King that he was old
enough no longer to be held in leading-strings. The
Cardinal, in alarm, had him arrested and thrown into
the Castle of Vincennes and summarily poisoned,
before any steps could be taken to obtain his release
under the King's hand and seal. The Marshal died at
the age of forty-three without issue, and his sorrowing
widow had the magnificent mausoleum erected to him
in the church of Aubenas.

From Aubenas an electric tram conveys one in ten
minutes to Vals on the Volane, a lively spot during the
season, dead out of it when the hotels are shut and the
shops containing wares to attract visitors are closed.
The only object of interest in Vals itself is the inter-
mittent spring on the left bank of the stream. This
rises in a paved basin with no outlet ; and springs forth
five times during the day. The hours are not certain,
but almost invariably it jets at eleven o'clock or a few
minutes later, sometimes leaping to the height of fifteen
feet, sometimes rising no more than three, and emitting

VALS 121

sulphuretted hydrogen, which phthisic patients inhale
eagerly. When the water falls it is sucked back into
the bore.

" For the inhabitants of the plains of Gard and the Bouches-
du-Rhone," says Ardouin-Dumazet, "lands roasted by the
sun, without shade or water, the valley of the Volane, with its
growling torrents, its green chestnuts, the freshness of its
slopes, is a little Switzerland. Vals has become to these
exuberant populations what Dieppe and Trouville are to the
Parisian. But it must not be concluded that folk come here
only to be intoxicated with the gas from the springs that rise
at every step under cupolas or from amidst rockwork. I have
met here with many and genuine bathers, who have come to
cure their livers and other internal vessels, by drinking the
waters of the spring La Precieuse or that of Saint Jean.
Those of the former are not only agreeable to the palate, they
have also their clientelle which finds health in this mineralised
draught. On tasting this light, sparkling, pleasant water one
has some wish to be a patient so as to linger at the taps under
the shade of the great trees, and to listen to the murmur of
the Volane."

The splendid ruins of the Castle of Boulogne attract
a host of visitors from Vals annually during the season.
It is reached by carriage, quitting the high road from
Aubenas to Privas by a branch road from Auriolles
to S. Etienne. The castle was built by a Count of
Valentinois in the eleventh century. It remained in
the hands of the Grimaldi, Counts of Valentinois, to
1344. In 1384 it became the property of the Lestranges,
and they retained it to 1579; when it passed to the
de Hautefort de Lestranges till 1632. After that it
shifted proprietors rapidly. At the Revolution it be-
longed to Fay-Gerlande till 1794, when it was sold. The

122 THE CEVENNES

Count, seeing what was coming, disposed of most of his
land to one Blaise Comte on condition that he should
every year present a violet at the castle on the 15 th of
March. Nevertheless it was disposed of to a man of
S. Etienne, who pulled much of it down and sold the
materials. It was then purchased by the Abbe Voile,
cure of Asperjoc, to rescue it from complete demolition,
and he retained it for thirty years and then disposed of
it to the Marquess Theodore de Lestrange. The magnifi-
cent gateway with twisted columns and the arms of
Montlaun was erected by Claude Rene d'Hautefort de
Lestrange, who brought to him the barony of Privas ;
he it was who transformed a feudal stronghold into a
sumptuous palace. The fa9ade is sustained on a struc-
tural terrace.

A favourite walk of but an hour above Vals and
through the valley of the Volane leads to Antraigues.
The river has worked its laborious course through
masses of basalt and beds of scoria overlying granite
and porphyry. At every step some fresh picture opens
or some fresh object of interest arrests the eye. Here is
a precipice over which leaps a stream in a beautiful fall ;
there colonnades of prismatic form ; further on masses
of scoriae brought down by the rains from the mountain
side, whose flanks have been bared. The road plunges
even deeper into the ravine that narrows. Then a
stream bounds in a double fall over a basaltic face of
rock, the second leap being formed by a ledge entitled
the Devil's Chair, on which His Majesty is said to cool
himself in the water on leaving his heated realms
below. Next the Cheese Rock is reached, a mass of
basalt standing by itself, and Antraigues appears as an
eagle's nest perched on a peninsula of crag between

Valee de la Volane (Le Fauteuil du Diable)

Pa?e 122

THE COUNT D'ANTRAIGUES 123

three valleys, those of the Mas, the Bise, and the
Volane. The tower of the church is all that remains
of the old fortress of the Marquesses of Antraigues.
The site is savage, amidst green chestnuts, black lava
rocks, and red volcanic cinders. The Marquesses of
Antraigues bore an evil name as robbers, lawless and
violent in the extreme, for which several were executed
at Toulouse. The story of the last of those who owned
and for a while occupied the castle forms the theme of
Jules Claretie's Les Muscadins.

Emmanuel- Louis- Henri de Launez, Comte d'An-
traigues, was born at Villeneuve de Berg, in the
Vivarais, in 1755. In 1788 he published a M^moire
sur les etats g^neraux, which attracted attention, as in it
he denounced the hereditary nobility as the greatest
scourge with which heaven could chastise a free people.
It is an ill bird that befouls its own nest, and that the
Count was sincere in his attack on the prerogatives of
the aristocracy in France is doubtful judging by his
subsequent conduct. This pamphlet caused him to be
elected to the States-General convoked for the follow-
ing year. But no sooner had he taken his seat in the
Assembly than he changed his note, and spoke for the
retention of the privileges of his class. This sudden
conversion caused great offence, and he did not long
retain his seat. In consequence of the events of the
5th and 6th October he quitted the Assembly, and left
France in 1790 and went first to Switzerland, then to
Russia, and after that to Vienna. The coalition of
princes forgot his early encouragement of the Revolu-
tion and charged him with divers secret missions, and
granted him a pension of 36,000 francs. He became
the chief organiser of various plots to effect a counter-

124 THE CEVENNES

revolution in France, that " guerre de pots de chambre,"
as Napoleon called it in his highly coloured language ;
and he was at the bottom of the intrigue that provoked
the treason of Pichegru. In 1797 he was in Venice, but
when he saw that the capital of the Adriatic was about
to succumb he fled, but fell into the hands of an out-
post of the French army in Italy, and was arrested with
all his papers that contained full evidence of the con-
spiracy of Pichegru. However, he managed to escape
by the contrivance of Mme. Sainte-Huberti, who,
after having been his mistress, later became his wife.
Then he fled to Russia, where he joined the Greek
Church, was accorded a pension by the Emperor,
and was sent to Dresden as attach^ to the Russian
Legation. There he published a pamphlet against
Bonaparte so violent and scurrilous, that the Saxon
Government was constrained to expel him so as to
avoid a conflict with France. He departed for London,
carrying with him certain documents containing secret
articles of the Treaty of Tilsit, of which he had ob-
tained a copy. He communicated these to the English
ministry, and in return was granted a liberal pension.

He still maintained relations with Paris, and was
mixed up in every plot for the restoration of the
Bourbons.

However, it was not given to him to see the realisa-
tion of his schemes. The imperial police had sent two
emissaries to London, who managed to seduce Lorenzo,
the Italian valet of the Count, and through him to obtain
notes and despatches which his master was preparing
for transmission to the Cabinet of the Prime Minister.
On July 22nd, 1 8 12, the Count d'Antraigues having
expressed his intention to visit the Prime Minister to

Fall at Antraigues

Page 125

S. ROCH 125

obtain his opinion on a certain memoir, Lorenzo, who
had purloined it and committed it to the spies of
Napoleon that they might make a transcript of it,
saw that his faithlessness was at the point of being
discovered. Then he resolved on killing his master and
mistress and on blowing out his own brains.

This he did. Such was the version of the story as
given in the English newspapers. The only witness to
the murder was the Count's coachman. The circum-
stances of the assassination and suicide were never
sifted ; the whole matter was hushed up ; and it became
a matter of mutual recrimination between the French
and English Governments, each casting on the other
the blame of the murder of this miserable man — a
man without a respectable quality.

The name of Antraigues is taken from its position.
Inter Aquae, between the three streams — the Volane,
the Bise, and the Mas.

On August 1 6th, the fete of S. Roch, a great pilgrim-
age is made to Antraigues, attended by many thousand
persons. The neighbouring villages send their proces-
sions with clergy, crosses, and banners waving. The
bells of Antraigues clash merrily. The whole bourg is
in gala costume. At nine o'clock a.m. all the proces-
sions unite and form one long, many-coloured, winding
line that creeps up the hill towards the chapel of
S. Roch, hid among chestnut trees. The path is rough,
stony, sun-scorched. At intervals are little shrines con-
structed of boughs and adorned with flowers, roses,
broom, lavender. In each of these is a little girl dressed
in white with a chaplet on her head, holding a scroll
that bears an inscription in honour of the patron saint,
lavishing on him every possible expression of love and

126 THE CEVENNES

respect. The procession advances, now murmuring a
litany, now breaking into hymn, and in the rear come
the clergy in white, with the blue smoke of incense
rising and spreading in the clear summer air.

On reaching the chapel the pilgrims separate their
files to allow the ecclesiastics to pass. The priest
ascends to the altar for Mass, and the crowd falls into
a living stair along the slope of the mountain, kneeling
in ranges, some among the chestnut trees, athwart
whose leaves the sun shoots arrows of fire that make
the white caps and the gold chains of the women flash.
The Mass ended, the procession descends in the same
order as that in which it mounted, and disperses. The
second scene is less edifying — it is changed to the
cabaret, where the pilgrims refresh themselves, and the
men, in too many cases, carouse.

S. Roch was a native of Montpellier. His story is
an ecclesiastical romance. The earliest biographer
states candidly that he found "nothing trustworthy
about him " in record, and so compiled his life from
popular legend. In or about 1350 a squalid-looking
man, a beggar, was taken up by the authorities of
Montpellier and cast into gaol, where he died. On
the removal of the body for burial, it was discovered
that the vagabond was Roch, a nephew of the governor
of the town, who had embraced a life of dirt and
poverty out of " sheer cussedness." There always have
been and always will be men who, like Falstaff, " have
a kind of alacrity in sinking " ; who revolt against the
restraints and refinements of social life, and find their
pleasure in living like swine. S. Roch had his parallel
in Bampfylde Moore Carew.

There is nothing edifying in the story, nothing in his

COUPE D'AIZAC 127

career to justify canonisation. Nevertheless he is in
vast repute as a patron against plague and fever and
sores, and he has been given a place in the Roman
martyrology, accepted and held up to be invoked,
although absolutely nothing trustworthy is known of
him. Can slackness and carelessness go further? In
fact, the Roman martyrology, possessing the sanction
of the self-entitled Vicar of Christ, is a veritable Noah's
Ark containing clean and unclean beasts.

From Antraigues, a climb of an hour leads to the
Coupe d'Aizac, the best-preserved crater in the Vivarais.
M. Paulett Scrope thus describes it : —

"The Coupe d'Aizac rises on the ridge of one of the
granitic abutments that project from the steep escarpment of
the Haut Vivarais. It has a beautiful crater slightly broken
down towards the north-west, and from the breach a stream
of basalt may be seen to descend the flank of the hill, and
turning to the north-east enter the valley of the river Volane,
which has subsequently cut it entirely across, and discloses
three distinct storied ranges; the lowermost very regularly
columnar, that in the middle less so, and the upper nearly
amorphous, cellular, and with a ragged scoriform surface.
This current, which appears originally to have occupied the
bottom of the gorge in an extent of four miles, from the
village of Antraigues nearly to Vals, has been worn away and
carried oif on many points by the violence of the torrent.
Its relics adhere in vast masses to the granite rocks on both
sides, sometimes reaching the height of 160 feet above it.
The lower portion of this bed is very beautifully columnar,
the upper obscurely so ; this latter has been in parts destroyed,
and a pavement or causeway left, formed by an assemblage of
upright and almost geometrically regular columns fitted together
with the utmost symmetry,"

128 THE CEVENNES

One interesting lesson one learns from the overflow
of this crater, and that is that the prismatic structure
of basalt is due to pressure from above. Except under
great superincumbent weight it has not crystallised
regularly.

A beautiful fall in four dives under the bridge of
the road to Genestelle, on the road to Antraigues,
irresistibly obliges one with a camera to take views.
But indeed the whole neighbourhood is weeping these
beautiful tears — tears of joy that the fire floods are over.

The valley of the Ardeche above where it falls into
the basin of Aubenas is finer still ; it leads into the
heart of the noblest volcanic heights.

At Pont de la Beaume one has the stately tower of
the castle of Ventadour rising from the summit of a
rock that commands the road up to Thueyts (pro-
nounced Two-ets) and that to Jaujac, where the Lignon
flows into the Ardeche.

The Ventadour family were Levis by origin, and
claimed to be descendants of the tribe of Levi of the
seed of Aaron, and therefore justified in meddling to
any extent in ecclesiastical matters. It is really won-
ful what changes can be rung on the name of Levi.
It becomes in England Lewis and Levison, Lowe and
Lyons, and Lawson.

But there was absolutely no justification in the
Ventadour family asserting to themselves a Hebraic
origin. It is strange how eager these Levis were to
assert a fabulous descent, and how desirous the modern
sons of Levi are to obscure the traces of what is
undoubtedly theirs.

The Levis first appear in history in the eleventh
century, and derive their name not from Levi, but from

In the Ardeche

COUPE DE JAUJAC 129

their castle of Levis near Chevreuse ; they became
Seigneurs of Mirepoix. Philippe IV. de Levis, who
died in 1440, was the father of Bermond, the ancestor
of the Ventadour branch. He became Baron of La
Voute, and was father of Louis, who married the heiress
of the Count of Ventadour. Gilbert III. de Levis was
created Duke of Ventadour and peer of France, the
former in 1578, the latter in 1589. The castle was
blown up by that determined wrecker of feudal strong-
holds, Richelieu, in 1626.

At Pont-de-la-Beaume a steep ascent leads to a level
road, over a terrace of lava through which the Lignon
has cleft a way from Jaujac, clean cut as by a knife,
with basaltic ranges on both sides. The mountain
forms here are very fine ; to the right is the Gravenne
de Soulhiol, rent by a ravine down which flows a thread
of silver. On the left La Tan argue, 4,330 feet, and the
rock of Abraham, 4,630 feet, closing up the scene. The
whole when powdered with snow, as I saw it, of Alpine
grandeur.

The Coupe de Jaujac, that sent a flood of lava down
the valley of the Lignon, rises to an insignificant height
above the village, and is easily visited. At the foot of
the cone of scoria rises a spring where picnickers from
Vals settle to lunch, and amuse themselves with smash-
ing there the bottles of wine they have brought with
them, and raising a pile of the fragments. The side of
the cone of Jaujac is indeed so strewn with broken
pots oifoie gras and battered sardine-tins, that the vol-
canic vent conveys the impression of having been the
eruption of a great establishment of grocery and pre-
serves.

The sides of the bowl of the crater are dotted with

I30 THE CEVENNES

chestnut trees, so as somewhat to disguise its character.
Volcanic dust and cinder seem to be peculiarly favour-
able to the vegetation of the Spanish chestnut.

The village of Jaujac stands on the bed of lava that
issued from this cone, on the edge of a mural precipice,
150 feet high, and is connected with old Jaujac on the
further side by a stone bridge. There are the scanty
remains of a castle in this latter. The chateau, in close
proximity to the village or town, is now converted into
a school.

The Gravenne de Soulhiol also disgorged its lava into
the valley of the Lignon, about three hundred yards
above the junction of this river with the Ardeche.

" A wide and massive plateau of basalt thus formed, after
entering the valley of La Beaume, prolongs itself to some dis-
tance below Neigles, bordering the Ardeche on the south
with a bold and precipitous wall which may be seen to rest on
a layer of pebbles, the ancient bed of the river."

At Pont-de-la-Beaume a road to the right leads up
the valley of Fontolliere to the fertile basin of Cham-
pagne, at the head of which stands Montpezat, the foot
of the mountain, as its name implies, and it lies, in fact,
under the Gravenne, that has poured its flood of molten
lava into the valley and filled it to a depth of 1 50 feet.
The Gravenne de Montpezat has a very regular crater
dipping slightly to the north, and it was on this side
that the stream of basalt flowed for a width of half a
mile. It reached the point where the Bourges entered
the Fontolliere and there stopped, the volcano having
exhausted its efforts. Before reaching Montpezat, the
ruins of the Castle of Pourcheirolles appear in a site
truly marvellous, perched on a tongue of land between
the rivers Fontolliere and Pourseilles.

CARDINAL FLANDRIN 131

When the Gravenne had turned the former valley
into a lake of molten stone, and when that lake had
chilled, then the watery elements began their work.
The two rivers laboured to fray themselves a course.
The Pourseilles has cut through an upper and amor-
phous bed of lava, then it leaps over a lower and very
regular bed of prismatic basalt that rests on softer
material, which has been worn away by weather and
water so that the basalt forms a cornice and canopy
overhead. Pourcheirolles is undoubtedly one of the
most picturesque points in Ardeche. The castle,
perched as a vultures' lair in the midst of the valley of
Montpezat, suspended between precipices, seems cal-
culated to evade and defy assault. The castle was,
however, erected not by a man of war, but a man of
peace, Cardinal Pierre Flandrin, born on the flanks
of the Mezenc in 13 12. He was created Cardinal by
Gregory XI., who employed him in various delicate
negotiations. He died in 1378. His tomb was at
Viviers, but was destroyed by the Huguenots. His
nephew, Jean Flandrin, after having been Archbishop
of Auch, was created Cardinal by Clement VII. The
choice of the valley of Montpezat for their residence in
summer heats was due to proximity to Avignon, at
that time the seat of the papacy. The castle was never
very large, and its importance was due to its position,
not to its walls and towers.

The river Burzet flows into the Fontolliere, and a road
leads up the valley to the little town of the same name
as the stream. The church, with nave and side aisles,
dates from 1400. When the three bells in the tower
are rung, the tower sways eight inches out of the per-
pendicular. A walk of from three to four hours from

132 THE CEVENNES

Burzet leads to the very fine cascade of Ray-Pic, where
the river leaps over a basaltic escarpment that had been
vomited by the volcano of the same name, which filled
the valley of the Burzet to the distance of ten miles.
" He who has not seen Ray-Pic has seen nothing" is a
saying among the peasantry.

At Burzet, on Good Friday, a procession peram-
bulates the little place, bearing representations on cars
of the scenes of the Passion, much like that which is
famous at Seville, but here on a much smaller scale.

The river of Burzet has not, like other streams, sawn
its way through the basalt, only through the upper un-
crystallised portion which it has carried away, and it
slides on its course over a paved bed of the tops of the
prisms, " not unlike the Roman roads in ttaly, but
arranged with far greater neatness and accuracy of
design." The columns in Lower Vivarais, says Mr.
Scrope, are usually hexahedral, often five-sided ; those
of four occur rarely, of seven still more rarely.

But to return to the valley of Montpezat. Of this
small town not much need be said. It is a very ancient
place, and was the second stage on the high road to
Gergovia. It contained a temple to Jupiter Olympus,
and a medieval castle of which very little remains.
But at Montpezat quarters must be found for the night,
if it be desired to ascend so as to explore the Vestide du
Pal, the most formidable mouth by which subterranean
fires were belched, in all France, and perhaps even in
all Europe.

An excellent road following the course of the Roman
highway mounts here to the miserable village of Le
Pal, 3,600 feet above the sea, where in winter the snow
heaps itself up before the raging winds and buries the

Falls of Ruy Pic

Page 132

VESTIDE DU PAL 133

houses so that not infrequently a week passes before the
inhabitants see daylight. The Vestide rises above this
village to the height from the sea of 4,220 feet. The
name Vestide in patois signifies a sheltered place, and is
applied to the crater itself, the only sheltered spot there-
abouts, and indeed this huge basin is an Eden to the
peasants of Le Pal. The bottom is cultivated, but the
sides are covered with timber. The volcano is remark-
able not only for its enormous proportions, the bottom
of the crater being over two miles in circumference, but
also for its alternate dejections of lava, mud, and cinders.
The depth of the crater is 900 feet, and its diameter
5,500 feet.

In the midst of the crater a slight cone has been
raised by the expiring efforts of the volcanic fires.
Each eruption has left its traces written in inefface-
able characters on the slopes of the crater. Here
was one of sand and mud, there one of lava and
scoriae ejected over the bed of mud. Then again
an outpour of lava, and after that another of mud
containing great boulders of granite burnt red and
rendered friable.

" Imagination is roused," says M. A. Mazon, " at the
thought of what must have been the scene when the volcano
of la Vestide belched forth tempests of fire which agitated,
upset, and shaped the soil of the Vivarais. The huge
bowl, incessantly active, threw out showers of cinders into the
basins alike of the Rhone and of the Loire. When winter
came with its hurricanes of snow, deluges of water were precipi-
tated into the furnace, but quenched the fires for a moment
only, and then burst forth in torrents of mud mingled with
steam. It was thus that the walls of the crater were built up
into veritable mountains." ^

^ Voyage aux Pays Volcaniques du Vivavais, Privas, 1878.

134 THE CEVENNES

From the foot of the cone issues the source of the
Fontolliere, strong enough at ten paces down to turn
a mill. Near the Vestide is the little lake Forraud, not
situated in a crater, but formed in a depression of the
surface. Also, near at hand, is the Sue de Bauzon,
another volcanic vent, red-headed, and 4,430 feet high.
On the summit is a large stone table, at which, accord-
ing to tradition, every year the four Seigneurs of Mont-
pezat, Roux, Urclades, and S. Cirgues met, and each
sat on a seat in his own territory, as all their lands met
in the midst of this table. There is no crater on this sue.

We return again to the valley of the Ardeche and
mount to Thueyts, leaving on the left the pretty little
bathing establishment of Neyrac.

The road ascends along the flank of the Petit Gravenne
on the left bank of the river and crosses a bridge thrown
over the stream of the Mordaric, whose waters form the
cascade of the Gueule d'Enfer. The huge basaltic wall
now comes into sight that sustains the plateau of
Thueyts, on which the town is built. The river has
carved for itself a channel through this mass of lava and
the granite below, and exhibits a majestic colonnade of
basalt 150 feet high, and extending with few breaks for
a mile and a half along the valley. But one of these
breaks forms the Echelle du Roy, a rift due to dislocation
of the flow. To visit the Pave des Geants, the finest
basaltic causeway in the Vivarais, it is well to descend
to the river at the Gueule d'Enfer, sometimes on basaltic
prisms, then on masses of granite. The columnar
basalt now becomes regular ; some prisms 60 feet long,
others shorter jointed. The black walls rise like those
of a fortress, and the path follows the base till the
Royal Ladder is reached, a staircase in a natural

THE GREAT EAGLE 135

chimney, where every step is a basaltic prism that has
been broken. The view of the valley from the top of
the ladder is of striking beauty. The ascent is 240 feet.

In Thueyts itself there is not much to be seen of
architectural interest.

Still further up the valley of the Ardeche, by the
fine road constructed by the Estates of Languedoc
for communication with Le Puy as easier than that
followed by the Romans by Montpezat, is Mayres in
the bottom of a valley and in a delightful situation
surrounded by mountains. It is the last station before
ascending the pass over the backbone of the Cevennes.

Here flutters and soars a great black eagle, that
carries off lambs to the nest in the rocks of Astel rising
over 900 feet from the valley. It is believed to come
from the Alps to spend its breeding season in the
Vivarais, both in these rocks and in those of Abraham,
and that it returns to the Alps in winter. This is not
the Aquila fulva, which is common enough, but the
Aquila imperialis. It soars so high and keeps so well
at a distance from men that the hunters very rarely are
able to kill one.

How greatly one would like to know what the men
in medieval days thought of the volcanic phenomena
of Auvergne and the Velay and the Vivarais. Possibly
enough they did not give a thought to them, any more
than does the peasant of to-day. But the baron who
built his castle on the top of a rock compiled of basaltic
prisms thick-set as reeds by a river side, the builders of
churches who exploited these naturally faced columns
— did they never ask how these came into existence,
what their origin was ? One can understand how they
explained the existence of fossil shells on the moun-

136 THE CEVENNES

tains — they were relics of the universal deluge. But
these marvellous prisms, as neatly made and put
together as the cells of wax in a honeycomb — did they
look at them and not exercise their minds over them ?
There is not a particle of evidence that they did,
although there were men of inquiring and eager minds
in all ages. No suspicion that volcanoes had raged and
spluttered on French soil occurred to any man till the
year 1 751, when Guettard and Malesherbes arrived at
Montelimar on their way to Paris from Italy, when
they halted in amazement at the pavement of the
streets composed of polygonal cubes of basalt. " Why ! "
exclaimed Guettard, " these are precisely the same sort
of stones we have seen paving the Roman roads of Rome
and Naples — and those came from volcanoes." The
two men asked to be shown the quarries whence these
blocks came, and they were taken to Rochemaure.
They turned aside from their direct course, visited the
mountains of Vivarais, but not till they reached
Auvergne were their minds thoroughly convinced. In
1 75 1, that same year, Guettard published his Mevioire
sur quelques Montagues de la France qui ont /// des
Volcans. It roused a storm of jeers and objections.
A savant of Clermont even wrote to controvert his
thesis, and argued that the cinders were the remains of
forges established by the Romans. But at Montelimar
Guettard and Malesherbes had dined with an Abbe
Faujas de S. Fond, living on the spot. His eyes were
unsealed, his interest was kindled, and he went through
the Vivarais and explored the basaltic beds and the
craters. Finally, the works of this man in 1778, and of
de Soulaire in 1 870, placed the further existence of vol-
canoes beyond possibility of dispute.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CANON OF THE ARDECHE

Ruoms — The church — Aven of Remejadou — Sampson — Vallon— Captaiu
Merle— The last Marquess — Tapestries — Clotilde de Surville — Pont
de I'Arc — Salavas — Slaughter of the garrison — Caves — Goule de
Foussoubie — Chames— Castle of Ebbo — Pas du Mousse — Grotte of
Oustalas — Rapids — La Madeleine — Tour d' Aiguilles — Aigueze — S.
Martin — The return journey — Two men in a boat — Grotte de
S. Marcel — The Gours — Dolmens — The Aven of Vigneclose.

RUOMS is a quaint little town on the Ardeche,
where that river issues from between parallel
walls of lias, not of great elevation, laid in regular
horizontal beds. The road follows the river upwards
for a short way only, and then turns up the Ligne
towards Argentiere. Ruoms was a walled town, and a
considerable portion of the fortifications remains en-
closing the church, old houses, and narrow and dirty
lanes. The church is interesting, very early and rude
Romanesque, lofty, with three bays and side aisles.
There are quasi-transepts, not extending beyond the
aisles. The east end is square. The piers and arches
are unmoulded. A curious feature is a window on the
south, apparently to serve for a clerestory light, with
pilasters and sculptured capitals, but it has never been
pierced through, so that it acts merely as a relieving
arcade in the wall. Another unusual feature is that the
wall of the south aisle has in it narrow square-headed

137

138 THE CEVENNES

lights in recesses under relieving arches. The tower
has a zigzag ornament above the bell windows in black
lava alternating with white limestone.

The Ardeche is joined below the town by the river
of La Beaume, that flows through a canon very similar
to that through which the Ardeche itself has run before
it reaches the bridge of Ruoms. These canons through
the lias are curious rather than picturesque, the strata
lie horizontally as regularly disposed as stones in an
artificial wall. On the high ground some way up the
Beaume, on the plateau, or gras, is the avert or pot-hole
of R^mejadou, twenty-five feet in diameter and eighty
feet deep. One can hear the rush of water below, and
this issues from the rock in the spring of Bourbouillet,
two miles off, with sufficient volume to turn a mill.
M. Janet says : —

" This aven has water flowing in its depths, filling the entire
bottom. This stream issues from an arcade on one side about
eighteen feet high, and disappears under a similar arch. It
flows from north to south, which agrees with what the shep-
herd of Bourbouillet asserted, that this subterranean stream
issues at the spring of that name. According to him, the in-
habitants of Bourbouillet were much surprised one day to see
the water of this spring charged with sawdust, and the ex-
planation of the phenomenon was obtained only some days
later, when they ascertained that some woodcutters who had
been sawing up a good deal of timber had ridded themselves
of the sawdust by throwing it into the aven"^

This pot-hole was explored in 1892 by M. Gaupillat,
and he established the curious fact that the under-
ground stream enters and leaves the aven by natural

^ A. Janet, Annuaire du Club Alpin, 1891.

VALLON 139

syphons, and not through galleries, so that it is not
possible to track the stream up or down.

Standing high above the junction of the Chassezac
and Ardeche are the mountain and rock of Sampson,
supporting a little village and church with spire on a
col between the mighty crest of perpendicular rock and
the crag that falls abrubtly to the Chassezac, A small
omnibus conveys travellers to Vallon, which is the place
at which to stay, whence to make the descent of the
canon of the Ardeche. But the visitor who does this
must be prepared either to return to Vallon by carriage
over the Causse, some twenty miles, or he must be
without luggage, and catch the train at S. Just or
S. Marcel, and meet his impedimenta elsewhere, perhaps
at Le Teil, for the canoes that shoot the rapids of the
Ardeche are too small to accommodate baggage.

Vallon is not a town in itself of much interest, but it
contains the chateau of the redoubtable Huguenot
captain. Merle de I.agorce, who sacked Malzieu and
Issoire, and burnt the cathedral at Mende. Vallon was
in the hands of the Reformed, but, on the other hand,
old Vallon with its castle on the height above it re-
mained to the Catholics. Opposite that, on the further
side of the river, is Salavas, where a strong and exten-
sive castle, now in ruins, occupied the crest of a
precipitous rock. These two positions Merle was deter-
mined on taking ; he succeeded, and died in the castle
of Salavas at the end of January, 1584, at the age of
thirty-five. I have given his life in my Deserts of
Central France.

His son Herail de Merle, Baron de Lagorce, joined
the Church, and entered into the service of the King,

On February 6th, 1842, died in the chateau of Vallon

I40 THE CEVENNES

the Marquess Emmanuel de Merle de Lagorce, last
male descendant of the eldest branch of the family, and
left the chateau to his sister, married to the Count de
Chapelain, who sold it to the town of Vallon in 1846.
When the citizens came to take possession and convert
the castle into a mairie, school, etc., they discovered in
a loft a whole series of superb tapestries rolled up and
forgotten. These came from the chateau of Montreal
in L'Argentiere, brought thence in 1783. They are
from Aubusson looms, and are in seven panel pictures
representing scenes from the " Jerusalem Delivered " of
Tasso. They adorn the chamber now used by the
magistracy. Very fine is the hammered ironwork of the
balustrade of the great staircase.

Vallon had its hour of celebrity under the Empire
and the Restoration, when Vanderbourg published
the medieval poems of Clotilde de Surville, who lived
at Vallon at the period when Joan of Arc was fighting
against the English.

Marguerite Eleonore Clotilde de Vallon-Chalys, or
de Surville, was supposed to have been a noble lady
authoress of a series of sentimental poems. She was
said to have been born in 1405 in the chateau of Vallon.
Her mother, Pulcherie de Fay Collon, had lived in the
court of Gaston Phoebus, Count of Foix, and had taken
advantage of his library to enrich her mind by the
study of Greek and Latin authors, of French and
Italian poets, and she brought up the young Clotilde
with the same tastes. The girl was a precocious genius,
and composed verses at the age of twelve. In 1421
she married the Chevalier Beranger de Surville, who
quitted her early to fight under the command of the
Dauphin, afterwards Charles VII. It was then that

CLOTILDE DE SURVILLE 141

she wrote a HeroYde, opening with the words " Clotilde
au slen amy doulce mande accolade," But the com-
position contains allusions, and repeats ideas of a period
so much later, that suspicions were aroused as to its
authenticity when published in 1803. Vanderbourg, the
editor, insisted on it being genuine. He had obtained
the MSS. from the heirs of the Marquess Joseph Etienne
de Surville, a noble who during the period of the
Revolution had been executed at Le Puy in 1798. But
this de Surville v/as himself a poet, of a mediocre
quality certainly, and it was from his leavings that the
editor produced Clotilde's compositions. According to
the Memoir prefixed to her poems, from the pen of the
Marquess, her graceful verses attracted the attention
of Margaret of Scotland, who sent her a crown of
golden leaves bearing the inscription : " Marguerite
d'Ecosse a Marguerite d'Helicon."

Clotilde lost her husband at the siege of Orleans after
a union that had lasted but one year. About 1450
she married her son to Heloise de Goyon de Vergy
Both died in 1468, leaving to Clotilde a grandchild,
Camille, who never married, and Clotilde closed a long
life at the end of the fifteenth century, after having
celebrated the victory of Fornoue in a poem that she
dedicated to Charles VIII.

That the poems are a late fabrication by the marquess,
who was shot at Le Puy, cannot be doubted. In the
" Verselets a mon premier ne " that begin " O cher
enfantelet, vray pourtraict de ton pere," there is obvious
imitation of a romance by Berguin, published in 1775.
But the whole tone and character of the poems make
it quite certain that they were composed in the eigh-
teenth century, to be palmed off as the literary achieve-

142 THE CEVENNES

ments of a lady of the forger's ancestry in the fifteenth.
Villemain, after showing that they are fictions antiques,
concludes: " After one has recognised that the poems of
Clotilde are a modern fabrication, betraying itself by
the very perfection of the artifice employed, yet the
fraud once established, the merit of the fraud remains
incontestable."

A good road leads down the Ardeche to the Pont de
I'Arc, one of the great natural curiosities of the south
of France. The river in descending the ravine between
walls of Jura limestone encountered a long spur that
barred its way, and drove it to describe a great loop.
But the limestone is full of holes, caves, and cracks, and
the torrent rushing down and beating against the great
escarpment, impatient to get through and resenting the
detour, bored till at last it burst a way through, and
having once penetrated proceeded to enlarge the
portal, till the river even in its greatest floods can rush
through. The measurements are 193 feet from side to
side, no feet to the crown of the arch, and to the
summit of the rock 215 feet. Formerly the people of
the country used this natural bridge to pass from one
side of the river to the other. In the sixteenth century
a fortress was erected on it, the possession of which was
sharply contested by Catholics and Protestants, and
Louis XIII. had it destroyed. The passage can still be
made by means of a very narrow path cut in a ledge of
the rock, but only one person, and he with a steady
head, can traverse it. Louis XIII. had this path broken
down, but the gap has been bridged over by poles.

The descent of the cafion is made from Vallon to
S. Martin, and takes from five to eight hours according
to the amount of water in the river, and costs 30 francs.

SALAVAS 143

Rapids are numerous, and some not a little dangerous.
The gorge, cut through the lower cretaceous limestone,
has not its walls as lofty as those of the famous canon
of the Tarn, but the scenery in it is more varied, and it
is of the wildest beauty.

Opposite old Vallon, as already mentioned, is Salavas.
Herail de Merle, son of the great Huguenot captain,
abjured Protestantism, and married the daughter of
Montreal, chief of the Catholics of the Vivarais. Profit-
ing by his absence, his Huguenot vassals in Vallon
revolted, and aided by a locksmith of Salavas entered
the castle and butchered all the garrison. They cap-
tured the baroness and her children. But as Salavas
was unimportant as a stronghold without the Tour du
Moulin in the river, the Calvinists brought the Baroness
Lagorce and the children under its walls in a boat,
drew their long knives and threatened to cut all their
throats unless the tower surrendered.

Salavas again fell into the hands of the Catholics, and
was held by M. de la Chadenede in 1628, with forty-five
men against the Duke de Rohan, head of the Calvinists,
at the head of 500 men, 200 cavalry, two cannon, and a
body of sappers and miners. Salavas was not taken
till 200 of the assailants were killed and wounded.
The castle, though in ruins, still has portions of its walls
and a gate intact. Le Tour du Moulin, mentioned
above, is built on a rock in the middle of the river,
and was the key of the passage. It was captured by
the Huguenots in 1570 by artifice. The small Catholic
garrison one evening saw a train of women leading
mules with sacks of corn come down to the waterside.

The garrison at once went over to assist them in
unloading. But scarcely had they left their boat than

144 THE CEVENNES

they were fallen upon. The women were, in fact,
Huguenot men disguised in female attire. They shot
down every one of the soldiers and took possession of
the tower.

Before reaching the Pont de I'Arc the canon begins ;
rocky walls, grey, yellow, and fawn colour, stand up
above the river, leaving no space between them but for
the river ; the road has been cut in cornice in the rock
above it. The caves of the Bear, the Temple, and the
Pulpit are but some of the thousands that open in cliffs
that are honeycombed with them. The two latter were
employed for meetings during the time of the revolt of
the Camisards. The Prophetess Isabeau, clothed in
white and wearing a gold circlet on her head, here
went into ecstasies and harangued the insurgents,
bidding them slay and spare none of the Philistines,
and promising to them invulnerability.

A little further down is the Goule de Foussoubie, a
stream that issues from the rocks just above the level of
the Ardeche. The water that feeds it consists of seven
rills on the Causse, three miles distant, that plunge into
a pot-hole and disappear. Various attempts have been
made to follow the underground course, but all have
failed and one ended fatally. In dry weather very little
water issues from the Goule, but it comes forth in
volumes after a storm.

The boat shoots under the Pont de I'Arc ; the rock
that has been pierced is ninety feet thick. As already
said, a fortress stood above, destroyed by Louis XIII.,
on a bit of rising ground on the left bank. There are
still remains of the octagonal tower and enclosing wall
and of some of the chambers tenanted by the garrison.
But it was an oppidum^ a place of refuge from pre-

GORGES OF THE ARDECHE 145

historic times, as early stone weapons, and later Gallo-
Roman ware, have been found there, as well as
accumulations of pebbles to serve as sling-stones. The
road down the river ends at Chames, where is a boatman,
who lives by fishing and ferrying over any of the in-
habitants of S. Remeze or la Bastide de Verac, who
desire to cross. A stream issues from a grotto ; it is the
Fontaine de Vamale. The cave is apparently closed
at the end, but on entering one finds on the right hand
an opening into a valley, giving access to a terrace above
the river, lighted by the setting sun, in which luxuriate
lavender, Judas trees, evergreen dwarf oaks, juniper,
and wild asparagus. This tiny valley is bounded on
the west by a lofty calcareous wall in which is a rent,
and a narrow path leads up this gap among bushes to
the top of the plateau. It is by this track that the
inhabitants of Vic descend and ascend before or after
crossing the river.

Hard by is a natural cave on the right bank, partly
closed by a wall, so overgrown with ivy that were it not
pointed out one might pass without discovering that
man built himself a residence here. This is called the
Castle of Ebbo, and the tradition is current that the
Templars of La Madeleine fled to it and hid there when
sentence had gone forth against them by Philip the
Fair in 1312 ; but it was probably a post that belonged
to the Seigneur of Verac to watch his fisheries.

Chames is a little hamlet on the left bank of the
Ardeche, where the rocks fall back and allow of slopes
on which can grow olive trees, vines, plums, and
almonds. The water is here still and seems trans-
formed to a mirror, so that from the opposite side, that
of the Castle of Ebbo, when the sun is full on the white

146 THE CEVENNES

cottages and gleaming limestone rocks, they as well as
the fruit trees are reflected with intensity in the glassy
surface.

The Rock of the Five Windows seems to block the way.
Below Chames the river bends around a peninsula which
is called the Pas du Mousse, so called in satire, for no
moss grows there or can grow ; it is all rubble brought
down and deposited there by the river. A rock shoot-
ing up some eighty or ninety feet to a sharp point and
pierced at bottom is called the Needle, and the cave is
its eye. A little further down is the Grotto of Oustalas
in the face of a cliff above a narrow meadow, with trees
and a farmhouse and sheds. In order to reach the
entry, that is like a giant's mouth yawning, steps have
been cut in the rock; so also within to reach portions of
the cave that have been employed as chambers. There
are remains of a wall that formerly closed the mouth,
and this cave was undoubtedly inhabited at some time,
but when cannot be said. One can see the notches in
the wall for beams of a roof, and recesses employed as
cupboards.

As we continue our descent, the heights of the sheer
walls full of holes are as slices of Gruyere cheese,
streaked here black, there flaming red, then of a ghastly
white, now forming into needles, then with their crests
riddled as though the walls of a ruined castle pierced
with windows. Evergreen oaks, the spiky-leafed kermes,
bursts of flame from yellow broom, flashes of pink when
the Judas tree is in bloom ; not a house, not a field —
all silent, the only sound the roar of the water over a
rapid. The canoe dances, bounds, shoots ; by a skilful
turn of the oar avoids a fang of rock, escapes a huge
boulder, darts into still water, where the boatman bails

The Cathedral'

Page 147

AIGUEZE 147

out that which has poured over the gunwale, for it is
over your ankles. Then, again, the growl of another
rapid, more swinging down between rocks in races of
water green as grass, then gliding over shallow por-
tions where we can see the stones and gravel at the
bottom and the fish darting ; then over a depression,
the water bottle-green, too deep for the sunlight to
penetrate, close under an overhanging cliff.

A long green tongue of land shoots out with ruins
on the summit, La Madeleine, a leper-hospital, where
these unfortunates were nursed and kept in seclusion
under the Templars, Again, huge fawn-coloured preci-
pices, caves out of which the drip of water has hung
stalactitic deposits like dropping veils, one in which it
has built up a huge finger ; and then, right before one,
a Gothic cathedral with spires — Le Tour des Aiguilles.
We are carried round, and the forms have completely
changed.

Then after five hours or more the walls begin to sink,
a stream breaks in through a doorway on the left, and we
issue through a portal. The river runs more smoothly,
and on the summit of the rock, creeping down its side,
studded with ruins, is the imposing dead town of
Aigueze, long a subject of dispute between the counts
of Toulouse and the bishops of Viviers. There were
houses near the river bank, but all are now in ruins,
destroyed by the great floods of 1890 and 1895. On
the left bank is the little village of S. Martin, where we
disembark, and think we have seen a succession of
marvels the like of which are not to be seen elsewhere
save — with a difference — on the Tarn. But just here, to
spoil the last tableau, a company has erected huge
and hideous factories for silk-weaving on the top of the

hs the cevennes

rock opposite S. Martin, to disfigure the last spur of
crag on the Ardeche. Failure has attended the attempt,
and the factories are abandoned. Even if they fall into
ruins, their ruins cannot possibly become picturesque.

Below is a light and graceful suspension bridge flung
across the river to take the place of a stone bridge,
swept away by the great flood of 1895, that rose half-
way up the church of S. Martin and filled most of the
houses.

And now, to conclude this chapter, I must give my
personal experiences, which I am usually unwilling to
obtrude, but which I give as they may be valuable to
others who descend the canon.

There are humours in travelling ; some make you
laugh out at once, others only after the experience is
past. To this latter belong mine on the day I descended
the Ardeche.

The beginning of the trouble was this. I had arranged
that the hotel keeper at Vallon should furnish me and
my wife and the boatmen with a sound lunch, to be
taken on our way down, and when we arrived at the
place where the boat was to attend to us we found that
neither the gargon of the inn who guided us had
brought the food, nor had the boatmen fetched it from
the hotel. Time was precious, the distance was con-
siderable, and we could not wait to send back for it.
Any one who knows what a French caf^ au lait means
will understand how internally unprovided we were
for many hours without food. We started, and for five
hours were descending the rapids. When we reached
S. Martin there was no carriage, but after an hour we
obtained at five o'clock an excellent dijeuni^ having
eaten nothing since 8 a.m. ; but we had hardly felt

TWO MEN IN A BOAT 149

hunger, so gorgeous had been the scenery through
which we had passed. At 6 p.m. the carriage from
Vallon arrived, and the horses had to be baited for two
hours. At 7 p.m. we started. Now the high road to
Vallon makes a long detour ; it passes by S, Just and
S. Marcel, and crawls slowly up to the causse. The
horses were put in at 7 p.m., and we departed. As it
happened, I had tipped the boatmen at S. Martin, think-
ing I had seen the last of them, and they were flush of
money. They had thirty francs, plus the tips to both
of them, and during three hours they had been im-
bibing absinthe, cognac, and wine.

We had not proceeded far before I heard voices
behind the carriage in lively conversation, not to say
in altercation, and standing up and looking back I saw
that we were dragging behind the carriage a cart laden
with the canoe and the two men in the boat.

I stopped the carriage and inquired the meaning of
this, and the driver informed me that he had drawn the
cart behind him from Vallon to S. Martin for the express
purpose of bringing back the boat and the men, as it
was not possible for the canoe to make its way up the
rapid on the return journey. Twenty miles uphill
with a trailer behind and dark night setting in was a
serious prospect, especially after the horses had already
done all the miles from Vallon to S. Martin. When
we reached S. Just, but a few miles out of S. Martin,
the bright light from a tavern and the voices of happy
men within were too much for the two men in a boat
behind ; they unhitched the cart and dropped into the
cabaret to recruit. As we drove on our coachman
found that the horses went freer. He looked behind
and saw that the cart and boat were not attached. He

I50 THE CEVENNES

swore freely and copiously, but drove into the next
village, S. Marcel, where he halted in front of a public-
house, and no words of mine could induce him to
proceed till he knew what had become of the trailer.
After a while up came the cart and the boat. One of
the men had a cousin at S. Just, and he had cajoled
him into lending his horse to draw the cart so as to
catch us up. Our coachman, with a volley of expletives
not worth recording, bade them hitch on again. And
he drove forward. I, sitting back in the carriage, heard
a dialogue proceed behind.

" But, Jean, my cousin lent me his horse."

" That is certain."

" But I cannot let him return to S. Just without re-
freshment. I must assuredly give him a glass of some-
thing to warm him."

" That is reasonable."

" Then let us unhitch."

So again the trailer was unfastened, and the cart, boat,
and men in the boat fell away into the darkness behind.

After a while the coachman rose from his seat, and
looking back saw that the trailer was no longer in its
place. He exploded east, he exploded west, also to
north and south ; and would have halted again, but
that I interfered and insisted that he should proceed.
After some demur he did so. We reached Vallon at
midnight. The night was pitch dark and cold ; the
month was March. When we would have reached the
town had we been encumbered with the trailer, good-
ness only knows. We left Vallon next day at 1 1 a.m.,
and the two boatmen had not arrived by that time,
nor do I know when they did arrive, and what is more,
I do not care.

CAVERNS 151

This I relate as a caution to future visitors to the
canon of the Ardeche. If they intend to return by
carriage to Vallon, let them remember that they will
have to drag back with them the boat en queue.

At S. Marcel is a notable cavern that may be visited
from the village or from the river, near the bank of
which is a lodge for the man who undertakes to act as
guide through its halls and galleries, and illumine them
with Bengal lights. The grotto was discovered in 1838
by a man in pursuit of a rabbit. The cavern extends
for several kilometres underground, and is rich in
stalactites and stalagmites. The main gallery was the
channel of an ancient river formed by the drainage of
the fissured causse of Bidon and S. Remeze. This
corridor, which is without incrustations, leads to
le Balcon, a vertical wall thirty feet high, over which
the ancient river fell in cascade. This is surmounted
by an iron ladder. The second portion of the cavern
consists of another long gallery conducting to the
Foret-Noire, a stone cascade of sixty feet, up which one
mounts by a second iron ladder, to attain to the third
portion of the cave, the Cathedral, where is the finest
group of stalagmites in the whole grotto. Two more
ladders lead to the Catacombs, a chaos of blocks fallen
from the roof, and remarkable for its "bassins de
dentelles," or '* gours " — that is to say, a series of basins
as holy-water stoups, formed by incrustations. I will
let M. Martel describe them : —

" Here begins one of the most curious and admirable
stalagmitic formations to be found in these caverns. Imagine
if you can a series of irregular basins set in the wall and
superposed in retreat one above the other, forming steps —
they are of various widths and depths, from a few decimetres

152 THE CEVENNES

to several metres — their walls so transparent that they allow
the light of the candles put in them to shine through. Their
lips are capriciously twisted like writhing serpents, and they
are lined with minute needles and tiny prisms of carbonate of
lime, as delicate in their details as the antennae of polypi, all
either white, yellow, or rose colour, forming all together a vast
pyramid of water-basins in onyx set with diamonds." ^

Further ladders and galleries are traversed, and more
splendid masses of stalactite and stalagmite are seen.

Formerly there were collections of these in the outer
galleries, but they were wantonly destroyed by the
peasants and by visitors.

This cavern was anciently occupied by man not only in
the prehistoric age, but later, for Gaulish black pottery
has been found in it. I may add that on the Causse
Grand Champ and on the Champ Vermeil are dolmens.

An avert of a really appalling character is that of
Vigne Close, near the hamlet of Fontlongue. It was
explored by M. Martel in 1892, and descends 575 feet
into the bowels of the causse, or grasse, as the lime-
stone plateau is here called.

A well had to be descended 165 feet deep. Then
came a redan, a slope, and this had to be gone down
and a second ladder of ropes attached. The second
well was 135 feet. Then a second inclined plain or
redan, and a third well 60 feet ; after that a succession
of slides and drops in stages for another 60 feet. Then
a well of 150 feet. It demands no little daring to
descend into such an abyss entirely shut off from the
light of day, and where a few falling stones caused by
the vibration of the ladder might prove fatal.

* Les Abtmes, Paiis, 1894.

Paiolive : The Lion akd the Bear

Page 153

CHAPTER IX

THE WOOD OF PAIOLIVE

Curiosity of the wood — How the rock disintegrated — Extraordinary
shapes — A labyrinth — La Gleyzasse — Hermitage — the King of
Paiolive — The Royalists of 1792 — ^Jales — The Bailli of Suffren —
Taking the inventories.

LE BOIS DE PAIOLIVE is in repute among the
^ inhabitants of the plain and its great cities as
one of the wonders of the world, at least of that self-
contained world of France, in which is everything,
outside of which nothing. Paiolive is Pagus OlivtB.
Curious the wood is, but cannot compare with Moureze
or MontpelHer le Vieux, which have characteristics in
common with it. The characteristics are these. There
is an extensive elevated platform of cretaceous lime-
stone of very unequal consistency. The result of this
inequality has been that the softer matter has been
washed away, whether at the retreat of the Tertiary
ocean, or whether by atmospheric degradation alone
is uncertain, leaving the cores of greater resistance
isolated, as turrets, obelisks, bridges. And these cores
themselves containing soluble matter have been riddled
in all directions by the rain that, resting on them for a
moment, has been then absorbed, and has carried forth
through every crevice what it was able to dissolve.
But even the masses of hardest texture are so soft that

153

154 THE CEVENNES

the rain soaking into them and then running out at
every perforation has furrowed the white face with its
trickling tears.

The wood measures three miles in each direction, and
a guide is needed through the labyrinth of galleries and
masses of insulated rock, all buried in a wood of oaks,
here and there cleared for mulberry plantations.

It lies beside the road from the station of S. Paul le
Jeune to Les Vans, and reaches to the river Chassezac,
that has cut its way through the plateau in a profound
ravine. In fact, the same formation continues on
the further side of the stream, but the shapes of the
rocks assumed there are less eccentric. A guide lives in
a cottage where a road to the right joins that coming
from S. Paul, and he charges three francs for showing
visitors the principal sights in the wood, five francs for
a complete exploration.

The path, or track rather, changes direction at every
moment, wriggling in and out among the rocks, over
fallen masses, down descents where the brambles throw
long streamers across one's path to arrest progress ; the
thorns claw and rend ladies' dresses. But the turf is
purple with violets, and the fantastic shapes of the rocks
draw one forward in defiance of thorn and prickle.

Some rocks resemble monstrous beasts. Near the
road are the Lion and the Bear, engaged in a wrestle.
There are castles with windows and doors, pointed
arches, a very orgy of natural architecture in which
every style is represented. We pass through narrow
rifts into which the sun never penetrates, arrive by long
galleries at culs-de-sac, and are forced to retrace our
steps. Everywhere cavities, grottoes, piercing the rock
that glares white in the sun and almost blinds the eye.

LA GLEYZASSE 155

We arrive in a great cirque, in the midst of which are
mulberries. In and out, everywhere grow oaks and
broom ; suddenly we come forth upon the gaping chasm
through which rolls the Chassezac. A narrow and
dangerous path down a rift enables one to descend to
the river.

By scrambling among fallen blocks, after having
passed under a little natural arch, a tunnel is reached in
which a score of persons might shelter from the rain.
Then a path emerging into the light leads along a
terrace above the abyss, and by climbing and sliding
and clinging to the bushes La Gleyzasse (the Church) is
reached, a rift and cavern, once inhabited, as has been
proved by the discovery under the soil of flint weapons
and fragments of pottery.

This is the best known of the caverns of Paiolive.
But the mysterious wood grows above a whole subter-
ranean world of vaults and passages. The entrances to
these grottoes are known only to the guide ; they are
hidden among bushes, and often they are pot-holes,
wells that open without warning, and down which an
incautious visitor might fall. Stones thrown in strike
the sides with a sound that becomes ever feebler till
they reach the unexplored bottom.

M. de Malbos describes some of these : —

** I visited as well a grotto forming a gallery, on a very rapid
slope. I would not speak of it but that, entering it without a
candle, I found that my right foot did not touch the ground ;
so I retraced my steps to light a candle, and thus illumined I
saw with horror that I had had half my body suspended over a
precipice, sustaining myself only by my left foot on a slide of
loose stones.

"On ascending the river of Chassezac, on top of the

156 THE CEVENNES

precipice one can reach the Grott of the Chouans. One
descends, or rather jumps, down to it, where it opens on a preci-
pice with a ledge before it. Down to this cave one has to
climb with difficulty. It divides into several galleries, that are
lighted by small cracks, visible at the height of one hundred
feet above the Chassezac. It was in this grotto that seven
Royalists, who had fled to it, were taken by means of fires of
straw and sulphur lighted in the entrance. They were shot at
a little distance from it. One only, Gavidel, managed to
escape, having managed to breathe through the barrel of his
gun, which he had unscrewed and thrust through one of the
cracks I have mentioned."

Near the entrance to the wood is the group that goes
by the name of the Lion and the Bear, already
mentioned. There is a Lot's Wife, there is a nun, a
sphynx, and so on. The Castle of the Trois Seigneurs
does seem actually to have possessed a little fortress,
built in and out among the spires of rock, for frag-
ments of wall are vi^orked into the fissures and sur-
mount some of the points.

But perhaps the most remarkable spot is the Cros de
la Perdrix, where the limestone is in a craggy jumble
of all kinds of forms.

One enters this sort of fortified circus with precipitous
sides by a noble rock, pierced by a natural arch, at the
entry to a cleft, something like that of Gleyzasse —
already described.

If we follow the edge of the ravine of the Chassezac
we see the river gliding smoothly below through green
pastures between sheer walls. On the promontory of
Cornillon are the remains of an ancient village.

At the north-west of the wood is the hermitage of
S. Eugene, at the fringe of the forest. It is as though

THE KING OF PAIOLIVE 157

suspended above the valley, standing on the limestone,
which here lies in narrow, almost horizontal beds.
Architecturally it is nothing. Only a poor, ruinous,
abandoned structure ; no hermit has occupied it for
many years.

According to tradition, for many generations the wood
was inhabited by a family, the head of which assumed
the title of Kingof Pai'olive. Louis XIV. was informed
of the existence of this sovereign in a corner of his
province of Languedoc, and ordered that the man
should be arrested and tried. Several detachments of
troops were sent to surround the wood and to explore
its depths. No one was to be seen in it ; all was silent,
till a crack of a firearm sounded, and a man fell. After
a quarter of an hour, those who had ventured into the
labyrinth struggled out, but with the loss of ten of their
number, each of whom had received a ball in his heart.
The troops retired, and as there was no question of
rebellion against royal authority or of religion, Louis
was content to let the matter rest ; only he succeeded
in entering into communication with the petty king by
means of the hermit of S. Eugene, and requiring of him
as recognition of suzerainty annually a pair of part-
ridges — a tribute, however, that was never paid. The
succession of kings of Paiolive continued till the
Revolution, when it was not safe on French soil for any
man to bear a royal title, and the last king, rather than
run the risk of losing his head on the scaffold, assumed
the red cap and sank into a plain citoyen.

In 1792, the Royalist bands of the Count of Saillans
took refuge in the wood of Paiolive, confident that it
would not be possible for the Republican troops to dis-
lodge them, and their head-quarters was in the Grotto of

158 THE CEVENNES

Gleyzasse, three hundred feet above the river. The
Directory of Ardeche, however, found means of securing
the conspirators when they met at the Chateau of
Jales, and they were taken to Les Vans and there put
to death, the Count among them. Jales had belonged to
the Templars, but these, sacrificed by Clement V. to the
cupidity of Louis the Fair, were taken to Aigues Mortes
and there burnt alive on false charges. To the Temp-
lars succeeded the Knights of Malta. The most
celebrated commander among these, who resided at
Jales, was the Bailli of Suffren, whom the vassals com-
plained of as devouring forty pounds of meat in a day.
But the Bailli was a fire-eater as well, and his exploits
in the Mediterranean, fighting the English, form the
theme of a ballad introduced by Mistral into " Mireio,"
The Bailli was killed in a duel by the Marquess of Mire-
poix, in 1788.

" Our Captain was Bailly Suffren ;
We had sail'd from Toulon,
Five-hundred seafaring Provengeaux,
Stout-hearted and strong :
'Twas the sweet hope of meeting the Enghsh that made our hearts

burn,
And till we had thrashed them we vowed we would never return."

And, of course, these stout-hearted Provengeaux thrash
the English like curs, just as our bluejackets always
thrash the French — in ballads.

Between the wood and Berrias on the bare plateau
are many dolmens.

On the lovely day in early spring upon which
I visited the Bois de Paiolive, the inventories were
being taken in the churches of Banne and Berrias.
As we drove to the wood the bell of Banne church

THE INVENTORIES 159

was pealing the alarm ; as we left, that of Berrias was
sounding, and we drove thither. The village was
occupied by soldiers, and these surrounded the church,
and held every avenue, whilst a body of gendarmes
with axes smashed the barricaded west door. Out-
side the village was an ambulance wagon, rendered
necessary, as the people were offering a strenuous
resistance. In the adjoining village of Beaulieu on the
preceding day they had thrown quicklime in the faces
of the assailants, and had blinded one soldier, who had
to be conveyed to the hospital.

The hostility provoked by the Government by order-
ing the taking of the inventories of the contents of the
churches is not very explicable, for there was no threat
made of confiscation. The reasons given me were
these. At the first Revolution every church had been
pillaged and its treasures seized. Only in some cases
had certain of these latter been saved before the sacred
buildings were plundered, by being confided to the
custody of reliable men in the parish, who restored
them when the churches were reopened for divine
worship. The people suppose that the taking of the
inventories is a preliminary step to confiscation, and to
protect the State against the secretion of any of the
church treasures when that confiscation takes place.
As, however, it is exceedingly unlikely that such a step
will occur, the violent excitement over the taking of
the inventories is not very reasonable. " We," say the
people, " our fathers and grandsires, gave the furniture
to the church ; it belongs to the Commune, and not to
the State."

The attitude assumed by the bishops and cures has
been diverse. Here the taking of the inventory has

i6o THE CEVENNES

been opposed by force, there permitted under protest.
At Lodeve, where very fine new wrought-iron gates
have lately been added to the porch, the clergy took
good care not to fasten them and expose them to be
damaged, but bolted the inner door of wood, very thin,
and easily cut through. That was the form of their
protest. At Alais the cure received the State officials
at the door and contented himself with reading a
written remonstrance, after which he drew aside and
allowed them to do their duty.

Actually, the cur^s in most places took no lead in the
demonstrations, which were often organised by re-
actionaries so as to excite hostility to the Republic, in
view of the approaching elections for the Chamber of
Deputies. They failed utterly in their purpose, as the
election, when it did take place, proved to demonstra-
tion. But in many a country place the resistance was
due to the excited passions of the people ungoaded on
by their superiors. A man said to me when I asked
him the object of these futile resistances to authority :
" Mais, il nous faut, a tout prix — des emotions."

CHAPTER X

THE RAVINE OF THE ALLIER

The Allier — Difficulty of ascent — Remarkable engineering of the line —
Summer visitors — Difference between the Allier and the Ardeche —
Langeac — Chanteuges — Disorderly monks — Fete on Whit-Sunday —
The Lafayettes — The Margeride and its inhabitants— Sauges — The
Drac — Church — Tour de la Clauze — Tomb of an English captain — La
Voute-Chilhac — Basalt — Used on the roads — Monistrol d' Allier —
S. Privat — Find of an oculist's tools — Alleyras — Bed of old lake —
Langogne — Church — N. D. du Tout Pouvoir — the Vogue — Proprietor-
ship versus tenancy — Pradelles — Delivered from the Huguenots —
Chateau of De Belsunce — S. Alban — Cave — Trappist monastery —
The Liborne— The rule of La Trappe.

I PASS now from the east to the west by direct
flight from the Vivarais over the plateau of Le Puy
to where the Allier descends into the plains from the
lofty ridge of the southern Cevennes.

Almost from its source the Allier has met with
difficulties. It has had to contend with granite, schist,
and finally with basalt, and it has had to form for itself
a ravine that widens into a valley below Langeac
where are coal-beds.

That ravine is peculiarly tantalising, because it is
difficult to explore satisfactorily. From Langeac a
road runs up the riverside only till it encounters that
from Sauges to S. Privat. Beyond that there is none.
The line, indeed, does follow the stream, and it is of all
French lines the most remarkable for the engineering

M l6l

i62 THE CEVENNES

feats achieved. The road for the rails has been hewn
as a cornice in the face of the cliff, every salient buttress
has been bored through, and every inconvenient lateral
gorge overleaped. In 132 kilometres (81 miles) from
the confluence of the D^ge with the Allier up to
La Levade, there are ninety tunnels, which happens to
be precisely the number of kilometres between those
points as the crow flies.

Precisely this fact makes the ascent of the ravine by
train prove so unsatisfactory. It consists in a rapid
succession of flashes followed by darkness — a constant
flutter, as it were, of the eyelid. Moreover, the tunnels
are carried through the shoulders of the mountain,
avoiding the finest parts of the canon.

The only possible way of doing justice to the scenery
is to halt at the little stations where poor villages have
been planted at the opening of lateral ravines, and
thence follow the river by a footpath as far as it will
lead.

The ascent of the river by train is indeed one of the
great curiosities of the country, and it will be done
generally in this way till the authorities of the depart-
ment undertake to drive a carriage-road up the gorge.
It is true that the villages are few, the population small,
and trade a negligible quantity at present. But the
scenery and the coolness of the mountain air, and the
abundance of crystal water, are drawing annually more
and ever more from the sweltering plains of Languedoc
and the burning zone of Provence to this region for the
summer, and it is accordingly to be regretted that they
are debarred by lack of roadway from exploring what
is the most magnificent feature of the country.

I have described the canon of the Ardeche ; this of

RAVINE OF THE ALLIER 163

the Allier is also a canon, but they are as unlike as is
a blonde beauty to one who is dark. They are both
superb, but in manner totally different. The Allier runs
through rough basalt and crystalline rocks; the Ardeche
flows between bluffs of limestone. The latter can be
descended in a boat, the Allier cannot. The Allier
looks north — the colouring, the vegetation, the climate
are northern ; the Ardeche in every one of these particu-
lars is southern. The Ardeche has cut its way through
a level plateau ; the Allier flows between ranges of
mountains. The canon of the Ardeche is a street ; the
defile of the Allier is a lane. We cannot seek the
Ardeche in the height of summer; it is just then when
we would refresh in the cool draughts and the blue
shadows of the Allier.

The chasm of this latter river has been formed at
the point of contact of the lava with the granite. The
volcanoes of Le Velay poured forth their molten floods
which beat against the granitic mass of the Margeride,
and the lava in cooling may have shrunk and cracked
and so allowed the river an opportunity of escaping
into the plain. In places it has cut through granite
and schist. It had cut this channel before the volcanic
vents opened. What these latter did was to deposit
what they threw out in the trough of the Allier, and
force that stream to renew its work of excavation ; in
the latter part of its course the ravine is cut through
lava.

Langeac will serve as a starting-point for visits if the
tourist be not very particular as to accommodation. It
does possess one passable inn, and that is at some dis-
tance from the station in the town. The place itself is
of no great interest. It has manufactures, favoured by

i64 THE CEVENNES

the presence of coal-beds near at hand. The church,
however, is curious. It consists of a nave without
aisles, but with chapels between the buttresses, and
with an apse, lined within with well-carved oak stalls
of the sixteenth century ; once occupied at Mass by
canons, now by schoolboys. The tower is at the east
end, and supports an octagonal campanile.

From Langeac Chanteuges is easily reached. It
clusters about a basaltic hunch at the junction of the
Dege with the AlHer. The village creeps up the side
of the hill, the summit of which is occupied by a church
and the ruins of a priory. The original church was
a fine example of Romanesque, but is now a sad jumble
of styles ; every age as it passed has left a trace on the
building. The platform on which it stands is ascended
by a zigzag path ; basaltic prisms, range above range,
form the mass of the rock.

The main entrance to the old priory is on the north,
and was defended by a tower. On one of the blocks at
the top of the wall may be read the date 1115. The
monks had evidently converted their habitation into a
fortress, and it was precisely this that led to their sup-
pression and the dispersion of the fraternity.

One Iter de Maudulf, a knight who had led a lawless
life, felt a twinge of compunction, and resolved on quit-
ting the world and embracing a life of religion. Accord-
ingly he assumed the cowl in Chanteuges. But the old
Adam was not dead in him. Cucullus non facit viona-
chum. The choir offices proved tedious, the meagre
fare unacceptable, and the wine was vinegar. His
temper gave way, and with it his good resolutions. He
became restive. In the refectory he talked to the other
monks of the good old days when he roistered and

CHANTEUGES 165

roved over the country; ate and drank and did wild
deeds of devilry. They listened ; their mouths watered,
and their fingers itched. Eventually Maudulf succeeded
in corrupting the whole fraternity. The monks aban-
doned their reading and psalmody to fortify the height.
Every night a diabolical horde issued from the gate of
the monastery, clothed in mail armour under their serge
habits. They swept the country, levied blackmail on
the farmers, stopped and robbed merchants, and plun-
dered the pilgrims bound for the shrine of Our Lady of
Le Puy. In the dead of night they forced their way
into convents, and romped and revelled with the nuns,
or else carried off comely peasants' daughters en croupe
to their stronghold at Chanteuges.

Of all the confraternity, the abbot alone kept his head ;
but his objurgations were disregarded, his authority was
flouted. In despair he appealed to the Bishop of
Clermont, who at once visited the monastery, but took
the precaution of doing so at the head of a body of
armed men. " I saw," said he, " the abbey in the
most deplorable condition. The buildings were in
ruins, the sanctuary was despoiled, the church con-
verted into a fortress, no one serving God, the holy
habitation transformed into a den of thieves and
murderers."

Accordingly the monastery was suppressed, the
monks dispersed among other houses, and the abbey
converted into a priory under the rule and supervision
of Chaisedieu. To the present day the belief prevails
among the peasantry that in winter, at night, when a
storm rages and the snow is driving, a black caval-
cade issues from the gate, with cowls drawn over grin-
ning skulls, and with serge habits flapping in the wind,

i66 THE CEVENNES

that it sweeps over the plateau till cock-crow, when it
returns through the portal and vanishes.

East of the church is a little chapel of flamboyant
character with richly sculptured doorway, surmounted
by a representation of the Assumption. It is the sole
specimen of this style in the department. At the
Revolution it was converted into a haystore.

The fete at Chanteuges is on Whitsun Day, and has
a peculiar observance. It begins in the Pre du Fou.
This field may not be mown till after Pentecost. A
beggar is induced to hide in the long grass. The
youths of the parish, wearing hats decked with cock's
feathers, march to the field in two files led by fifes and
drums and preceded by a banner. The procession
circles thrice about the field, and some of the young
men detach themselves from it and beat it in search of
the beggar. If they do not find him at once, others
come to their aid. When the/ou has been discovered,
he is grasped by the legs, thrown on his back, and spun
round once by each of the youths forming the proces-
sion. Then a pistol is discharged, the procession re-
forms, and the train mounts to the church, taking the
poor fool along with it. There he is again thrown down
and undergoes the same process of spinning. After this
he is indemnified by a few coppers from each of the
Spinners, and every seller of cakes and buns who has a
stall there is bound to supply him with sufficient food
to satisfy his maw. The spinning over, the young men
enter the church for Mass. At Chanteuges the festival
of Pentecost is devoted partly to God, partly to dancing,
partly to drinking. God is often forgotten, dancing
sometimes, the bottle never.

Opposite Chanteuges is S. Arcons, where the Fioule

LANGEAC 167

flows into the Allien It rises among the pine-clad
heights of Fix S. Genys, and receives the stream that
issues from the Lake of Limagne, a volcanic basin like
that of Bourget, but not of like regularity of outline.

Above Langeac is the land of the Lafayettes. They
were great seigneurs in the Middle Ages. They derive
from Gilbert Motier, lord of Lafayette, who was one
of the great captains that drove the English out of
France. He died in 1463, and was grandson of a
Gilbert who fell on the field of Poitiers, 1356, also with
his face set against the English. So Marie Jean Paul,
the famous marquess, fought the English on the side of
the Americans, 1 777-1 785. The Marquess was born at
Chavagnac, 1757, on the tableland about the junction of
lines at S. Georges dAurac. The castle was built in 1701.

From Langeac one can explore the granitic Mar-
geride, peopled by a race distinct from the Cevenols.
They are pale, often fair-headed and blue - eyed,
grave, dignified, and intensely conservative. They
are and ever have been sturdy Catholics, have never
been shaken, even ruffled, by the shock to faith given
by Calvin and his followers. Whereas a Cevenol is
ready at all times for a prophecy, a revelation, a new
doctrine, the upset of one that is old, taking up what is
fresh with fanaticism, and then letting it drop and
lapsing into indifference, the man of the Margeride
remains as constant, as unmoved as his own rocky moun-
tains. The Margeride, " as seen from the Pec Finiels, is
a long black line drawn against the sky of central
France, a wall without battlements, without towers,
without a keep." It is in reality a long series of
successive undulating plains high uplifted, covered with
forests of oaks, beech and pines, or else with pastures

i68 THE CEVENNES

on which feed during the summer the sheep of Basse
Languedoc and the oxen of the Camargue. It is
composed of granite, and its loftiest points reach only
4,650 feet. A visitor will probably content himself
with an expedition to Sauges, that lies in scenery
called the Switzerland of the Margeride. The rich
green swath, the dark pine-woods, the abundance of
crystal rills contrast with the bare lava plain and
mountain cones of Le Velay.

The Sauge stream falls in cascade over a dyke of
trap that has been forced through a rent in the granite,
near the farm of Luchadou, built on and out of the
ruins of a castle. There a phantom horse, magnificently
caparisoned, is said to be seen grazing. It neighs
when it sees children approach, and invites them to
mount its back, which will lengthen conveniently to
accommodate as many as desire to have a ride. When
the horse has received a full complement, it dashes into
the river, and buck- jumps till it has flung all the riders
against the rocks or into the pools.

One day when a couple of dozen children were on its
back, as the steed was galloping towards the stream
one little boy sang out " Gloria Patri," etc., whereby he
was able to master the " Drac " and make it gallop
round and round the field till exhausted, when it let the
children descend unmolested. This is none other than
the Irish Pooka. The celebrated fall of the Liffey,
near Ballymore Eustace, is named Pool-a-Phooka, and
precisely the same story is told there of a phantom
horse as here at Sauges. The same also in North
Wales of the Cefiyl - y - Dwyr, the water - horse of
Marchlyn. Can this myth have originated and been
told by the Celtic race before its separation into several

SAUGES 169

branches ? I can see no other explanation of the
puzzle.

The church at Sauges has an early and remarkable
belfry. An immense arch, richly moulded, admits to a
porch. Above this is a still larger relieving arch to
sustain the octagonal tower that is on two stages.
Granite and black basalt are employed in bands and
in the arches of the windows, two-light in the tower
story, single in that above, and the whole is capped by
a dwarf spire.

Near Sauges is the Tour de la Clauze, erected on a
protuberant mass of granite fissured into blocks. The
rest of the castle is completely ruined. But that which
is most curious at Sauges is a monumental structure
composed of a cubical base, on which stand four pillars
supporting arches and a vault with groined ribs. This
goes by the name of the Tombeau du General Anglais,
and is supposed to have been set up in honour of a
Captain MacHarren, who commanded one of the
mixed companies of English and Gascons that held the
land or harried it for the English Crown nominally,
actually for themselves. This MacHarren was probably
one of the English garrison that held Sauges till 1360,
when they were driven out by the Viscount Polignac.

La Voute-Chilhac down the river stands on a
peninsula between the Allier and the Avesne that
here debouches into it. It possesses a church of the
fifteenth century that has taken the place of one
erected by S. Odilo of Cluny in 1075, The original door-
valves remain, but injured by cutting to make them fit
the ogee portal. In the midst it bears the inscription : —

"Hie tibi rex regum hoc condidit Odilo templum
Agminibus superis quern miscuit arbiter orbis."

I70 THE CEVENNES

There were other inscriptions, but they have been
mutilated. Chilhac stands on a rock composed in the
lower portion of beautiful prismatic columnar basalt,
capped with an amorphous flow. It is curious how
sharp the line of demarcation is between the two beds.
The situation is pretty, the church Romanesque.

The course of the AUier above Langeac presents
many faces like organ fronts of basalt; in places the
pillars form a pavi de giants. The prisms are em-
ployed along the roads to mark distances, and might
easily be supposed to have been specially cut for the
purpose. But all lava does not crystallise into prisms ;
under pressure it does. When not squeezed by super-
incumbent beds it is cinderous. But there is another
form it assumes, that of phonolith or clinkstone, flakes
that can be cut like slates and divided into lamina;.
As slates they are employed extensively in Velay.
But why the ejected lava should form films here and
prismatic pillars there, I do not comprehend.

At Monistrol d'Allier the Ance du Sud comes in
from the Margeride after traversing a picturesque
gorge. Here may be studied a fine basaltic face, called
Escluzels. There are grottoes in the neighbourhood ex-
cavated in the tufa by the hand of man, but when is not
known. A chapel dedicated to the Magdalen has been
scooped out of the rock, but given a frontage of wall,
and is an object of pilgrimage on the Sunday following
July 22nd, when and where may be seen some of the
costumes of the neighbourhood not yet wholly dis-
carded.

On the opposite bank of the Allier is S. Privat, where
the stream of Bouchoure comes down writhing between
high precipices. The tower of Rochegude occupies the

ALLEYRAS 171

summit of a peak 1,500 feet high, commanding the
river and the roads. In 1865 a discovery was made at
S. Privat of a cache of a Roman oculist of the third
century. Along with his little store of coins lay his
delicate instruments, and a cube as well, bearing on
each face the name of one of the medicaments em-
ployed by him, and the cube used probably by him for
sealing up his packets. The man seems to have known
his business, or at all events of having both instru-
ments and remedies not by any means barbarous. On
reaching Alleyras the valley opens into a basin. Above
the little town shoots up a mass of rock looking like a
gigantic thumb as we approach from the north, but
changing form as Alleyras is passed. It is actually a
huge slab of rock that is detached from the mountain
by a wide fissure.

The basin of Alleyras was once a lake, where the
river paused to rest before it renewed its efforts to
break a way through the lava. From this point up-
wards the scenery is less savage and gloomy. At
Chapeauroux the railway describes a great curve, and
pursues its way through tunnel and over viaduct till
it draws up at Langogne, a busy little town of the
Gevaudan, of some commercial importance. A monas-
tery was founded here in 998 by Stephen Count of the
Gevaudan, and Silvester 1 1, presented to it the relics of
SS. Gervasius and Protasius, and further conferred on
the town the more than doubtful privilege of being out
of episcopal jurisdiction, to be looked after or let alone
by the Holy See only. The place suffered severely in
the Hundred Years War, and again and worse even in
those of religion. From 1 562 for nearly a century and
a half the Gevaudan was devastated turn and turn

172 THE CEVENNES

about by Protestants and Catholics, and Langogne
passed from the hands of one party to those of the
other. In 1568 the Huguenots sacked the town and set
fire to the church and monastery.

The church comprises a nave and side aisles, and is
substantially in the Romanesque style, but with many
alterations. There are three arcades resting on piers
with engaged columns in granite, with capitals carved
to represent fruit, acanthus leaves, and the seven
deadly sins. A pretty flamboyant doorway replaces
the western porch, which had been destroyed. Over it
is a window in the same style. On the right of the
entrance a doorway, that seems to give access only to a
passage, communicates with a chapel below the soil,
dimly lighted, and containing an image of N. D. de
tout Pouvoir, supposed to have been given by Agel-
modis, the widow of the founder of church and monas-
tery. It was accorded a crown in 1900 by the Pope, and
the anniversary of this ceremony, July 29th, is kept as
a fete at Langogne. But the great festival in the town
is on the Sunday following June 19th, when is the
vogue, in honour of the two patrons, Gervasius and
Protasius. On that occasion cars are drawn through
the streets bearing groups of allegorical figures ; but
the special sport of the day is the " chute d'eau." A
species of gallows is erected in the main street, with
a vessel full of water balanced in the middle. The
young men vie with one another as to who by throwing
a stick can upset the vessel, and then dash under it so
speedily as not to be splashed by the falling water.
He who succeeds receives a prize.

Langogne is becoming annually more and more a
summer resort. The Languiron here flows into the

OWNERSHIP VERSUS TENANCY 173

Allier ; it does not fill its bed, which is the receptacle
for the refuse from the abattoir and the town, and the
odours arising from these dejections infect the other-
wise pure mountain air.

It is doubtless excellent in principle that every man
should be able to dwell under his own fig tree and
inhabit his own house ; but this has its drawbacks.
The theory may be sound, yet the results other than
those anticipated. In England, where most house-
holders are tenants, if a slate be blown off the landlord
is applied to. If the putty be cracked that retains a
window-pane, the landlord must see to it less the glass
fall out. If the plaster scales off in one patch the size
of a leaf, the landlord must replaster the whole face
of the house. If the rats have gnawed through the
floor, " Please, squire, have the boards relaid lest my
child puts its leg through." If the well be contami-
nated, he is called upon to clear it, under the threat of
complaint to the Local Government Board. But in
France, where every man owns his own habitation,
the habitations are allowed to fall into a ragged and
measly condition. If a slate be carried away, the patron
tells his wife to put a basin where it can catch the drip
whenever it rains. If the putty falls from the glass, the
pane is retained by the gummed border of postage
stamps, renewed when necessary. If the rats have
eaten through the floor, the child must learn to avoid
the hole ; it affords a useful lesson in circumspection.
If the plaster peals away in masses from the front of
the house, " Shall I squander money in titivating it ? "
asks the owner. " My relatives would consign me to
an asylum as incapable of managing my affairs." And
as for the well, M. le propri^taire says to himself, " / never

174 THE CEVENNES

drink water, only wine. If some of my children get
diphtheria, it will leave more money for those who
survive."

This it is that gives to so many of the towns and
nearly every village in France a palsied, neglected look,
as if the houses had lost their self-respect, like a man
who has gone down in the world and sunk to be a
tramp.

Pradelles is four miles from Langogne, built in an
amphitheatre on the flanks of the mountains of Le Velay,
surrounded by rich meadows, from which it derives its
name {pratellcB). The many Prades that occur in the
south are all so called from the pratse that spread
about them. In 1588 Chambaud, at the head of a
large body of Huguenots, besieged the town. As it had
but a scanty garrison, he shouted to those on the walls,
" Ville prise, ville gagn^e ! " To which a young woman
called back, " Pa'ncaro ! " (not yet) and flung a great
stone at him which broke in his skull. This act of
heroism saved Pradelles from being sacked and its
citizens from massacre. The memory of that woman,
Jeanne de Verdette, is still green there, and in 1888 the
third centenary of the deliverance was commemorated
at Pradelles.

At Naussac, in the opposite direction, on a granite
tableland that goes by the name of the Kidney of
Lozere, is an ancient house with a tower that formed a
portion of the chateau of Mgr. de Belsunce, the brave
Bishop of Marseilles, who was so devoted in his atten-
tions to the plague-stricken in the terrible pestilence of
1720, which carried off forty thousand of its population.
S. Alban-en-Montagne is four miles from Langonne in
the department of Ard^che. It lies high — 3,565 feet.

SILKWORM DISEASE 175

On the face of an enormous basaltic rock is a remark-
able cave divided into several chambers, and large
enough to contain all the villagers. It was employed
as a place of refuge during the wars of feudal times,
and again in those of religion. Access to it is not easy.
As the railway reaches the watershed, barricades on
both sides protect it from snow-drifts. Luc is passed,
having an old castle on a rock, the donjon braced to
sustain a colossal statue of the Virgin. Then the train
halts at La Bastide, where is a branch line to Mende.

The Trappist monks have an establishment near this
on these bleak heights. Their buildings are tasteless.
Hitherto the monks have been left unmolested by
Government, due possibly to the fact that they receive
and examine the silkworm moths that have laid
their eggs, sent to them from great distances round,
to examine if they are free from the disease that so
fatally threatened the silk industry in the Cevennes.

The breaking out of this complaint caused consterna-
tion some years ago, and M. Pasteur was sent down
to investigate it. He found that no remedial efforts
availed, and that the sole way of getting rid of the
disorder was to stamp it out. Accordingly every moth
after it has laid its eggs is enclosed along with the seed
that has been deposited in a muslin bag and sent to be
inspected. Each bag is numbered and ticketed with
the name of the sender. The body of the moth is
pounded up and submitted to examination under a
powerful microscope, and this reveals the presence of
the germs of fibrine if they exist. Should these be
detected, the eggs of that particular moth are destroyed
by fire.

In addition to this service rendered by the Trappists,

176 THE CEVENNES

they have shown the peasantry of the High Cevennes
how to improve the quality of the land by the use of
lime and artificial manures, and they have also improved
the breed of the sheep and cattle.

But these are side products of monachism, and they
are benefits that might just as well be rendered by
laymen ; and, in fact, the examination of the silkworm
moths is carried out in laboratories established for the
purpose in some of the large towns of Languedoc.

The Trappist Order is the severest of all. The
members are condemned never to speak, never to eat
meat or fish, are denied even butter and oil. They have
but two meals a day, and these of vegetables only.
They never take off their garments to wash or to sleep,
and do not wear linen. They go to bed at 8 p.m. in the
summer, at 7 p.m. in winter, and rise at 2 a.m., but have
no meal of any sort till midday. Every day part of
their duty is to dig a portion of their future grave.

In Quarles' Hieroglyphics of the Life of Man, pub-
lished in 1635, is an emblem of a dark lantern placed
on a coffin and the sun in total eclipse, and this is
above a poem, of which I give two stanzas : —

" Was it for this, the breath of Heav'n was blown
Into the nostrils of this heavenly creature?
Was it for this, that the sacred Three in One
Conspired to make this quintessence of Nature ?
Did heav'nly Providence intend
So rare a fabric for so poor an end ?

" Tell me, recluse monastre, can it be

A disadvantage to thy beams to shine ?
A thousand tapers may gain light from thee :
Is thy light less or worse for light'ning mine ?
If wanting light I stumble, shall
Thy darkness not be guilty of my fall }

CHAPTER XI
THE CAMISARDS

The country of the Camisards — Revocation of the Edict of Nantes —
Shepherdess and angel — Corhi^re — Gabriel Astier — Excitement in the
Boutieres — Expectations of help from England — Prophecies — Murder
of Tirbon — Prophetic gifts at Porcheres — Attack of Cheilaret — What
the prophetic gift really was — Isabeau Charras — Vivens — Battle of
Florae — Assassinations — Correspondence with Schomberg — Capture of
Vivens — Peace of Ryswick — Second outbreak of prophetic ecstasies —
Children prophets — Cruelties — Break-up of meetings — Massacre of
Creux de Vaie — Durand Fage — The Abbe du Chayla — Seguier — Pont
de Montvert — Fresh murders — Seguier taken and burnt — Catinat —
Murder of Saint C6mes — Laporte — Roland — Additional murders —
Battle of Ste. Croix — Four degrees of inspiration — The prophet Clary
passes through fire — Fight at Mas de Gaffard — Death of Captain Poul
— Moussac — ^Jean Cavalier — Defeat of Du Roure — Rout of Camisards
— Flight of Cavalier — Massacre of Chamborigaud — La Tour de
Belot — Battle of Ste. Chatte — Marshal Villars — Change of tactics —
Submission of Cavalier — Cessation of prophecy — What produced the
prophetic exaltation.

WE are now drawing near to the country of the
Camisards, and I must give a brief sketch of
the rise of the movement due to prophets and pro-
phetesses, its culmination in revolt, and its suppression.
The Edict of Nantes had been revoked ; shoals of
Huguenots had left France, where the exercise of their
religion was no longer tolerated ; the temples had been
levelled with the dust, the pastors arrested, imprisoned,
and executed. Those who escaped to Geneva or
Holland exhorted such of their flock as remained to

N 177

178 THE CEVENNES

continue steadfast to their convictions and to their
prejudices. In the spring of 1668, near Castres, a
shepherdess, aged ten, had a vision of an angel, who
forbade her to attend Mass. The news spread every-
where, and crowds went to see the girl and hear her
narrative from her own lips. This was the first mani-
festation, but it was not till twenty years had elapsed
that such became common. A preacher, Corbiere, from
the same district, by some trickery caused two angels
armed with sticks to enter the assembly where he was
haranguing and to well thrash and expel such as had
attended Mass. The intendant of the province sent
his agents to take him. Corbiere was surprised whilst
holding a meeting in a wood. He drew a circle about
him with a stick, and thundered, " Get thee behind me,
Satan ! " The dragoons hesitated, but the commandant
shot him through the head.

Now appeared in Dauphin6 la belle Isabeau, a
shepherdess of about seventeen, who went into trances
and preached and prophesied when in them. When
she emerged from one of these ecstasies she remem-
bered nothing about what she had said and done when
in it. Usually to prophesy she lay on a bed, and this
was the position almost always adopted by the
prophets and prophetesses who succeeded her.

She was arrested and imprisoned, but treated with
the utmost kindness, well fed, and visited daily by
good charitable ladies. Under this influence, and when
well nourished, her fits became fewer, and finally totally
left her. Then she married a lusty young peasant, and
ceased to be of consequence in the movement.

Meanwhile a pastor, Jurieu, from the place of his
exile, Rotterdam, had proclaimed himself to be in-

GABRIEL ASTIER 179

spired. He had a medal struck with "Jurius Propheta"
on it, and largely circulated in the Cevennes. More-
over, he printed his prophecies in 1686, and they passed
from hand to hand. In them he announced that the
Papacy would fall in the year 1690, and that the
Reformation would be established throughout France.

But the spirit was not quenched when la belle
Isabeau gave up prophesying. It broke out in a peasant
of twenty-two named Gabriel Astier, of Clieu. His
first solicitude was to communicate the spirit to his
father, his mother, and his sisters ; then he inoculated
his neighbours and all the inhabitants of his village.
Finding himself an object of pursuit by the police, he
escaped over the Rhone into the Vivarais, and, followed
by a troup of prophets and prophetesses, he went
through the Boutieres. His words propagated the
agitation ; men, women, and children went into fits and
preached and announced the future. The epidemic
passed through the country with the rapidity of a fire
driven by the wind. No preacher, even at the time
when the inspiration was at its height, possessed the
power over crowds that Astier exercised.

Vast multitudes attended his assemblies in the moun-
tains, and the meetings were always held in places
which commanded a view of the country round, so that
they might be dispersed in the event of the dragoons
being seen to approach. Often the wandering multi-
tude remained for many days away from their homes,
feeding on apples and chestnuts. Nothing like it had
been seen since John the Baptist drew crowds to the
banks of the Jordan, or the Son of Man had preached
in the wilderness of Judea.

The theme of the preacher was always the same :

i8o THE CEVENNES

" Repent ; do penance for having attended Mass." And
the thrilled congregation fell on the ground, screaming
out, " Pardon, Lord, O pardon ! "

At this very time it was that the Revolution occurred
in England, when James II. fled and the nation sum-
moned William of Orange to the throne. William, it
must be remembered, drew his title from the Princi-
pality of Orange, which he held, and this adjoined
Dauphine, where the prophetic afflatus had first been
felt. It was concluded as certain that William would
come to the aid of his afflicted co-religionists. Astier
was so confident, that he ventured to predict the day on
which William would arrive at the head of an army of
a hundred thousand men, led by an exterminating angel.
Then all the levelled temples would sprout up, built
without hands, and the Catholic churches which had re-
placed them would go off in a puff of smoke. A star
would fall from heaven on Babylon and consume the
papal chair. He assured his hearers that God had
made them invulnerable, so that neither sword nor ball
could hurt them. Another prophet, named Palette,
made the same assurances to the Calvinists, and as he
and his congregation came upon a Captain Tirbon with
his soldiers, they rushed on them, flinging stones, and
killed the captain and nine of his soldiers, but not till
some of the elect had fallen.

This event alarmed Colonel Folleville, in command of
the troops in the province.

M. de Broglie, brother-in-law of Baville, intendant of
Languedoc, went to Porcheres where he heard that a
religious assembly was to be held. In this hamlet lived
a poor old man named Paul Beraut, who had for long
resisted the Spirit ; but one day he heard his children

FGLLEVILLE i8i

tell of the marvels that took place in the assemblies,
and all at once a convulsion shook him ; he jumped up in
bed, pulled down the canopy of the four-poster and
flung it into the middle of the room, uttering incoherent
words. This sublime victory of the Spirit over their
father filled his children with joy. They ran through
the village, entering every house, saying, " Come and
see our father who has received the Spirit, and is
prophesying ! " The old man was in wild excitement
when M. de Broglie arrived in the village. Beraut and
his eldest daughter Sarah, at the head of all those who
had been listening to his prophetic utterances, rushed
on de Broglie and his troop, throwing stones. The
soldiers retaliated, the new-made prophet and a dozen
others were killed, and Sarah was taken prisoner.

Folleville, learning that Gabriel Astier was holding
an assembly on the height of Cheilaret, surrounded the
mountain. As soon as the dragoons were seen, Astier
harangued the faithful : " Children of God, be without
fear. I promise you that your bodies will be as adamant
against ball and sabre. The angels of the Lord will
fight for us."

Before attacking, Folleville sent the provost of his
regiment to urge the fanatics to disperse and return to
their duty. He was met with shouts of " Tartara !
Get thee behind me, Satan ! " The cry of Tartara was
supposed to have the power to paralyse the enemy.
Then one of the Calvinists rushed upon the provost
and pelted him with stones, so that he was forced to fly.
Folleville, reluctant to proceed to extremities, sent
another parliamentary to the crowd ; he was received
with a volley of stones. The fanatics could be seen
breathing on one another to communicate the gift of

i82 THE CEVENNES

the Spirit to all. Then they marched in a solid body
against the soldiers, shouting Tartara ! Some were
armed with guns, most carried large stones. They
fought valiantly, but their ranks were broken ; three
hundred were left dead on the field, fifty who were
wounded were taken to Privas, and those who recovered
were hung.

The prophetic inspiration was really nothing more
than an epidemic malady, such as is found among the
North American Indians, the tribes in Siberia, and such
as broke out among the early Quakers and Wesleyans.
It is a nervous disorder, as natural as chicken-pox,
though not so common. Roman Catholic nuns have it,
so had the pagan prophetesses of old.

Some Calvinist women professed to have received
the gift of shedding tears of blood, and showed the
crimson streaks washing their cheeks. This was by no
means necessarily a fraud. Roman Catholic ecstatics
have had the same, and the stigmata as well.

F16chier, a contemporary, thus describes the ecstasy
of Isabeau Charras, one of the principal prophetesses,
and not to be confounded with la belle Isabeau. He
gives it from the relation of an ecclesiastic who with
some friends entered her cottage to see what really took
place.

" lis furent surpris du spectacle qui s'offrit k leurs yeux. La
prophetesse etait couchee a la renverse dans una cuisine, les
jambes nues et I'estomac tout a fait decouvert. Tous les
assistants, k genoux autour d'elle, etaient attentifs a ces pieuses
nudites. Le pretre voulut faire quelque remontrance a la fiUe,
mais la mere indignee lui dit : * Quoi ! malheureux que tu
fetes, vous ne respectez pas ma fiUe qui a le Saint Esprit dans
restomac ! ' "

VIVENS 183

Gabriel Astier was finally taken and broken on the
wheel in 1690.

Francois Vivens was a wool-comber of Valleraux, a
small man and lame, but with a robust and indefatigable
body. He had gone to Holland, but, on the accession
of William to the English throne, felt so confident that
the Prince of Orange would bring all the power of his
kingdom to assist the Calvinists of Languedoc, that he
returned thither. When he arrived in the Cevennes he
found the people agitated by the spirit of prophecy.
He was the first to organise rebellion. He exhorted to
it, and collected arms, manufactured powder, and cast
bullets. He soon had four hundred men under arms,
and he met Baville and de Broglie near Florae at the
head of a considerable body. A fight ensued. Vivens
was obliged to fly and hide in a wood ; he lost three
men killed, and some prisoners, who were hung next
day.

Baville executed several persons charged with having
given him shelter. To revenge this Vivens, with his
own hand, killed the cure of Conguerac, and had the
priest of S. Marcel and the vicaire stabbed and four
officers assassinated, either in their houses or on the
roads. " This Cevenol," says Peyrat in his Histoire des
Pasteurs du Desert, " had in his soul something of the
Tishbite who had four hundred and fifty of the prophets
of Baal slain by the brook of Carmel."

Whilst Vivens was ordering these bloody reprisals
he was carrying on a correspondence with Schomberg,
late Marshal of France, who was at this time in Savoy
in command of a regiment of refugee Protestants. He
proposed to Schomberg a plan. He was to raise an army
of several thousands, make a sudden descent on Aigues-

i84 THE CEVENNES

Mortes, march across the plain, and join hands with the
Cevenols. The correspondence was intercepted, and
Baville, seeing he had to do with a dangerous man, put
a price on his head.

A preacher named Languedoc, a companion of
Vivens, was arrested, and made revelations — amongst
others that Vivens had converted four dragoons, who
kept him informed of every movement of the royal
troops. These men were taken, and one betrayed where
Vivens hid, in a cave. The commandant of Alais with
a body of soldiers went to the place, which was not far
off. The cavern was in a rock that had to be sur-
mounted, and descent to the cave was by a narrow path.
Vivens, who was there with two of his lieutenants, was
only aware of his danger when the enemy were close at
hand. His first assailant, a sergeant, he shot as he
descended. Vivens had several guns loaded that were
passed out to him by his companions. He killed two
more soldiers and wounded the lieutenant, but was him-
self shot by a man who had succeeded in creeping down
in his rear. All but one of the pastors in the Cevennes,
Pierre Roman, had been captured and hung. The death
of Vivens and the peace of Ryswick deprived the Cal-
vinists there of hope of assistance from the Protestant
powers, and resistance ceased. However, although all
seemed quiet, the authorities redoubled their measures
of severity. Everywhere new excesses of cruelty were
committed by the governors of the provinces, the judges
and the provosts of the mounted police, against poor
creatures who desired only to be let alone to serve God
according to their dim lights.

"In 1700," says Court, the historian of the Camisards,
" the country groaned with the crowds languishing in prison

CHILDREN PROPHETS 185

and in irons. In April a chain of sixty-three were sent to the
galleys, whose only crime was fidelity to and zeal for their
religion, and among them were several fathers of families with
grey heads."

The death of Charles II,, King of Spain, at the close
of 1700, roused expectations of a new foreign war, into
which England and Holland would be drawn to take
part with Austria against France. The news of the
War of Succession breaking out, spread through the
provinces, and revived the hopes of the Reformed ;
the spirit of prophecy that had languished since the
execution of Gabriel Astier burst forth again. At the
end of that year, 1700, an old maid who earned her
livelihood by tailoring in the villages on the Ardeche
brought the prophetic gift into the Cevennes. She
communicated it to a number of young boys and girls,
and they in turn transmitted it to the population of
the mountains. This was done by wild gesticulation,
loud invocation of the Spirit, and by breathing into the
mouths of those who were to be inspired. The winter
had not passed before the epidemic had spread with
astounding rapidity, and prophets prophesied by the
thousands. Women and children were especially liable
to take the contagion. It was calculated that as many
as eight thousand children in the Cevennes preached
and prophesied. The Governor of Languedoc had a
number of them arrested and put in prison, and re-
quired the faculty of medicine at Montpellier to examine
into the nature of the phenomenon. The doctors
observed, discussed, wrangled, and produced an opinion
that these children v^qxq. fanatics. That was the sum of
what they had to say.

Baville released the youngest of the children, but

i86 THE CEVENNES

sent the rest either to the galleys or to serve in the
army. He announced that he would hold the parents
responsible for their offspring who prophesied, and that
they should be fined. Dragoons were quartered upon
those who could not cure their children or prevent them
from taking this epidemic. Things went so far that some
parents denounced their own children so as to shelter
themselves from these violent measures. They handed
them over to the magistrates, and said, " There, take
them, and do with them what you will ; cure them if
you can."

But the spirit of prophecy did not remain with the
children, it communicated itself to their elders. Baville
had such arrested as he could lay hold on and hung or
sent them to the galleys.

But in spite of these cruelties, or rather in conse-
quence of them, the prophets multiplied more and
more. The prospect of the gallows, the wheel, or the
galleys only served to fire their zeal to madness.

The number and importance of the assemblies in-
creased, and the Governor of Languedoc began to deal
with hearers as he had with prophets. In October,
1 70 1, he sent a company to disperse one of these meet-
ings near Alais. Three of the audience, unable to
escape in time, were broken on the wheel. But the
most atrocious of these executions was that of Creux
de Vaie, in the Vivarais. The massacre was so great
that, beside the bodies left on the field, a boat and two
wagons were laden with the wounded who were taken
captive, and these were conveyed to Montpellier.
Among them was a prophet with his four sons. The
prophet was hung, one son died of his wounds in prison,
three were sent to the galleys ; and his house was torn

THE ABBE DU CHAYLA 187

down. Thus, in one day, the wife was deprived of
husband, children, home, and substance.

Throughout the Cevennes spirits were stirred with
expectation of a great deliverance. A prophetess
announced that the millennium was at hand. A
prophet declared that a ladder was about to be let
down from heaven.

In February, 1702, Durand Fage was at an assembly,
carrying arms. The prophetess Marguerite Bolle, aged
twenty-three, fell into an ecstasy, and announced that
the sword of Durand would smite the enemies of the
truth hip and thigh. Later on the great prophets of
the mountains, Abraham Mazel, Solomon Couderc, and
Pierre Siguier, received similar revelations.

The Abbe du Chayla, archpriest and inspector of
missions in the Cevennes, had a house in which he
sometimes dwelt at Pont-de-Montvert. He had been
a missionary in China, and had there suffered martyr-
dom, was left for dead, and brought back to life by the
charity of a poor Chinese. One Massys, a muleteer,
was guiding a party of fugitives who were escaping to
Geneva, and on him, with his convoy, consisting mostly
of women dressed as men, Du Chayla laid his hands.
He was a cruel man; he plucked out the beards and
eyebrows with pincers, he put live coals into the hands
of his victims and then forced them to clench their
fists. Sometimes he surrounded their fingers with
cotton steeped in oil and set fire to it.

On the Sunday following the capture of the convoy
there was a gathering of the Protestants in the woods
of Altefage, on Mount Bouges, when Seguier fell into
ecstasy and prophesied. He was a wool-carder, tall,
black-faced, and toothless, but a man full of energy

i88 THE CEVENNES

and self-confidence. He declared that the Spirit
announced that arms must be taken, the prisoners at
Pont-de-Montvert delivered, and the priest of Moloch
destroyed.

(On July 24th, 1702, at half-past ten at night, were
heard at Pont-de-Montvert strains of distant psalmody
drawing nearer and nearer ; it was Esprit Seguier, the
terrible prophet, who was on his way with fifty-three
of his men, and as they marched they sang Marot's
psalm —

" Nous as-tu rejetd, Seigneur, sans esp^rance
De ton sein paternel ?
N'apaiseras-tu pas, apres tant de soufierances,

Ton courroux ^ternel ?
Sion, qui dut avoir I'dclat et la dur^e

Du cdeste flambeau,
Regarde, h^las ! Seigneur, ta Sion adorde
N'est qu'un vaste tombeau ! "

Du Chayla heard the chant, and did not trouble him-
self much about it. He went to the window and saw
the assembled crowd. " Get away with you ! " he
shouted ; " dogs of Huguenots ! "

But the door was burst in by a beam of wood driven
against it, and the house was invaded. The fanatics
occupied the ground floor. Du Chayla and his men
held the staircase. " Children of God ! " shouted the
prophet, " let us set fire to the house of Baal and burn
it and its priest." The flames spread. Du Chayla and
his men lowered themselves into the garden by means
of knotted sheets ; some escaped across the river under
the fire of the insurgents, but the Inspector of Missions
fell and broke his thigh, and could only crawl among
some bushes. The Calvinists went through the house
shouting for his blood. Finding on the staircase a

SEGUIER 189

priest who had not escaped, they murdered him. They
hunted for their arch-enemy, and at last, by the light of
the flames, found him. To the last he maintained his
composure. " If I be damned," said he, " will you
damn yourselves also ? " Seguier gave the order, and
he was despatched, in the place of the little t Avn to
which they dragged him. According to Brueys, Seguier
fell into an ecstasy, and offered Du Chayla his life if
he would apostatise. The priest peremptorily refused.
" Then die," said the prophet, and stabbed him. Then
began a horrible scene. All the insurgents one after
another approached, and driving their weapons into the
bleeding body, reproached Du Chayla for some of the
barbarities he had committed. " This thrust," said one,
" is for my father, whom you caused to be executed on
the wheel." " And this for my brother," said another,
" whom you sent to the galleys." " And this for my
mother," exclaimed a third, as he ran his sword through
the body, *' who died of grief." The body of the Abb6
du Chayla received fifty-three stabs, every one of which
he had richly deserved. But the astounding thing in
the whole story is that he, a man who had suffered all
but absolute martyrdom for the Faith in China, should
not have seen that barbarities could not turn a soul
from one conviction to another.

Seguier and his companions employed the remainder
of the night in prayer, kneeling around the corpses.
They had murdered all found in the house, except the
prisoners whom they had released, one soldier and a
servant. When dawn broke they retired in good order,
still singing, and ascended the Tarn to Frugeres, When
the last notes of their psalmody died away, two Ca-
puchins who had managed to conceal themselves in a

I90 THE CEVENNES

cellar of one of the houses in the town, crept from their
retreat and carried off the body of Du Chayla to the
church of S. Germain de Colberte, for burial.

But during the funeral a cry was heard outside, "The
insurgents are coming ! Frugeres, S. Maurice, S. Andr6
de Lancize, have been given up to fire and massacre ! "
At once all the assembled clergy fled for their lives,
and some did not stay their feet till they had found
refuge behind the walls of Alais.

However, the storm that threatened to break over
S. Germain rolled away to the west.

Seguier, whose name in the patois signifies The
Mower, had assumed the appellation of Esprit, as he
deemed himself a channel through whom the Holy Spirit
spoke. He was subject to frequent ecstasies, and he
had no doubt but that it was due to direct inspiration
that he was prompted to the deeds of blood of which
he was guilty. It is deserving of note that when he or
any of the prophets and prophetesses gave forth their
oracles it was never in their own names. They always
spoke as if the Holy Spirit were uttering commands
through their mouths, as, " I, the Spirit of God, com-
mand."

Whilst the funeral of Du Chayla was in progress,
actually Siguier, followed by a band of thirty men sing-
ing psalms, had entered Frugeres and shot the parish
priest They went on to S. Marcel, but thence the vicaire
had escaped. At S. Andre the cur6, hearing of the
approach of the band, rang the alarm bell. Siguier's
men pursued him, flung him out of a belfry window,
and then hacked him to death. The schoolmaster was
also murdered and his body mutilated. Wherever he
went Seguier destroyed the crosses and every emblem

DEATH OF SEGUIER 191

of Catholicism. On the night of the 29th July the
band surrounded the Castle of Ladevese, where was a
store of arms taken from the Protestants. When sum-
moned to deliver them up, the seigneur replied by a
volley which killed two men. The insurgents, furious
at their loss, broke in and massacred all the inhabitants
of the chateau, not sparing even a mother aged
eighty, or a young girl who on her knees prayed for
her life.

The authorities, in serious alarm, took immediate
measures to repress the insurrection, and gave the com-
mand of the troops to a Captain Poul, who managed to
capture Esprit Seguier, and The Mower was tried at
Florae and sentenced to have his hand cut off and then
to be burnt alive. On August 12th, 1702, Seguier
underwent his sentence at Pont-de-Montvert. Neither
the blow of the axe nor the violence of the flames
could draw from him a cry or a groan. He shouted
from his pyre, " Brethren, await and hope in the Eternal
One ! Carmel that is desolate will flourish ; Lebanon
that is left barren will blossom as a rose."

The command of the insurgents, who now were given
the name of Camisards by their enemies, but called
themselves the Children of God, was assumed by
Laporte, an ironmonger. He was joined by Castanet,
a forester of the Aigoual, by Jean Cavalier, a baker's
boy, and by Abdias Morel, an old soldier, who went by
the name of Catinat, on account of his admiration for
the general of that name ; also by the two arch-prophets,
Abraham Mazel and Solomon Couderc. Many other
prophets and prophetesses joined the band, and excited
it to undertake the most daring enterprises.

The execution of Seguier was avenged on the follow-

192 THE CEVENNES

ing day. The band, knowing that the Baron de Saint-
Comes, who was especially obnoxious to them as a
convert to the Church from Calvinism, was going in his
carriage to Calvisson, Catinat and six of his men laid
an ambush for him, stopped the carriage, blew out the
brains of the baron, and murdered his valet.

The insurrection spread rapidly. Laporte declared :
" The God of Hosts is with us ! We will thunder forth
the psalm of battle, and from the Lozere to the sea all
Israel will rise." His prediction was fulfilled ; the revolt
extended from the mountains to the plain, even to the
shores of the Mediterranean. Laporte had sent his
nephew Roland into lower Languedoc to collect re-
cruits. Circumstances favoured his project. Execu-
tions had multiplied of persons merely suspected of
having attended the religious assemblies, so that the
Calvinists alarmed fled their homes and in great num-
bers joined the bands of insurgents. The Camisards
next caught and killed the secretary of Du Chayla,
the prior of S. Martin, and Jourdan, a militia captain
who had shot Vivens. Panic fell on the Catholics ;
fifteen churches were in flames, and great numbers of
the cur^s had fled.

On October 22nd, 1702, being a Sunday, Captain
Poul and his corps, led by a traitor, surprised Laporte
on a hill at Ste. Croix with a body of the faithful.
Laporte had barely time to marshal his men for
defence. Unfortunately for him a heavy rain came on
that disabled their guns ; only three could be fired.
Poul, who saw the disadvantage, charged with im-
petuosity. Laporte fell shot through the heart, but the
Children of God effected their retreat without disorder,
having left nine of their comrades dead on the field.

DEGREES OF INSPIRATION 193

Roland, nephew of Laporte, now assumed the com-
mand. He had served in the army under Catinat in
the campaigns of the Alps, and had consequently
acquired military experience in mountainous country.
Roland was a middle-sized man with a robust constitu-
tion ; he had a broad face marked by small-pox, large
grey eyes, flowing brown hair. He was naturally grave,
silent, imperious, and was aged twenty-five.

The Catholics in derision called him Count Roland,
but he assumed the title of General of the Children of
God. It was not his military experiences or capacity
that gave the young chief the ascendancy over his co-
religionists, but his prophetic ecstasies. There were four
degrees of inspiration. The first was the Announce-
ment, or Call ; the second was the Breathing. Those
who had received the breath were highly regarded, but
not considered capable of becoming leaders. The third
degree was Prophecy, and such as had this were re-
garded as vehicles for the communication of the will of
God. But the highest of all was the Gift. Those who
had received this could work miracles; they disdained
to prophesy, but were supposed to be exalted into
personal communication with God. Roland had passed
through all these degrees.

There were now five legions of insurgents under
their several captains, but all subject to the supreme
control of Roland. This remarkable man now set to
work to collect the material of war. He created maga-
zines, powder mills, arsenals, and even hospitals in the
caverns that abound in the Cevennes, notably in the
limestone mountains. He also required all his co-re-
ligionists to pay a tax in money or goods for the
maintenance of the army. He formed wind and water
o

194 THE CEVENNES

mills on heights or by streams, and as the chestnut
woods produced abundance of food there was little fear
of starvation. When the hosts were assembled the
prophets prophesied, and pointed out men here and
there whom they declared to be false brethren ; these
men were at once led aside and summarily shot.

On one occasion a prophet, Clary, pointed out two
traitors and demanded their execution. Cavalier had
them bound, but a good many of those present mur-
mured and expressed doubts. Clary, who was in a
condition of delirious elevation, cried out : " Oh, men
of little faith ! Do you doubt my power ? I will
that ye light a great fire, and I say to thee, my son,
that I will carry thee unhurt through the flames." The
people cried out that they no longer needed the ordeal ;
they were satisfied, and the traitors should be executed.
But Clary, still a prey to his exaltation, insisted, and a
huge bonfire was made. An eye-witness, quoted in
the " ThMtre sacrd des Cevennes," describes what
follows : —

" Clary wore a white smock, and he placed himself in the
midst of the faggots, standing upright and having his hands
raised above his head. He was still agitated, and spoke by
inspiration. Some told me that he himself set the pile on fire
by merely touching it — a miracle I observed often, especially
when one cried, A sac I a sac ! against the temples of Babylon.
The wife of Clary and his father-in-law and sisters and his own
relatives were there, his wife crying loudly. Clary did not leave
the fire till the wood was completely consumed, and no more
flames arose. The Spirit did not leave him all the while, for
about a quarter of an hour. He spoke with convulsive move-
ments of the breast and great sobs. M. Cavalier made prayer.
I was one of the first to embrace Clary and examine his

ORDEAL BY FIRE 195

clothing and hair, which the flames had respected, even to
having left no trace on them. His wife and kinsfolk were in
raptures, and all the assembly praised and glorified God for the
miracle. I saw and heard these things."

This seems precise and conclusive, but Court, in his
account, gives another colour to the story. He says : —

" This incident made a great noise in the province ; it was
attested in its main features by a great many witnesses, but
the information I obtained on the spot went to establish these
three points :

" I. Clary did not remain in the midst of the fire.

*' 2. He dashed through it twice.

*' 3. He was so badly burnt in the neck and arms that he
was forced to be taken to Pierredou to have his wounds
attended to. The Brigadier Montbonnoux, an intimate friend
of Clary, and one who lived with him long after this event,
confirmed all these three points, but nevertheless considered
that he would have been more seriously injured but for
miraculous intervention."

The condition of w^ild excitement in which the
Calvinists were rendered them incapable of calm ob-
servation, and led them involuntarily to pervert facts
and imagine miracles. It is curious, moreover, that
although the prophecies of the inspired were almost
always belied by the event, the insurgents never lost
their confidence in these oracles of God.

At this point it becomes necessary to devote a few
words to Jean Cavalier, the ablest commander of the
Camisards. He was born at Ribaut, near Anduze, was
the son of a labourer, had been a swineherd and then a
baker's boy. He was short and stoutly built, had a big
head, broad shoulders, and the neck of a bull. His eyes

196 THE CEVENNES

were blue, his hair long and fair. Sent as a boy to
school, he was encouraged by his mother, a venomous
Calvinist, to oppose and hate everything that savoured
of Catholicism. Every evening, on his return from
school, she sought to undo all the doctrinal teaching
that had been given him there. His father, a Catholic,
urged him to attend Mass ; the boy refused. The per-
secution to which the Huguenots were subjected led
him to quit the land at the age of sixteen, and he went
to Geneva, where he resumed his occupation as a baker.
Meeting a Cevenol refugee in the streets of Geneva, he
was told that his mother had been imprisoned at Aigues-
Mortes, and his father, as suspected, at Carcassonne.
He determined to return to the Cevennes, and he crossed
the frontier in 1702. He found that his father and
mother had been released, she on promising conformity.
He at once dissuaded her from attending Mass, and he
succeeded equally with his father.

A few days later occurred the murder of the arch-
priest Du Chayla, at Pont-de-Montvert. Cavalier at
once offered his hands to The Mower, and he speedily
gathered about him a body of followers, and they
secured arms by forcing the doors of the parsonage of
S. Martin-de-Durfort, where was a collection of weapons,
but no injury was done to the prior in charge there,
who had taken no part in the persecution of the
Calvinists.

The area of insurrection extended through six dioceses,
those of Mende, Alais, Viviers, Uzes, Nimes and Mont-
pellier — in fact, over the present departments of Lozere,
Ardeche, Gard and Herault.

In January, 1703, the Marshal de Broglie, with a
considerable force of dragoons and militia, went to

MAS DE GAFFARD 197

Vaunage in quest of Cavalier, but could not find him,
for he, in fact, was then in Nimes, disguised, purchasing
powder. De Broglie was on his way back when some
dragoons, who were reconnoitring, came to him to
announce that a large body of Camisards was assembled,
with drums beating and singing psalms, at two farms
forming a hamlet called the Mas de Gaffard. He gave
immediate orders to Captain Poul, who was in command,
to dislodge them. De Broglie was in the centre, Poul
on the right wing, and La Dourville, captain of dragoons,
on the left. When the insurgeuts saw the royal troops
approach they drew up, prepared for battle, in a situa-
tion naturally adapted for defence. The insurgents
received the first volley without breaking formation ;
they replied by a musket discharge that disordered the
left wing and centre of the enemy. The militia were
seized with panic, and in turning to fly threw the
dragoons into confusion. Poul alone rushed forwards
brandishing his sword, when a boy threw a stone at him
that brought him down from his saddle, and Catinat
rushing forward despatched him. Then seeing the royal
troops in rout the Camisards pursued, shouting ** Voila
votre Poul (cock) ! We have plucked his feathers ; stay
to eat him."

Immediately after this success the Camisards marched
to Roquecourbe, near Ntmes, and on the way set fire to
the church and village of Pouls and massacred several of
the inhabitants. Thence they directed their attentions
to Moussac, where was a garrison of militia com-
manded by M. de Saint-Chattes. They took the place,
and the whole detachment was either slaughtered by
them or were drowned in the endeavour to escape
across the Gardon.

198 THE CEVENNES

Cavalier now departed at the head of eight hundred
men to rouse the Vivarais. The Count du Roure, at
the head of the militia, attempted to stop him ; a
desperate conflict ensued in the night. The Baron de
Largorce, wounded in the thigh, a very old man, fell from
his horse. Du Roure was forced to retreat with only
sixty men. Five hundred corpses of his men strewed
the battlefield. Largorce was lying on the snow. He
was clubbed to death by Cavalier's men.

But this victory was a preliminary to a disaster.
Cavalier was drawn into an ambuscade by S. JuHen, the
new commander of the troops ; he lost two hundred of
his men, was obliged to fly and hide himself, and make
his way back to his comrades in the Cevennes as best he
might.

As the contest went on, each side became more cruel.
Forests were set on fire that were supposed to serve as
hiding-places for the Camisards, villages were burnt that
were known to harbour them.

On their side the insurgents did not spare even the
Protestant nobles who hesitated about joining in the
insurrection. In December, 1702, the Camisards burnt
the church of S. Jean de Ceyrargues, and taking the
cur^ they bound him hand and foot, and putting knives
into the children's hands, bade them stab him to death,
encouraging them with the words, " Dip your hands in
the blood of the ungodly."

In January, 1703, Cavalier burnt the church and
thirteen houses in S. Jean de Marvejols, that belonged
to Catholics, and massacred twenty of these latter,
among them four women and a child of two years old.

In February, 1703, at Robiac, the insurgents murdered
seven persons, among these a woman whom they dis-

ATROCITIES 199

membered alive because she refused to abjure her
religion.

On the 17th of the same month, in the same year,
the band under Joany entered Chamborigaud and com- *
mitted atrocious acts. They tied three children up in J
sacks and threw them into a furnace. A mother flying
with her five children was caught; her eldest son was
stabbed with a bayonet and his tongue torn out, the
youngest had his eyes scooped out, the third was dis-
membered ; the mouth of the fourth was filled with
burning coals, and the fifth was brained with clubs.
The mother was then stabbed to death. The six victims
were then put on a bed, along with other inhabitants of
the place, in one heap, and the whole consumed by fire.
Twenty-four victims perished. When Joany left, the
Catholics retaliated by destroying the houses of the
Protestants, so that only two houses remained standing,
those of the Catholics having been burnt by Joany.
The two last were burnt by the fanatics on August 27th,
1703, and three more Catholics killed. Next year seven
houses that had been rebuilt or repaired were again set
on fire and three Catholic families slaughtered.

At S. G^nies de Malgoire, Cavalier took the place in
April, 1704, and cut the whole garrison to pieces. He
set fire to the church and the houses of the Catholics,
and burnt in them seven of the inhabitants and the
cure and vicaire.

At Ambais Sommiere, on September 27th, 1703, the I
band of Cavalier roasted a girl of three years old over
a slow fire.

The war was degenerating into fiendish reprisals on^
one side as well as the other. But the sad feature in
this was that the victims in most cases were not those

200 THE CEVENNES

who had been actively engaged in hostilities, but inoffen-
sive peasants.

Thirty-one parishes in the Cevennes, by order of the
governor, were destroyed, every house was required to
be burnt, and three days only were accorded to the
inhabitants to retire with their cattle and their
substance.

It is unnecessary to relate all the engagements in
which the Camisards were either victorious or defeated
by the royal troops. Cavalier and Roland marked
themselves out as the most able commanders, but Roland
was defeated at Pompignan, with the loss of three
hundred men. A month later, April, 1703, a body of
the same number were surrounded in La Tour de Belot ;
Cavalier, who was with them, escaped ; the rest perished
by fire, the place catching from the hand grenades
cast in.

The last and final victory gained by Cavalier was at
Ste. Chatte at the end of 1704, against the royal troops
commanded by La Jonquiere, who was himself wounded.
A whole regiment of six hundred soldiers and twenty-
five officers was swept away by the Camisards.

Montrevel, the governor after Baville, had shown equal
incapacity and barbarity. He was now replaced by the
Marshal Villars, who at once inaugurated a different
system in dealing with the insurgents. He recognised
that the cruelties committed had exasperated the evil.
He announced that he was come to pacify spirits, not to
outrage consciences ; all he desired was to bring those
who were in revolt into allegiance to the King. He was
ready to accept the submission of the Camisard leaders,
to grant them commissions in the army, and to let the
past be forgotten. Cavalier received a pension and

CREED OF CAMISARDS 201

retired, first to Holland and then to England. The
revolt lingered on, the most fanatical refusing all com-
promise; but gradually opposition died away, prophecy
ceased — prophecy that had always proved false and
had led to terrible disaster. And very many years had
not passed before dead indifference had settled down
over a people that had gone mad with zeal.

When we come to look at what was the creed and
what the moral code of these Cevenols, we are not
surprised at this collapse of faith. They had but one
article of belief — conviction that they themselves were
the infallible oracles of the Holy Ghost. They had but
one duty — to overthrow and root out whatever per-
tained to Catholic faith and worship. They recognised
but one sin — attendance at Mass.

Their fanaticism was the natural and irresistible out-
come of the cruel persecution to which they were
subjected. Their prophetic trances, revelations, visions,
ecstasies were due to nervous and cerebral exaltation
caused by lack of wholesome nourishment. Had they
been treated as was la belle Isabeau at the first, in-
spiration, as they considered it, would have ceased.
Cavalier, with tears in his eyes, when well nourished on
English beef and ale, lamented that the spirit of pro-
phecy had left him.

And finally, what was gained to the Church of Rome
by these forcible conversions and these butcheries?
Ferdinand Fabre well says : —

" No land bears so deeply impressed on it the scars of battles
fought for liberty of conscience as does our Cevenol country.
Nowhere else in the world were fire and sword employed with
more savagery to conquer the human being to God, and no-
where has it succeeded worse. It is the chastisement of all

202 THE CEVENNES

criminal enterprises to lead to ends the reverse of those aimed
at. Our mountaineers have remained what the Romans
found them — energetic, sober, satirical. Certainly we have
no end of processions; corporations and pious congregations
abound. But it is a remarkable fact, that these gatherings of
the faithful lack that gravity which a religious character
should impress upon them. There is prayer, perhaps, but
most assuredly there is diversion as well."

Cavalier in England was made a great deal of; he
was feted as a h^ro, received into the best society, and
died Governor of Jersey in receipt of a handsome in-
come ; which he certainly did not deserve, as he had
shown himself atrociously cruel, not to priests only, but
to harmless peasant men and women, whose only crime
consisted in adherence to the faith of their fathers.

CHAPTER XII
ALMS

Descent from La Bastide — Viaduct of the Luech — Coal-beds — The town
of Alais — Rochebelle — Ancient oppidum — Hermitage — The last hermit
— Sidonius ApoUinaris — The Citadel — Family quarrels — The Cambis
family — A ghost story — Making polemical use of a ghost — Huguenots
take Alais — Murders — The Bishopric — The Cathedral — Silk culture —
Introduction of the mulberry and the worm to Europe — Silk husbandry
in France — Favoured by Henry IV. — Olivier de Serre — Colbert — The
Magnanerie — Silk-weaving introduced into England — A disaster that
proved a blessing — Transformations of the caterpillar — Florian — The
faults of an Englishman.

WHEN the train, after quitting La Bastide, has
passed through a tunnel at the highest point of
the pass, you rush out of a northern clime, with northern
vegetation, into a climate with tree, shrub, and flower
wholly southern. The Allier and its tributaries were
making full gallop for the Atlantic ; you see at once
torrents racing down gorges to fling themselves into the
Mediterranean in which no Greenland icebergs ever float
to chill alike the currents and the air. Gulfs open beside
the line clothed in chestnuts, mulberries, almonds, vines ;
oleanders appear, and the kermes oak with its var-
nished leaves covering the slopes.

The line does not descend the first valley entered,
but bores its way through spur after spur of the
mountain chain till it reaches the furrow through which
flows the Gardon d'Alais. Genolhac is passed, that

203

204 THE CEVENNES

suffered cruelly from Catholic and Camisard alike,
whence Pont-de-Montvert may be visited, and the
house seen where lived the Abbe du Chayla.

A magnificent curved viaduct crosses the basin of the
Luech, carried on two stages of arcades i8o feet above
the river to Chamborigaud, the tragic story of which
has been told in the preceding chapter. The line
traverses the masses of a rock and earth slide from the
Montagne du Gouffre, and enters a region of coal-beds.
The coal seams can be seen between sandstone in the
cuttings for the line. On the right is the donjon of La
Tour commanding the abbey of Cendras, burnt by the
Camisards, then gorges and smoking cinder heaps, and
we arrive at Alais, a neat, pleasant, cheerful town, once
the seat of a bishop, situated in a loop formed by the
Gardon,with the lofty rock of Rochebelle opposite on
the further side of the river. This height was the site
of the primitive oppidum of Alesia, or Alestia. The
Cyclopean walls remain in places fairly perfect, and the
enclosure can be traced throughout Alais never was a
Roman city ; it was, however, probably a place where
the iron mines were worked. A hermitage was there
till the Revolution. When the plague raged in Alais
in 172 1, a Carmelite, Esprit Boyer, worked indefatig-
ably among the sick, and on its cessation obtained
leave to retire to this hermitage, where he planted a
garden and reared a chapel. On his death another
hermit took his place, and he assumed the honoured
name of Esprit, but as he was a drunkard he was nick-
named Esprit de Vin. He ran away, carrying with
him the chapel bell, but was caught and ordered to
return to his hermitage. In 1793 he was denounced
as suspect, and some individuals were sent up the

SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS 205

height to arrest him. He refused to open to them,
and threw stones at their heads and threatened to
shoot the first man who entered. They, however, stove
in the door with a pole, whereupon Esprit escaped out
of a window, but in trying to crawl away unseen fell
over the rocks and broke his leg. He was taken to the
hospital and died there.

In the year 472 that magnificent prelate, Sidonius
Apollinaris, Bishop of Clermont, and a great noble
to boot, came to Alais to pay a visit to Tonantius
Ferreolus, Prefect of Gaul, who had his villa at
Prusianus, now Br6gis, a little to the south-west of
Alais. Another friend, a Roman senator, had his
country house on the opposite or Alesian side of the
river. Sidonius says : " The Vardo (Gardon) separates
the two domains. These splendid dwellings were com-
manded by hills covered with vines and olives ; before
one of them stretched a rich and vast plain, the other
looked out on woods. Every morning there was a
strife between our two hosts, very flattering to myself,
as to which should have our society for the day, which
should make his kitchen smoke on our behalf. With
them we flew from pleasure to pleasure. Hardly had
we set foot in the vestibule of one or the other, before
there appeared bands of those who played tennis, and
above their noisy shouts we could hear the braying of
cornets. . . , Whilst any one of us was occupied in
reading or in playing, the butler would come to inform
us that it was time for us to take our places at table.
We dined promptly, after the manner of senators."

Where stands now the citadel of Alais stood formerly
two castles frowning at one another side by side. The
lordship of Alais was in the family of De Pelet, but the

2o6 THE CEVENNES

last of the name died in 1405, leaving two daughters
and the barony to be divided between them. Naturally
they quarrelled. Each would have the rock and a
castle on the summit, and as neither could be induced
to yield a right, they had their two castles and scolded
and swore at one another out of the windows. At last
the situation became so intolerable that first one and
then the other sold their half baronies to a De Cambis,
and he ran the two castles into one.

Jacques de Cambis, lord of Alais, was engaged in
Catalonia under the great Conde. His war-cry was
" Allez comme Al^s 1" and on his son's sword was in-
scribed :

** Je suis Cambis pour ma foi,

Ma maitresse at men roi,

Si tu m'attends, confesse toi ! "

Both Jacques and his son died on the same day,
August 2 1 St, 1653, of wounds received at the taking of
Tortosa. With them died out the male branch of the
barons of Alais.

On November 15th, 1323, died a citizen of Alais,
named Guy de Corbian. A week after his burial his
widow came in great agitation to the Dominican con-
vent to say that her husband walked and made un-
pleasant noises in the house, and she begged that the
prior would lay his spirit. Jean Gobi was prior at the
time. He took three brethren with him and went to
the house. As soon as darkness settled in, all at once
the widow screamed out, " There he is ! There is my
husband ! " All present were dreadfully frightened,
but the prior recovered first, and bade the woman ques-
tion the ghost She asked, " Are you a good or a bad
spirit?" Answer: "Good." — "Where are you now?"

A GHOST STORY 207

Ans. : •' In purgatory." — " Why do you trouble the
house?" Ans.: "A sin was committed in it by my
mother."— " What did she commit?" Ans.: "That is
a delicate question, which I decline to answer." — " Can
you make the sign of the cross?" Ans. : "Do not ask
silly questions. How can I when I have no hands?" —
" How then is it that you can hear, having no ears ? "
was the shrewd repartee. The ghost hesitated a mo-
ment and then replied, " By a special privilege of God."
Now it so happened that at this very period a furious
controversy was going on between the Dominicans and
the Franciscans as to whether the disembodied spirits
of the just had the sight of the Face of God. The
Franciscans said they had not, the Dominicans asserted
that they had. The strife became so hot and acri-
monious that Pope John XX H. on November 12th,
1323, issued a decision condemning the opinion of the
Friars Minor. They refused to surrender their tenet.
The General of the Order appealed from an ill-informed
Pope to a General Council. Such an appeal is absurd,
argued their adversaries. A council derives all its
authority from the Pope. Philip of Valois threatened
that unless John withdrew his judgment he would have
him burned as a heretic. But he had not the power to
carry his threat into execution. Now this ghost story
occurred a week or fortnight after John XXH. had
issued his homily, in which he asserted that the dead
did enjoy the beatific vision. Jean Gobi saw his oppor-
tunity. He published at once an account of his inter-
view with a good spirit, and related how that he had
catechised the ghost on the very point under dispute,
and that the departed Guy de Corbian had affirmed
precisely the doctrine for which the Dominicans con-

2o8 THE CEVENNES

tended, and which the Pope had ratified. What better
evidence could be desired :

The Franciscans might have replied that they had
no better evidence than the word of Gobi, and that
they doubted his veracity. But they said nothing, they
saw that every sensible man would judge that Jean
Gobi told fibs.

**The tenet," says Milman, "had become a passion with
the Pope ; benefices and preferments were showered on those
who inclined to his opinions — the rest were regarded with
coldness and neglect."

Jean Gobi doubtless had hopes of reaping some solid
advantages by his opportune revelation. But he was
disappointed. John XXII. died, and his successor,
Benedict XII., published his judgment on the question,
determining that the holy dead did not immediately
behold the Godhead, thus at least implying the heresy
of his predecessor.

In 1567 the Huguenots occupied Alais, and mas-
sacred six of the canons in the church whilst they
were singing Matins, as also two cordeliers and
several other ecclesiastics. But Alais was retaken.
In 1575 they again surrounded Alais, under their
captains Guidau and Broise, the latter of whom
managed to escalade the walls by means of a vine-
trellis. One part of the population was massacred ;
those who could fled into the castle. Damville came
to the aid of the besiegers, and on Easter Eve, after
nine weeks of gallant defence, the castle surrendered.
The see of Alais was constituted in 1694. The
cathedral was consecrated in 1780, and is a heavy and
hideous building. Only the west tower remains of the

SERICULTURE 209

old church. At the Revolution it was turned into a
place for clubs to assemble ; but as the church was
inconveniently large for the purpose, it was decided to
pull it down. No one in Alais, however, could be found
to set his hand to its destruction.

The last bishop, De Bausset, escaped into Switzer-
land at the time of the outbreak ; but unable to endure
exile from France he incautiously returned, was
arrested, and thrown into prison. It was only due to
his having been forgotten that he escaped the guillotine.
In 1 801, by order of Pius VII., he resigned the see to
facilitate the reorganisaton of the dioceses under the
Concordat, and he died in Paris in 1824. The great
esplanade above the Gardon before the Place de la
R^publique, planted with plane trees, commands an
extensive view over the plain green with mulberries and
chestnut, and with here and there the silver-grey of the
olive rising from among the darker leaves like a puff
of smoke.

Alais is one of the principal centres of silkworm
culture in Languedoc, and it has raised a statue to
Pasteur, representing him holding a twig of mulberry
in his hand, in gratitude for his discovery of the fibrine,
the malady which threatened the industry, and for
indicating the means of arresting the plague.

Neither the white mulberry nor the bombyx — the
silkworm that feeds on its leaves — is a native of Europe.
Both come from China. The history of the origin of
the silkworm culture and the introduction of both the
mulberry and the worm into Europe is sufficiently
curious, and may be summed up in a few lines.

The Chinese assert that the discovery of the use of
silk and how to weave it took place in the year
p

2IO THE CEVENNES

B.C. 2,697, and great secrecy was observed as to how
the silkworm was reared and how the cocoon was un-
wound ; and Chinese laws forbade under penalty of
death the divulgation of the secret and the exportation
beyond the limits of the Celestial Empire of the seed
of the mulberry and the eggs of the worm.

However, about three thousand years later, in the
year A.D, 400, a Chinese princess married the King of
Khotan on the borders of Turkestan, and she, at the
peril of her life, carried off some of the grains of mul-
berry and the eggs of the caterpillar, and by this means
introduced the culture of silk into the domains of the
king. Some years later, in 462, Japan got possession
of the means of sericulture by a similar method.

From Khotan the industry slowly spread to Persia
and India.

A century and a half later, about 550, two monks of
Mount Athos, but of Persian origin, went to preach
Christianity in the unknown regions beyond the Caspian
Sea. These courageous apostles penetrated to Khotan,
and there discovered whence came the silk stuffs that
found their way into Europe in small quantifies, and
which were so costly that they sold for their weight
in gold.

Rejoiced at their discovery, the monks schemed how
they might make Greece benefit by it This, however,
was not easy, as the inhabitants of Khotan, knowing
the value of their industry, had, like the Chinese, for-
bidden the exportation of the seeds of the mulberry
and the eggs of the silkworm. The monks employed
craft. In all caution and secrecy they collected mul-
berries, crushed them in water, and obtaining thus the
seed alone, dried it and enclosed it in their hollow

SERICULTURE IN FRANCE 211

bamboo canes. Then they departed on their return
journey. On reaching Greece they related their ad-
ventures and sowed the seed.

The young plants did not fail to spring up, and thus
was Greece supplied with the precious tree that is to-
day spread along all the coast of the Mediterranean.

But they had not done enough. Only half of their
self-imposed task was accomplished. The Emperor
Justinian sent for the monks, listened to their narrative,
gave them money, and urged them to return into
the East and obtain a supply of the bombyx grain.
Nothing loath they started, arrived in Khotan, and in
much the same manner as before secreted and brought
to Europe in all haste the eggs that would hatch out
in spring. The date of their return was 553.

Meanwhile the young mulberries had grown vigor-
ously, and when the worms issued from their shells
they found abundant nourishment. They passed through
their several stages of development and gave vigorous
descendants.

European sericulture was created, but was slow in
making progress. However, in Greece the diffusion
was so rapid that in a short time what had been called
the Peloponnesus changed its name to Morea, the land
of the mulberry. From the borders of the .^gean the
culture spread to Sicily, to Italy, and to Spain. The
Arabs, who had already in the East acquired a know-
ledge of how to produce silk, spread the industry
through all the countries that they conquered.

France was slow in acquiring it. The raw silk was
indeed imported to Lyons and Tours in the latter part
of the fifteenth century, but it was not till after the
campaign in Naples of 1495 that the gentlemen who

212 THE CEVENNES

had attended Charles VIII. brought back with them
the seed of the white mulberry and the eggs of the silk-
worm into Languedoc and Provence. The first mul-
berries planted there were at Alban, near Montelimar,
by Guy Pape, Sieur de Saint-Alban.

The first steps taken in this new culture were slow
and timid during nearly a century. Francis I. accorded
special favours. His successor, Henry II., is said to
have been the first King of France to wear silk stock-
ings, 1550. The religious troubles and the rivalries
between the great seigneurs did much to impede the
progress of agriculture and of sericulture. The culti-
vators of the soil were crushed by taxation and exactions
of every sort, as well as by the ravages of rival political
and religious factions.

But when Henry IV. was well settled on his throne,
and the League was at an end, it was possible for agri-
culture and all the trades save that of the armourer to
revive. Henry was keenly desirous to raise them from
the deplorable condition into which they had been
plunged during the long period of civil and religious
discord which had marked the end of the dynasty of
the Valois.

The Bearnais, who had spent his early years among
farmers, nourished great ideas as to how to help them
on and to make trade flourish in the land, so great as
sometimes to startle his most devoted councillors,
notably Sully, his finance minister. The King, seeing
that the industry of weaving silks was on the increase,
and that to supply the looms raw material had to be
imported in great quantities, was desirous of en-
couraging the production of silk in France, and he
confided to a gentleman of the Vivarais, Olivier de

ITS ENCOURAGEMENT 213

Serres, the mission of developing sericulture by writing
a treatise advocating it. De Serres published his
"La cueillette de la sole" in 1599. Two years later
he brought to Paris twenty thousand young mulberry
trees, which were planted in the gardens of the Tui-
leries. At the same time Traucat, a gardener at
Nimes, with royal assistance, erected vast nurseries,
which in forty years supplied over five millions of mul-
berry stocks. Sully, who had at first thought the
King's projects chimerical, threw himself eagerly into
them when he saw that they were likely to increase the
wealth of the country ; prizes were offered, subventions
were promised to such as should take active part in the
development of the industry. There exist still some
of the old mulberry trees planted four centuries ago,
that the Cevenol peasants designated Sullys in com-
memoration of the great minister of Henry.

Sericulture made no progress during the reign of
Louis Xin. It lost ground, and it was Colbert, the cele-
brated minister of Louis XIV., who resumed forty years
later the policy of Henry IV., and had to struggle
against just the same difficulties of inertia and indiffer-
ence among nobles and peasants alike. Colbert, follow-
ing the same idea as his predecessors, wished that France
should produce the raw material needed for the looms
of Lyons, which were using 500,000 kilogrammes of
foreign silk, whereas the French harvest produced at
the outside 20,000 kilos of raw silk.

To attain this result, exemptions from taxation were
accorded to plantations of mulberry trees and to mag-
nanaries of silk. In the Langue d'Oc, the silkworm is
called magnan, derived from the Latin magnus, as giving
the greatest profit to the farmer, and the sheds in which

214 THE CEVENNES

the worm is brought to spin is called a magnanerie. A
bonus of twenty-four sols, equal to five francs, was given
for every mulberry plant that lived over three years.
The Protestants of the south devoted themselves
especially and with great energy to the rearing of silk-
worms. In 1650 De Comprieu, Consul of Le Vigan, in-
troduced the new industry into the Cevennes from the
Vivarais where it had taken root, due to the initiation
of Olivier de Serres.

A few years later Colbert brought a silk-spinner,
Pierre Benay, from Bologna and installed him near
Aubenas, in a factory for the spinning of the thread.

The production of the cocoon and of silk was pros-
pering and developing, when in 1605 the Edict of
Nantes was revoked, and this disastrously affected the
growing industry. The Protestants, hunted out and
persecuted, were forced to expatriate themselves, and
carry their knowledge and their energies elsewhere.
The creation of silk-weaving factories in Switzerland,
Germany, and England was mainly due to these
refugees. Some 50,000 French Protestants had come
to England. Of these the silk -spinners settled in
Spitalfields, and introduced several new branches of
their art. At this time foreign silks were freely
imported, and about 700,000 pounds' worth were
annually admitted. But the establishment of the
refugees in this country led to monopolies and restric-
tions. In 1692 they obtained a patent, giving them the
exclusive right to manufacture lute-strings and a-la-
modes, the two fashionable silks of the day, and in
1697 their solicitations were effectual in obtaining
from Parliament a prohibition, not only of the impor-
tation of all European manufactured goods, but also

THE REVOLUTION 215

of those of India and China. From this period the
smuggling of silks from France became extensive,
reaching, it is said, to the value of ;^500,0(X) per
annum.

In France a disaster at the beginning of the eighteenth
century gave a new impulse to sericulture in the
south. The winter of 1709 was of exceptional severity,
and froze the olive trees of Languedoc and Provence.
The farmers, obliged to root out their stricken olives,
replaced them by mulberries, and the rearing of silk-
worms, the spinning and weaving of the silk made
rapid progress. From this time sericulture issued from a
period of groping and hesitation to become a standard
industry. The production of cocoons rose to six and
seven millions of kilogrammes between 1760 and 1790,
again to slacken during the period of revolution. Nor
were the first years of the nineteenth century, marked
as they were by the great wars of the Empire, favour-
able to the industry. But an event that had consider-
able influence on the destinies of agricultural France
had taken place. The lands of the clergy and of the
emigrated nobility had been declared national property,
and had been sold at ridiculously low prices to the
peasants on account of the depreciation of the paper
money of the period, the assignats. The peasants
worked with enthusiasm and energy on the land as
proprietors where they had lived painfully as common
labourers. Great plantations were made on ground
newly cleared, and so soon as peace gave the people
breathing time, the production of France doubled as
by enchantment. From 500,000 kilogrammes, the output
of silk passed to a million, between 1826 and 1830,
and between 1840 and 1854 it grew to two millions.

2i6 THE CEVENNES

"The silkworm is the caterpillar of the mulberry-tree moth
{Bombyx viort) belonging to the tribe of mealy-winged noc-
turnal insects, of which in the summer evenings we see so
many examples. The eggs of this moth are smaller than
grains of mustard-seed, very numerous, slightly flattened,
yellowish at first, but changing in a few days to a slate
colour. In temperate climates they can be preserved through
the winter without hatching until the time when the mulberry
tree puts forth its leaves in the following spring. This tree
forms the entire food of the caterpillar, and seems almost
exclusively its own ; for while other trees and vegetables
nourish myriads of insects, the mulberry tree is seldom
attacked by any but this insect, which in many parts of its
native country, China, inhabits the leaves in the open air, and
goes through all its changes without any attention from man.
The common mulberry {Moms nigra), so well known in Great
Britain, is not the best species for the nourishment of the
silkworm. The white-fruited mulberry {Af. alba), a native of
China, is the best, and is greatly preferred by the insect." *

The silkworm when first hatched is about a quarter
of an inch long. After eight days' feeding, it prepares
to change its skin. It throws out filaments of silk,
attaching its skin to adjacent objects, becomes slug-
gish, raises the forepart of its body, and finally the
whole outer case is cast off, including the feet and
jaws. The newly moulted worm is pale in colour, but
speedily regains its appetite, which had failed previous
to the change, and it swells so fast that in five days
another uncasing becomes necessary. Four of these
moults and renewals of the skin bring the caterpillar to
its full size, when its appetite becomes voracious, and
the succulent parts of the mulberry leaf disappear with

* Tomlinson's Cyclopedia of the Useful Arts^ sub voce.

THE SILKWORM 217

extraordinary rapidity. The insect is now nearly
three inches long. Beneath the jaw are two small
orifices through which the worm draws the silken lines
out of its body.

Having acquired full size in the course of twenty-
five to thirty days, and ceasing to eat during the
remainder of its life, it begins to discharge a viscid
secretion in the form of pulpy twin lines that rapidly
harden in the air. It begins now to climb and seek
out a suitable place for spinning the cocoon. For this
purpose broom and heath-bushes are erected about the
trays in which they have hitherto lived and fed and
sloughed their skins. The insect first forms a loose
structure of floss-silk, and then within it the closer
texture of its nest, of an ovoid shape ; within this the
caterpillar remains working out of sight, spinning its
own beautiful winding-sheet, the production of which
reduces its size to one-half. On the completion of the
cocoon it changes its skin once more and becomes
a chrysalis. In this corpse-like state it remains for
a fortnight or three weeks. Then it bursts its
cerements and comes forth furnished with wings,
antennse and feet for living in its new element — the
atmosphere. The female moth flutters its wings, but
rarely uses them for flight, but the male employs his
for seeking a partner. As the moth is not furnished
with teeth, it perforates its tomb by knocking with its
head against the end of the cocoon, after moistening it
with saliva, and thus rendering the filaments more
easily torn asunder by its claws. In the perfect or
imago form the insect takes no food, and lives only
two or three days ; the female dies after laying her
eggs, and the male does not long survive her.

2i8 THE CEVENNES

The cocoons destined for filature are not suffered to
remain many days with the worms alive within them.
Those containing male moths are distinguished as
being lighter than those that hold the female. Only
so many of each are retained as are required for the
propagation of the worm. The rest are plunged in
boiling water or put into an oven to extinguish the life
in the chrysalis. The reeling off of the silk is the next
process.

The cocoons are softened by immersion in warm
water, and then the reeler stirs them with brushes, to
which the loose threads adhere, and are thus drawn out
of the water. They are taken up four or five together
and twisted by the fingers into one thread, passed
through a metal loop, and reeled off. The silk hus-
bandry is completed within six weeks from the end of
April.i

The life of the insect from leaving the egg has been
about fifty days, and in that period what a series of
changes — transformations even — it has gone through ;
and all for what, but the produce of one of the most
beautiful imaginable textures for the adornment of
womankind ! Verily Nature has made laborious pro-
vision that she should be coquette.

Even the severe Quakeress, objecting on principle to
all adornment, must don a pearl-grey silk bonnet

On the Place de la Republique is a bronze statue to
Florian (Jean Pierre Claris), born in the chateau of
Florian, near Sauve, in 1755, and who died in 1794.
He wrote plays, stories, verses, and fables. Not know-

^ De I'Arbousset, Les Cevennes Sericoles, and Cours de Siricultur t
Pratique, Alais, n.d. Maillot (E.), Ltfons sur le I'er <J Soie, Paris,
1885.

FLORIAN 219

ing much about his works, I went to a bookseller at
Alais to ask if he had them.

"The works of Florian!" he exclaimed. "We have
his statue in the place."

" Yes ; but that is the work of the sculptor Gaudez,
not of Florian himself."

" Les oeuvres de Florian — mais — " The man looked
puzzled. " He lived a very long time ago. What did
he write ? "

" I fancy, fables."

" Ah, monsieur! you mistake. That was La Fontaine."

" There is an * F ' in each," said I, " as there is a river
in Macedon, and there is also a river in Monmouth, and
there is salmon in both." Of course, the allusion was
lost on him.

" I think his works have never been reprinted," said
the bookseller. " I will tell my child to ask the school-
master about him."

Now I happen to possess at home an edition of
Florian, printed in the year III. of the Republic, 1797,
and on my return I read some of his works — as much
as was possible. Among them is an " English novel,"
very complimentary to our nation at the opening, but
full of the most amusing blunders. The characters are
Sir Edouerd Selmours, Mistriss Hartlay, a M. Pikle, and
a Mekelfort. Florian gives a translation into French
verse of " Auld Robin Gray," but in an evil moment
appended the original Scottish text, which is rendered
thus —

" Vhen the shepare in the fauld, and the kyeat hame
And all the weary vvarld asleop is gane,
Thewaes o my heart fall in shovers fra my eye " —

and so on.

220 THE CEVENNES

We have a fault, Florian is kind enough to inform
us : —

" lis dedaignent d'ouvrir les yeux sur le merite, sur les
qualites qui sont propres a chaque peuple ; cette insouciance
donne a leurs vertus un air d'orgueil qui en diminue I'attrait ;
enfin, ils comptent pour fort peu de chose I'approbation, le
suffrage des autres ; et le seul moyen d'etre aimable, c'est de
les compter pour beau coup."

I suspect that this criticism is more just than his
rendering of English surnames and his spelling of
Scottish words.

CHAPTER XIII

GANGES

Quissac — A tree gallows — The micocoulier — Sauve — Massacre by the
Camisards — The abbot's summer-house — Manufacture of essences on
the garigue — S. Hippolyte-du-Fort — Cruelties of Roland — Ganges —
The murder of the marchioness — Grotto des Demoiselles — Manu-
factures of Ganges — Season for excursions.

FROM Alais the train that runs on to Nimes drops
one dX Quissac, whence diverges a branch to Le
Vigan and Tournemire on the main line from Paris to
Bezier, Narbonne, and Barcelona. Quissac lies on the
Vidourle, that flows a thin stream in a vast bed of
pebbles, on which the washerwomen spread their linen.
The esplanade by the river is planted, and on it is the
Protestant temple^ a feeble imitation of the Maison
Car^e at NImes. The parish church is in another part
of the town, and is an astounding bit of patchwork
after wreckage by the Camisards. The west front is
an architectural curiosity. In the little place in front
of it is a plane tree, serving, I presume, as a gallows
for all the vermin caught in the place and neighbour-
hood. When I was there, rats, mice, weasels depended
from the branches, and a sulky doll that would not eat
had been hoisted up as well, and was dangling by
its neck, whilst the little executioner stood below
haranguing it.

222 THE CEVENNES

The micocouHer, or nettle tree {Celtts Australis), is
much grown around Quissac. This tree flourishes
along the south of Europe bordering on the Mediter-
ranean, in Italy, Greece, on the coast of Asia Minor,
and stretches to the south of the Caspian. The tree is at
home also in Algeria and Tunis. It is grown here for
making whip-handles and for pitchforks. For the latter
purpose it is suffered to have but two or three shoots
at the top, and pains are taken to give the stem the
utmost regularity, as that is to serve as the handle to
the fork. Of the wood is also made the yokes for the
oxen. The wood is heated in an oven, and given the
desired bend or shape when hot.

Sauve bears for its arms argent a mountain, on top
of which grows a plant of sage (sauve), and in chief
the words Sal-Sal, that stand for Salvia Salvatrix,
Originally the town occupied the height where is now
the ruined castle, but the inhabitants drifted down to
the abbey, which was below. In the religious wars,
Sauve was taken by the Huguenots, and remained a
stronghold of the Calvinists till 1629. In the war of
the Camisards the Protestants of the upper town offered
to open the gates to them disguised in the uniform of
the royal soldiery, but the plot was detected, and in
resentment the Camisards set fire to the abbey church
and monastic buildings, murdered the old prior, aged
ninety-one, and the cur^, aged seventy. They swept
together forty of the parish priests of the neighbour-
hood and mutilated them in the most horrible manner.

The country-house of the abbots of the fourteenth
century has the inscription on it : " In urbe omnibus,
in deserto mihi." (In the town I am at everybody's
beck and call, in the desert I belong to myself only.)

SCENTS 223

And " desert " is not at all an inappropriate term for
the country between Sauve and S. Hippolyte. It is a
land of disintegrated rock, white as chalk, and assuming
strange forms, fissured in parts vertically, in others
horizontally, the wide desert growing nothing but
aromatic herbs, as sage and juniper. The Vidourle
sinks and flows underground. The ruins of a castle
stand above the dry bed at a curve in the channel.

But even this desolate garigue has its use, as have
those further south. It grows lavender, rosemary,
thyme in abundance, savin, sage, savory ; and the
peasants collect these herbs and distil essences from
them. To the fragrant essences is added bitter rue.
The distillation takes place on the garigue by means
of movable retorts that travel about from one place to
another. Vast quantities of herbs are required for the
purpose. Thus, to obtain one kilogramme of essence
of thyme, it requires 400 kilogrammes of leaves, except
in May, when the plant is in greatest vigour and most
redolent, then only half that amount is required.

The great centre of the industry is Sommieres to the
south of Quissac, where the garigues are more extensive
than near Sauve.

A great rivalry exists between the manufacturers of
scents in this part of Languedoc and those of Provence.
All have been hit alike of late years by the fabrication
of scents out of coal tar, that seems as ready to pro-
duce sweet odours as it is to yield bright dyes.

These deserts of limestone apparently grow nothing
but what is fragrant. Their vegetation expires in sweet
odours.

At S. Hippolyte-du-Fort the mountains draw near,
terraced up for olives. The town with its three churches,

224 THE CEVENNES

commanded by a castle with its walls and towers, is
eminently picturesque. The town was moved from its
ancient site, S. Hippolyte le Vieux, about a castle
built on a rock, Roquefourcade, so called from its form.
The old parish church was there to the Revolution
when it was sold. The bulk of the population of
S. Hippolyte adopted the Reform of Calvin, and
Catholic worship was not restored till 1601, and then
only intermittently. In 1774 the bishop found that
there were only two or three Catholic families in it.
All the rest were Huguenot " au dernier point,"
although the Protestant temple had been pulled down
at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. A garrison
was placed in the castle. It was attacked by the
Camisards in vain. Roland entered the faubourgs on
January 14th, 1704, burnt a church, and slaughtered
three girls and five men.

Ganges lies in a valley at the junction of the Sum^ne
with the Herault, and near where the Vis emerges from
its gorge to shed its waters into the Herault. It is a
bright town, with good inns,. and is an admirable centre
for several interesting excursions. The station is at
a height at some distance from the town, and near it
is a huge modern convent, very conspicuous, planted
on a rock.

The town contains little of interest except the
chateau of the Marquesses of Ganges, which unhappily
is doomed to destruction, as it has been purchased by
the town to be pulled down and the site to be occupied
by a market-hall. This is the more to be regretted,
as it is not only a very fine Renaissance structure,
but is also rendered famous by the murder of the
Marchioness in 1667. The story has been often told,

THE MARQUISE DE GANGES 225

but must not here be omitted on that account. All
versions rest on that of Pitaval, taken from the records
of the Parliament of Toulouse. Pitaval's narrative was
published in 1734. Unhappily he has decked it out
with romantic features, drawn from conjecture, to ex-
plain the motive of the murderers, and we shall be
obliged to distinguish between these and the facts that
were proved.

At the Court of Louis XIV. one of the great beauties
was the Marquise de Castellane, a woman as good as
she was beautiful. Queen Christian of Sweden, who
was then at the Court, declared that she had never
seen one who was more lovely, and the painter,
Mignard, took her portrait.

She was the daughter of a M. de Roussan, of
Avignon, and after the death of her father had been
educated in the house of her grandfather, M. de
Nocheres, who loved her as the apple of his eye. He
was a very wealthy man, and she would be his heiress.
At the age of thirteen she married the Marquess, who
brought her to Paris. When aged twenty she was a
widow, as her husband was drowned in the Mediter-
ranean. She then returned to Avignon, and was at
once surrounded by suitors. Her choice fell on the
Marquess de Ganges, younger than herself, a man of
a weak character, but with pleasant manners. The
marriage took place in 1658. By him she became the
mother of two children, a son and a daughter.

After a while the affection of the Marquess for his
wife died away. Her superiority in mind and character
offended his self-esteem, and to add to this his brother,
the Ahh6 de Ganges, did his utmost to estrange the
married couple.
Q

226 THE CEVENNES

The Marquess had three younger brothers. The elder,
the Count de Ganges, does not enter into the story except
towards its close. The second brother was the Abb^.
This man was clever, cultured, of insinuating manners.
He was not really in Holy Orders, but was one of
those who at the period assumed a semi-ecclesiastical
dress, and was given a benefice in comvtendam, the
duties of which he never performed as unqualified, but
the income of which he devoured. The third brother,
the Chevalier, was a poor, weak creature, completely in
the hands of the Abb^. The Marquess was much from
home. He lived on bad terms with his wife ; he found
life dull in a little country town, and he liked the dis-
sipation of a capital. He left his two younger brothers
at the chiteau, and placed the management of his
estates in the hands of the Abbe.

According to Pitaval, both brothers fell in love with
the far older Marquise, and the Abb^ ventured to
declare his sentiments towards her, and was repulsed
with disdain so cutting as to fill him with resentment.
Soon after M. de Nocheres died, and left his vast
fortune to his granddaughter in such a manner that her
husband could not touch a penny of it without her
consent. The Marquise at once had her will drawn up,
bequeathing all her fortune to her mother, Mme. de
Roussan, in trust for her children, but with the singular
proviso that this old lady was to leave it entire to
either one or other of her grandchildren, whichever
she chose. When she deposited this will with the
town councillor of Avignon, she added a codicil to the
effect that in the event of her death and a later will
being found this later will was to be regarded as invalid,
as wrung from her against her intent, and that the

PREPARATION FOR MURDER 227

above will was alone to take effect. This provision
was witnessed by several persons of authority, and she
insisted further that it should be kept secret and in no
way divulged.

On her return to Ganges she was cheerful, saw a
good deal of company, and seemed to be without
suspicion of evil devised against her. What made her
the more easy was that her stepmother was there, and
in her presence the Abbe and the Chevalier were circum-
spect.

But before long the dowager marquise left for Mont-
pellier, and her husband also departed. Since she had
become an heiress he had feigned greater affection for
her, and had treated her with courtesy. After his
departure the Abbe had conferences with her. He
assured her that the Marquess was deeply attached to
her, but was wounded to the quick by her having made
a will that passed him over ; that the only possible way
of concord being completely re-established was for her
to alter the terms of her will.

The Marquise was a woman. She allowed herself
to be persuaded, and under the dictation of the Abbe
drew up a second will, whereby she constituted her
husband sole heir. But she did not revoke the other,
the former will deposited at Avignon, and the Abbe,
knowing nothing of her final declaration made there to
vitiate any second disposition of her property, was
satisfied.

It is wholly unnecessary to accept the romance of
the passion of the Abb^ for his sister-in-law imported
into the story by Pitaval, and for which no evidence
was produced later. She was then aged twenty-nine,
older than the two elder brothers. The fact of the will

228 THE CEVENNES

having been extorted from her, and the prospect of
being able to share in the spoils should she die, is
sufficient to account for what follows. The object of
the Abbe now was to get rid of the Marquise.

She was not feeling well, and on the morning of May
17th, 1667, sent for the doctor, and asked for a draught.
But when this was brought to her it looked dark and
muddy, and she refused to drink it. It was not proved
that this was poisoned, but it is not improbable that
it was so. The Abbe and the Chevalier all day
seemed restless, and were continually inquiring as to
her condition, and seemed little pleased to learn that
she was recovering from her indisposition.

The Marquise spent the day in bed. Several ladies
of the town visited her, and she invited them to remain
for dinner. She appeared in very good spirits ; but it
was noted that both her brothers-in-law spoke little and
seemed distracted in mind. She joked the Chevalier
about this, and he and the Abb^ roused and attempted
to talk, but manifestly with an effort. Nor would either
of them eat. Presently the party broke up. The Abb6
undertook the duties of host, and accompanied the ladies
to the door of the chateau. The Chevalier remained
behind with his sister-in-law. His manner was peculiar,
he remained buried in thought. She asked him the
reason, but could get no answer from him ; then the
door opened, the Abb^ entered, and the solution to the
puzzle was given.

So far we have the facts from the evidence of the
witnesses before the Parliament of Toulouse; what
follows is from the narrative of the Marchioness herself.

The Abb^ entered the bedroom, a pistol in one hand
and a tumbler with some dark turbid liquid in the other.

ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE 229

His features had changed expression. Rage flared from
his eyes. He locked the door behind him, took his
station before his sister-in-law, and signed to his
brother, who drew his sword. At first it seemed to her
that hesitation appeared in his face and movements, but
if that were so, it passed rapidly away. The Abbe
broke the silence. He stepped up to the bed and said :
" Madame, you must die. Choose steel, lead, or poison."

She cried out, asking what she had done. She
implored the two men to spare her. She promised to
forget their conduct if they would withdraw. She
turned to the Chevalier. She reminded him that she
had frequently furnished him with money, and had
recently given him a bill for several hundred livres.
But in vain. He also spoke. " Enough, enough,
Madame. Make your selection, or we shall choose for
you."

The miserable woman took the glass out of the hand
of the Abbe. She drank whilst he held the pistol to
her breast, and the Chevalier menaced her heart with
his rapier. Some drops falling on her bosom blistered
it, and her lips were also blistered. The draught was a
composition of arsenic and sublimate of mercury dis-
solved in aquafortis. The Chevalier noticed that she
had not swallowed the dregs. He took a silver hairpin
and swept all that remained attached to the side of the
tumbler together into the bottom, and saying, " Be quick
about it ; drain to the last drop," forced her to take it.
She received it into her mouth but did not swallow what
she had taken, but sank back into the bed, and in con-
vulsive movements turned away and covering her head
with the bedclothes spat out what she had last taken.
Then she exclaimed, " For God's sake do not slay my

230 THE CEVENNES

soul as well as my body ; send for a confessor." Both
brothers left the room. They had no reason for refus-
ing this last request, for the vicar was Perette, a bad
man who had been tutor to the Marquess, and was in
the confidence of the brothers.

No sooner was the door shut than the Marchioness
sprang out of bed. In haste she drew on her petticoat,
and opened the window that looked into the yard. The
window was twenty-four feet from the ground, never-
theless she leaped down. At the same moment the door
had opened and Perette entered ; he sprang after her,
and succeeded in laying hold of her dress and retaining
her for a moment or two. But the garment rent, and
she fell to the ground on her feet without serious
injury.

The vicar laid hold of a silver water-jar and hurled it
after her, but missed his aim. The jug, instead of brain-
ing her, struck a stone and broke.

The Marquise found every door of the courtyard
fastened and locked. In fear of the operation of the
poison she thrust one of her tresses down her throat,
and this produced sickness. Fortunately she had
partaken of a good deal of pudding at the meal, and
this in a measure prevented the immediate working of
the poison. She tried to escape through the stable, but
that was locked. A groom, however, came up. " Save
me ! Save me ! I must escape ! " she cried. The man,
overcome with terror and pity, hesitated a moment, then
caught her up in his arms, carried her through the stables,
and handed her over to the first woman he encountered
in the street.

The Marquise continued her flight. Already the
brothers-in-law were in pursuit, shouting, " Hold her

PURSUIT 231

fast ! She is mad ! " And whoever saw the Marquise
running in her nightshirt, with a torn skirt and with
bare feet over the pavement of the street, might well
believe what they called out.

The people were already assembling and preparing
to stop her, when the Chevalier caught her at the door
of a Mme. de Prets, thrust her in, and entering himself
bolted the house door. The Abbe coming up, pistol in
hand, stood on the threshold and threatened to shoot
any one who interfered. His sister-in-law in her mad-
ness was not to be made a spectacle of to every one.

In the house of Mme. de Prets a party of ladies was
assembled. The Marquise rushed into the midst of
them, followed by the Chevalier, crying out that she had
been poisoned. The Chevalier declared before the ladies
that his sister was insane, and they did not know at
first what to make of this extraordinary scene. Mme.
Brunette, the wife of the Calvinist preacher in the place,
gave her some treacle, at the time supposed to be a
sovereign remedy against poison. She swallowed it,
but the fire of the poison made the Marchioness entreat
for water. A tumbler was handed to her, but the
Chevalier smashed it in her mouth as she was drinking.
He succeeded in persuading the ladies that his unfortu-
nate sister-in-law was out of her mind, and begged them
to excuse such an unseemly irruption into their midst.

Then the poor creature implored to be allowed to go
into the adjoining room ; this was granted, but the
Chevalier followed her, and with his rapier stabbed her
twice in the breast. She cried out, ran to the door and
entreated help. He followed, and, blind with rage,
stabbed her five times in the back. The last time the
weapon broke and left the blade sticking in her

232 THE CEVENNES

shoulder. She fell at the feet of the assembled ladies
drenched in blood. The Chevalier then ran downstairs,
and cried to his brother, " Away ! away ! the job is
done ! " But as they hurried down the street they
heard the women at the window crying for help and for
a surgeon. The Abb^, in the idea that the Marquise was
still living, had the incredible audacity to go back, enter
the house, thrust the women aside, and put the pistol to
the breast of his victim. Mme. Brunette struck up his
hand, and the pistol did not go off. Thereupon the Abbe
hit Mme. Brunette on the head, and again attempted to
kill his sister-in-law, this time by braining her with the
butt-end. Now, however, all the women present fell on
him, dragged, beat, thrust, and succeeded eventually in
expelling him from the house.

It was nine o'clock at night when the murderous
attempt was made. Darkness favoured the assassins ;
they knew that they would be pursued, so they fled to
an estate that belonged to the Marquess at Aubernas,
thence by boat down the river to the sea, and escaped
pursuit by fleeing from France.

The unfortunate Marquise lingered nineteen days.
The surgeon was obliged to plant his knee against her
back in order to obtain leverage for the extraction of
the broken blade ; but she died of the result of the
poison rather than of her wounds.

The two scoundrels before they fled had sent a
message post-haste to Avignon to inform the Marquess
that his wife had been so treated by them that she could
not possibly live. He did not hurry himself to go to
Ganges, and when he arrived expressed no sympathy
with her, no concern for what had been done, but
pestered the dying woman about her will, for in

THE ABBE AT LIPPE 233

Avignon he had got wind of what she had done to pro-
tect it from being revoked.

The case was tried at Montpellier. The Marquess
was decreed to have forfeited his title and estates, which
reverted to the Crown. The Abbd and Chevalier were
condemned to be broken on the wheel, but as they were
beyond reach the sentence could not be carried into
effect. The vicar, Perette, was sentenced to the galleys
for life, and died on his way to them. Louis XIV.
conferred the estates of the Marquess on the brother,
the Count of Ganges ; he held them till his nephew
was of age, and then surrendered them to him. The
Chevalier entered the service of Venice, and was killed
by a Turkish bullet in Candia.

The Abb6 escaped into Lippe, where, under the
assumed name of Montelliere, he passed as a Huguenot
refugee, was received into favour, and was appointed
tutor to the children of the Count of Lippe. He even
aspired to the hand of a kinswoman of the Count. The
latter demurred. He liked Montelliere well enough,
but objected that he was not noble.

" Oh ! as to that, do not concern yourself," said the
Abb^, " I am the Abb6 de Ganges, of whom you may
possibly have heard."

The horrible story was known — it had been bruited
about Europe. The Count was horror-struck, and
would have surrendered the miscreant to the authorities
in France, but that the pupil of the Abbe pleaded for
him, and he was allowed to escape into Holland, where
the Count's cousin, who had lost her heart to him
although knowing what a ruffian he was, followed
him in disguise and married him. Six months
after his marriage, a stranger accosted him in the streets

234 THE CEVENNES

of Amsterdam. "You are the Abbe de Ganges," he
said. " I avenge the Marquise," and he blew out the
miscreant's brains. Who the avenger was, was never
discovered.

Near Ganges is the Grotte des Demoiselles, a cave
that has so long enjoyed notoriety that the smoke
of torches has somewhat spoilt its freshness. It was, in
fact, discovered in 1780. There are other grottoes finer,
as that of Dargilan. However, the great hall called
that of the Virgin, which is one hundred and forty-five
feet in height, is fine ; in it is a stalagmite supposed
to represent the Virgin, and another forms a natural
porch, eighteen feet high and nine feet wide. It
demands, I think, a special aptitude of the mind to
appreciate caverns. I, for my part, am so fond of the
light of day that I do not go underground before my
time comes.

There is another at Ganges, L'Aven Laurien, as
picturesque as it is interesting from an archaeological
point of view. The phenomenon of this pot-hole is
one very common in this limestone district. A well
gapes before you descending to unknown depths.
Honeysuckle, clematis, wild vine droop down it, disguise
its presence, and interlace about it in the branches of
the ilex and the wild fig, flinging their boughs across
the orifice. Bunches of scolopendria let their long fronds
droop into the depth, and laurels add their sombre
verdure to the clear notes of the deciduous plants.

At 150 feet below the mouth of this pot-hole on the
mountain flank is a cave, reduced by accumulations to
a small opening. One can enter on all fours only.
But after having passed within, a spacious chamber
is reached about 120 feet in length, with branches as a

L'AVEN LAURIEN 235

cross, but at the extremity opposite the entrance it
opens abruptly on the verdant well of the aven.

It is impossible not to be struck on reaching this
point at the picturesque appearance of the cave. It
receives light that filters down the aven through the
network of foliage above, and long trails of leaves fall
from above as though to decorate the unsounded abyss
that opens below. Now this cavern was a habitation of
neolithic man, as has been shown by finds there of his
handiwork. But think of the mothers of families re-
siding there on the brink of that awful gulf! What
agonies of apprehension they must have been in when
the little urchins played puss-in-the-corner there ; when
they saw them totter to the verge to look up at the
green descending light and the pendent leaves ! If a
child tripped and went down, its little body could
never be recovered. But how docile and meek and
mealy-mouthed the wives must have been when, if
one raised her voice to scold her lord and master, he
could point over his shoulder with his thumb to the
unfathomed abyss where it could be silenced for ever —
by a push.

Another aven again is that of Rabanel, down which
M. Martel has descended. Nothing disguises the open-
ing of this horrible well, that sinks precipitously 390
feet. The explorers found a heap of debris at the
bottom.

" It took us three days to construct the scaffolding for the
windlass. I went down first, fastened by a double rope, and I
spun round forty-seven times in the void, happy to discover
that the only way to save myself from giddiness was to count
the revolutions I made.

" But what a spectacle when I reached the bottom ! A

236 THE CEVENNES

slope of rubbish inclined at thirty-five degrees which one can
descend without difficulty for 60 feet, and then a great vault,
like the nave of a cathedral, 300 feet long by 45 feet, and
450 feet high, lighted from above by a lucarne of blue sky,
the light falling down which, is sifted, strange, glinting with
violet reflexions from the walls, whence depended stalactites
formed drop by drop like crystal tears."

Ganges is a manufacturing town, its speciality being
the most delicate silk fabrics, ^tarvels of lightness are
produced. Dyeing the silk is also done here. The
workers produce stockings so fine that a pair will weigh
only 185 grains. The spider does not spin a finer web,
and not so strong, for these impalpable tissues are re-
markably resistant. The silk is purchased in cocoons
in the markets of Alais and S. Hippolyte in May and
June. The weaving is done only by day, and embroi-
dresses work with their needle adorning the tissues,
and are remarkably dexterous and tasteful.

The population is divided into Protestants, who have
a large circular meeting-house on the Grande Place,
and the Catholics, who have a stately new church
opposite the old chateau of the Marquesses of Ganges,
in another part of the town.

Excursions may be made from Ganges to explore
the gorges of the Vis and the Herault, but there is a
dearth of roads. They do not penetrate these ravines ;
and to traverse the glaring plateau or to thread the
burning ravines in summer is impossible. They must
be visited in April and May, but even March is not too
early.

CHAPTER XIV
LE VIGAN

Schist ravines — Valley of the Arre — Wolves — Vindomagus — Fountain of
Isis — Saracens — Priory — ^Jean Peyrenc — Persecution of Huguenots —
Murder of Daud^ — Execution of B^n^zet — Reprisals — Aveze — Pont
de Mousse — Brigand barons — A long lawsuit — The Montcalm
family — Aulos — A man of many duels — The Vis — Montdardier — The
Ginestous — Causse de Blandas — Navacelles — Le Vigan — The Cheva-
lier d'Assas — Triaire.

WHEN the line leaves Ganges it leaves the white
limestone crags and plunges among broken
schist mountains, and the curious rugged mass of
Esparon stands up before one as a fortress against the
blue sky. The valley of the Arre is entered, and pre-
sently we arrive at Le Vigan in a pleasant site, a green
smiling valley enclosed within a triple range, first of
hills terraced up, step above step, with walls to retain
the meagre deposit of soil laboriously cultivated. The
second stage is one of mountains dense with chestnuts.
Above this rises the rugged range of granite that forms
the watershed between the Atlantic and the Mediter-
ranean. Among the higher rocks sprout a few twisted
and stunted beech, the relics of the ancient forests that
formerly sheltered the bear, the wild boar, and the
wolf. These forests have disappeared, partly through
fires kindled to clear away the lurking-places of the
Camisards, partly to destroy the shelter of the wolves,

237

238 THE CEVENNES

mainly through the improvidence of the peasantry. It
has been found simpler to get rid of the wolves by
strychnine than by fire, and they are now very nearly
exterminated. But the destruction of the forests has
had such lamentable results that the Board of Forestry
is engaged in replanting large tracts.

Le Vigan is supposed to occupy the site of the old
Gallo-Roman town of Vindomagus. The name implies
that a Celtic population was settled there. Magh
signifies meadow or plain, and vindo is the Latin form
given to the word we find in so many places to signify
open country, wind-swept, sun-scorched, rambled over
by sheep, that still lingers on upon the Welsh border,
as Gwent. No descriptive appellation could better suit
Le Vigan.

The town gathered a little way below the great
sacred spring that now supplies its fountains and run-
nels with limpid water, once dedicated to Isis, the
Egyptian goddess, who was introduced into Rome and
became fashionable. It is still called the Fontaine d'ls,
and the bath and remains of her temple are under the
present corn market.

The Saracens penetrated the defiles of the Cevennes,
and attacked and destroyed Vindomagus. They have
left their traces in the terminology of certain localities
about the town, as Le Champ de Maoureses and Le
Camp Sarrasin.

In the Middle Ages Le Vigan was a walled town, about
a priory; the prior exercised rights of high justice alter-
nately with the King of France, each for three years,
turn and turn about, one of these clumsy, confusing
arrangements only possible in those topsy-turvy days.
It suffered the usual miseries also of those days from

PERSECUTION 239

English freebooters. It was always zealous on the
national side. In the reign of Louis XV. a grandson
of a barber of Le Vigan became Minister of Marine,
and fitted out the fleets in the struggle against England
for the supremacy of the seas and the maintenance of
French dominions in North America. An epigram
was written on this man, Jean Peyrenc : —

" Pour raser I'Angleterre,
On met au ministere
Peyrenc dont le grand-pcre,
Faisait fort proprement,
Des barbes au Vigan."

The most woeful time of all for the place was that
of persecution of the Huguenots. The odious Edict
of 1685 brought perturbation into the town and neigh-
bourhood, which had become Calvinist. Companies of
dragoons were quartered on the Protestants, and made
them suffer such vexations that the townsfolk passed
bodily over to the Church in less than a twelvemonth ;
but thirty families, rather than submit to forcible con-
version, expatriated themselves. Others were arrested
and condemned to deportation. Among these was a
Seigneur du Fouquet, who died on the voyage. His
daughter, Madeleine, was sent to be educated in a
convent, and left it only when she had abjured heresy,
and she became the grandmother of the Chevalier
d'Assas, a son of the soil, the hero of Clostercamp,
whose statue adorns a square in Le Vigan, and of
whom more presently.

On the night of October 6th, 1686, two thousand of
the Reformed assembled on a little plateau near the
height of rOiselette, visible from Le Vigan, to hear one
of the pastors preach, when a body of dragoons, guided

240 THE CEVENNES

by a traitor, Moreau, rushed upon them after having
shot down the sentinels. The Protestants were armed,
and seeing the military approach fired on them, and
shot the captain in command ; the lieutenant was
stabbed by a bayonet in the belly, and died two days
later. The assembly dispersed in all directions, but
twenty-two persons were arrested, and eight of them,
among them three women, were hung in the market-
place of Le Vigan.

On June 5th, 1704, the delegate of Baville at Le
Vigan, named Daud6, was murdered by the Camisards.
He was walking home from a little property he had
at La Valette when he was assailed by shots from the
insurgents, who had concealed themselves in a corn-
field. They blew out his brains, but they did no harm
to Claude d'Assas, who was accompanying him, other
than depriving him of his sword and his embroidered
cap. They were caught, and convicted on the evidence
of that cap found on them. At the same time were
taken two farmers, who had given them asylum. One
of these was proved not to be a Camisard, and knew
nothing of the plot. Nevertheless, at the instance of
Judith, the widow of the murdered man, he was con-
demned and hung.

Two days after, the implacable widow was found
dead ; she had died of uterine hemorrhage.

The last of the assemblies of the Calvinists in the
desert was on Sunday, January 30th, 1752. It was
presided over by the pastor, Marazel, and a candidate
for the ministry named Ben^zet, who in his prayer
invoked God " for the King, the Queen, and the Royal
Family." That same evening the two preachers were
in a house at Le Vigan, when it was surrounded by

THE goat's leap, LE VIGAN

AVEZE 241

the dragoons. Marazel managed to escape ; the other
was conveyed a prisoner to Montpellier. Ben^zet was
not a full-blown pastor, and it was hoped that he would
be sentenced to exile only, and his young wife made
ready to accompany him. But on March 27th, by order
of Louis XV., for whom he had prayed in the forest
of Quinte two months before, he was sentenced to
the gallows. This drama had its terrible epilogue. A
few days later a woman, Marie Flavier, who was sus-
pected of having betrayed the ministers, was found
dead, with her tongue torn out of her head.

Above Le Vigan is Aveze, where is the sacred
spring of Isis, the source of the V^zenobres, a torrent
that flows under a natural bridge called Le Pont de
Mousse. The spring is actually fed by the stream of
Coudeloux, that disappears in the fissures of the cal-
careous rocks near Aulas, Aveze is a village built in
amphitheatre above the junction of the Gleppe and
the Coudeloux, which disembouch into the Arre.
Aveze was founded by three Benedictine monks in the
year 803. The castle commanding the village was the
seat of two seigneurs, who successively occupied it, and
who lived as brigands, pillaging the neighbourhood and
carrying off women from the very gates of Le Vigan.
In consequence of a colloquy, one of these robber nobles
was induced to abandon the castle. To bring the
other to reason, th^ civil authorities at Le Vigan im-
plored the Constable Montmorency to lend them aid.
This he did, and the castle was subjected to a formal
siege in 1607 ; it was taken, and the sergeant was hung
from the top of the keep. As to the two seigneurs,
both came to a violent end. The first, Jean dAyemard,
was assassinated on the high road by murderers sent

242 THE CEVENNES

after him by his enemy, Jean de Vabres, who contested
with him the ownership of the castle. Three years
later this second seigneur was shot on his way to Arre.
The castle of Aveze was a matter of a lawsuit that
lasted over a century and a half. Sentence was pro-
nounced against De Beaufort, its legitimate owner, but
he refused submission to the judgment. He armed his
vassals, defended himself, and killed some of the con-
stables sent to demand the surrender of the castle.
He had, however, finally to yield ; and the chateau
became later, by a judgment of the Parliament of
Toulouse in 1788, the property of the family of Mont-
calm, descended from the Sire de Beaufort. Next year
the marquess, son of the heroic defender of Quebec,
came to inhabit Av^ze, and it is a satisfaction to know
that during the turmoil of the Revolution the venerated
name of Montcalm preserved the chateau from being
destroyed. It still belongs to the family, and is sur-
rounded by a handsome park — as parks go in France.

Aulas, now a small village, was in the thirteenth
century the chief town of the barony of Hierle ; and in
162 1 it was one of the five most important places in the
district devoted to the principles of the Reformation,
that was fortified by De Chatillon, grandson of the
Admiral Coligny. Castle and walls have fallen; they
were levelled after the peace of Alais. Just beyond
Aulas is the Chateau de Clapisse, in which was born, in
1740, Henri de Celadon, Chevalier de Lanuejols, noted
for his periodic duels. M. de Celadon left home every
year on a fixed day and took his way to the Isle of
Basthellasse in the Rhone, near Avignon. At the same
time, annually, another gentleman left Lyons, and made
his way to the same spot, from which one or the other

MONTDARDIER 243

returned wounded. This continued for twelve years ;
but on the last De Celadon must have inflicted a more
than ordinary wound, for on the thirteenth visit to the
isle, in the following year, his adversary was not there.
He withdrew, but in the fourteenth year returned, and
again he with whom he had crossed swords twelve suc-
cessive times was not there. Then he instituted inquiries,
and ascertained that his foe had died two years pre-
viously. What the cause of the long-protracted quarrel
was never came to light ; De Celadon, who died in
1 8 10, carried the secret with him to the grave.

The source of the ravine of that strange river, half
subterranean, the Vis, is best visited from Le Vigan.
The Vis, a river as large as the H6rault, where it effects
its junction with the latter, rises at S. Guiral, near the
frontier of Aveyron. It passes Alzon, flows below the
sheer limestone escarpments of the Larzac, and receives
the immense spring of the Foux, after which only does
it become a river ; passing between the rocks of Tude
and d'Aujean it traverses a fine ravine. Montdardier
{inons arduus) is five miles from Le Vigan, and to reach it
the Causse has to be passed under from Av^se. Here
the limestone is so compact that it can be exploited as
lithographic stones. Much of the way is shaded by
chestnuts below the white escarpments of the rocks of
La Tude and of the Pic d'Anjeau, forming the edge of
the Causse de Blandas, an islet of limestone separated
from Larzac by the Vis, as is also the much smaller
islet of Campestre, that lies between the Vis and the
Virenque. These causses are strewn with dolmens and
bristle with menhirs.

The Castle of Montdardier, that has been restored by
Violet le Due, occupies a well-timbered height above the

244 THE CEVENNES

little stream that joins the Arre at Aveze, The village
clusters about the hill, the extremity of which sustains
the castle and the park.

In 1684, the last male heir of the Ginestous, lords of
Montdardier, was a Protestant pastor. He had an only
child, a daughter, whom he married to Frangois d'Assas
on condition that her descendants should assume the
name and bear the arms of Ginestous. The castle is
now the property of the Viscount de Ginestous at Mont-
pellier. In the village are the remains of a hospital of
the Templars.

On leaving Montdardier the causse appears before
one in all its nudity, and the eye that has been gratified
by the green woods and pastures of the valley is now
smitten and half blinded by the glare of the bald lime-
stone, with here and there only a little field of corn
where some snuff-coloured earth has accumulated. Not
a stream, not a spring, all the water that falls is
absorbed and disappears in the fissures to fill the
mysterious reservoirs that feed the rivers. Flocks of
lean sheep wander about the waste and eat the herbs
and bushes that attempt to grow, as well as the burnt
and scanty grass. Even the droppings of the sheep are
not suffered to remain and enrich the meagre soil.
They are carefully collected and sold to the vinedressers
of the plain.

Blandas is four miles from Montdardier. There are
eleven megalithic monuments in this commune alone.
Nothing breaks the monotony of the Causse, beyond
the white plateau of which is the blue chain of distant
mountains, of pure cobalt. All at once, what seems to
be a fold in the plain gives way, and we stand at the
edge of a tremendous depression of 960 feet. Below,

NAVACELLES 245

beneath the escarpments of white Jura limestone, a
silver line appears winding among green meadows, and
flowing from a cascade.

" The view of Navacelles produces an impression never to
be forgotten. I really do not know how better to advise those
who accompany tourists than to make them halt at a great
tree about two hundred yards from the gap. There they
should have their eyes bandaged, and they should be led to the
edge of the precipice, and their backs turned to it. The
bandage removed, they would see before them only the naked-
ness of the Causse. But let them turn about, and they would
spring back filled with amazement. Even the details of the
spectacle presented before them are most curious. The posi-
tion of the declivity against which leans the village of
Navacelles has an extraordinary resemblance to a gigantic
oyster-shell, whilst to right and to left the spirals of the Vis
are surmounted by precipitous rocks in fangs.

The source of this strange river is not less interesting than
its canon. In half an hour one reaches La Foux. There
between the escarped flanks of the Causse the river pours out
of a deep cavern, and at once puts a mill in movement." ^

Neither pencil, camera, nor description can do justice
to the remarkable scene. The road, a zigzag, descends
into a veritable crater-like hollow down a shoulder less
precipitous than the rest of the sides of the abyss, here
barred with the horizontal beds of rock, there covered
with rubble slides, scantily sprinkled over with box and
juniper. At the bottom a ring of green meadow
encircles a cone of rock. To live in Navacelles
requires the constitution of a salamander, as the sun's
rays are reflected from every side.

' Chante : Un Coin des Cevennes. Paris, Berger-Levrault.

246 THE CEVENNES

Le Vigan is becoming annually more appreciated, and
justly so, as a summer residence. The knowledge that
it is abundantly supplied with pure water, that it is well
drained, cleaner than most towns in the Cevennes, enjoys
fresh air, and is surrounded by scenery of a high
character, and that almost endless excursions may be
made from it to places of great interest, have drawn to
it numerous visitors. I have but touched on some of
the attractions of the neighbourhood. I would recom-
mend those who feel disposed to stay there for a few
weeks to provide themselves with the little guide from
which I have drawn my last quotation.

And now, finally, for the Chevalier d'Assas, whose
statue adorns one of the squares.

Louis d'Assas was born at Le Vigan in 1733. He
entered early on a military career, and at the age of
twenty-seven was captain in the Auvergne regiment —
that regiment in violet uniform which immortalised
itself on the field of Parma, in the war in Italy 1733-4.
The king of Sardinia, the ally of France, was in the
battle. Seeing the field strewn with the violet uniforms,
he turned to a French marshal at his side and asked,
" Where are the rest of the violets ? " " Those not
cropped are still fighting," was the reply.

The action that made the name of Assas one dear to
the hearts of the men of Le Vigan took place dur-
ing the War of Seven Years. After the disgraceful
defeats of Rossbach and Crevelt, a detachment was sent
against the Prussians, and a battle was fought at Closter-
camp in 1760; the corps of d'Assas lost fifty-eight
officers out of eighty, and eight hundred soldiers. On
the night of the 15th October, Captain Assas fell into
an ambuscade. Surrounded by the enemy, who threat-

TRIAIRE 247

ened to run him through with their bayonets if he
uttered a cry of warning, he thought only of patriotic
devotion, and shouted, " A moi, Auvergne ! ce sont les
ennemis ! " and fell pierced through and through.

In 1777, Louis XVI. granted a pension for all time
of a thousand livres to the eldest son of the race.
During the Revolution this ceased to be paid, but it was
restored by Napoleon I., and is still received by the
representative of the family.

But he is not the only hero Le Vigan has honoured
by a monument. Pierre Triaire was born there in 1771.
He was sergeant of artillery in Egypt, and was in the
battle of the Pyramids, was at the taking of Cairo, and
was in El Arish, which according to Bonaparte was
one of the two keys to Egypt. It was defended by 300
men under the command of Cazal, when it was invested
by the Turks. A portion of the garrison, discouraged
by the desertion of his post by the General Commander
in Egypt at a critical moment, and having but one
desire, to return, like Napoleon, to France, paralysed the
defence. Some traitors cast cords down to the Turks,
who climbed over the walls. At this moment Triaire,
indignant at the cowardice of a portion of the garrison,
rushed to the powder magazine, of which he had the
key, and blew the fort up. According to General
Desaix, 3,0CXD Turks were destroyed by the explosion.

This was on December 30th, 1799, when Triaire was
aged twenty-nine.

The statue in bronze of Triaire was inaugurated in
1891.

CHAPTER XV

L'AIGOUAL

Meteorological station — Battle of the winds — Warnings of floods —
Different aspects of the Aigoual — The Garden of God — Meyrueis —
Bramabiau — Exploration of — Valeraugue — Roman road — Barre —
Limestone cirques — Causse de I'Hospitalet — Florae — Dirty streets —
Mimente — Cassagnas — Fontaine du Pecher — The Dourbie — Treves —
Baume de S. Firmin — Prehistoric man — Nant — Source of the Durzon
— Cantobre — S. Veran — Roquesaltes.

THE Aigoual is the hinge or knot of the inner
range of the Cevennes, as Mezenc is that of the
outer range. On one of its summits sits a meteorologi-
cal observatory astride on the ridge of the watershed.
Indeed, so exactly is it so placed, that the rain pouring
off the roof on one side reaches the Mediterranean,
whereas that off the other side goes to replenish the
Atlantic.

The station is admirably calculated for the purpose,
as thence can be watched the atmospheric currents as
they sweep from the north or from the south, and the
battle of the winds may be contemplated when the
northern blast rolls back the moisture-laden currents
from the south. This battle of the winds is an interest-
ing phenomenon. Occasionally it happens that a veil
of mist rising from the Mediterranean is swept forward,
obscuring the landscape as it gathers density, and is
propelled by the south-east wind till it reaches the

248

PEASANT GIRLS OF THE GAUSSES

BATTLE OF THE WINDS 249

Cevennes. It gradually becomes thicker and darker,
packing in the valleys and then creeping up the heights.
No sooner, however, has it reached the summit of the
chain, than it is caught by the north-west wind and sent
back in flying streamers, like the mare's tails we are
accustomed to see in our skies presaging a change of
wind, but with this difference, that these streamers are
viewed from above.

The north wind gathering strength, as though muster-
ing its forces against the audacious invasion of the
southern vapours, rages and blusters for several days.
Meanwhile the south-east wind is still thrusting forward
volumes of vapour and compacting them in the gorges
and valleys, cautiously throwing up a tentacle towards
the heights, up lateral ravines, as though to feel whether
the north wind is still on the alert. Should Boreas
slacken his efforts, then the clouds climb the mountain
sides like storming parties and reach the battlements.
But their success is momentary only. The north wind
has been dozing, and awakes to resume the combat.
The heavily charged clouds, packed beyond endurance
in the valleys, can make no progress, and the volleys of
ice-cold wind overhead condense the mist and bring
about torrential rains, accompanied by incessant explo-
sions of thunder and lightning. In a few minutes the
granitic or limestone cliffs are seamed with cascades.
The silver thread that meandered through the meadows
below is transformed into a yellow raging torrent, carry-
ing before it masses of rock torn from the mountain
side, trees, the wreckage of enclosures, houses even with
their inhabitants. The rivers hitherto sliding through
rubbly beds, vastly out of proportion to their diminu-
tive size, swell to the brim and overflow, carrying

250 . THE CEVENNES

devastation on every side. As in the story of Puss in
Boots the magician transforms himself into a mouse at
one moment and into an elephant at another, so is it
with these Cevenol rivers — what is a rill to-day is like the
Thames to-morrow.

Those in the Observatory on the Aigoual perform
a most valuable service. They can predict the coming
of a flood, and they telegraph to all villages and towns
that are menaced, to be on their guard, and evacuate
dwellings on low ground, and remove their cattle to
heights.

The inmates of the Observatory have become very
weathervvise, and note many indications of an approach-
ing tempest. One that is infallible in summer is the
conduct of the bees. These shrewd insects, that have
been humming and honey-gathering among the wild
thyme, fly to the Observatory and cling to the panes,
darkening them, and remaining motionless till the
atmospheric disturbance is over.

How furious the wind may be, and what a force it
exercises on the Aigoual, may be judged by looking
at the refuge of the Touring Club that is fastened to
the rock by chains, like the ropes of a tent.

The Mont Lozere, though higher than the Aigoual,
is not so subject to these veritable tornadoes. There
the wind blows almost invariably from the north. The
Cevenol peasant says :

" Se lo nibou h6n de I'Oual prdn tons bioous et bai o I'oustal.
Se lo nibou bdn de Louzero, prdn tons bioous et bai o lo rego " ;

which may be rendered, " If the cloud comes from the
Aigoual, take your oxen and go to the stable. If the
cloud comes from the Lozere, take your oxen and go
to the furrow."

THE TWO HEADS 251

The Aigoual is a granitic mass, reaching to 5,140
feet, whereas the Roc de Malpertus, in the Mont
Lozere group, rises to 5,520 feet, but this latter is far
less suitable for meteorologic observation. Around the
Aigoual erosion has formed a labyrinth of gorges and
profound valleys, in the beds of which race torrents
impatient to reach lower levels.

From the side of Merueys, the Aigoual does not
present by any means an imposing appearance. It
is a domed green mass, on the top of which gleam
white the walls of the Observatory. From the side of
La Luzette it bears some resemblance to a huge ante-
diluvian monster in a crouching posture with fore paws
extended.

On the south side the Aigoual is rugged and abrupt.
Its precipices descend to great depths. The stream
of the Claron there in a succession of falls drops to the
depth of 3,000 feet in a very short distance.

The Aigoual has two heads, one of these. La Fayede,
looking towards the sun-bathed basin of the Rhone ;
the other, that of the Hort Dieu, the loftiest but the
least picturesque. Between these is a coombe, watered
by a thousand springs that ooze from the turf and
nourish a rich vegetation. It is this coombe really
which is the Garden of God, as the natives term it.

On the one side the Aigoual rises out of mulberry
and chestnut woods, torn and precipitous ; on the other
it is smooth and velvety, wooded only with distorted
beech. It has been ravaged by the merciless axe of
the peasant that has left it bald and desolate. From
the summit a superb view is obtained of the tossed
and torn ridges of schist mountain, some rounded, but
furrowed like the face of one very aged, some starting

252 . THE CEVENNES

up into peaks, some stretching out saw-like ridges,
some flat-headed, according to the nature of the rock
of which composed. To the north rises the Tarnon
that passes by Florae, below which it enters the Tarn.
A little to the north-east is the Signal de I'Hospitalet,
and beyond Barre des Cevennes. The old Roman road
ran over this latter col to penetrate into the heart of
the Cevennes; it kept to the crest, commanding glorious
views.

The Aigoual should be ascended from Meyrueis, a
little town half the population of which is Protestant.
Near it, and on the way, is the Renaissance castle of
Roquedols.

Here one passes abruptly from the limestone to the
granite, and at once notes a corresponding difference
in the flora. Among the limestone rocks the pinks
show as drops of blood. On the granite are none.
The fields by Roquedols are white with narcissus
poeticus, not a flower of that bulb is in the calcareous
fields. The distance from Meyrueis to the Aigoual is
just over nineteen miles, and a carriage should be
taken at least as far as to Camprieu, where Bramabiau
demands a visit. On the top of the Aigoual a dinner
and a bed may be obtained at the Observatory. Brama-
biau may also be visited from Le Vigan. The rivulet
of the Bonheur, that descends from the Col de Seyre-
rede near the Aigoual, after flowing over granite and
schist, encounters a mass of Dolomitic limestone,
through which it has bored a channel for a distance
of 1,200 feet. The tunnel through which it flows is
in one place open to the sky through the falling in
of the roof The name Bramabiau given to this cavern
traversed by a stream is onomatopoeic, and signifies

BRAMABIAU 253

the bellowing of a bull, as the water in time of flood
gives forth angry sounds.

Nothing surprises one more than the apparent in-
adequacy of the means to the end attained. The
Bonheur is but a small stream, yet the work it has
achieved is tremendous. But it must be borne in mind
that where stands Camprieu was once a lake, the water
held back by the barrier of limestone, and that the
accumulated force was brought to bear on the rock to
effect this tunnel of drainage. Moreover, the rock itself
was full of holes like a sponge, with large vaults like
huge bubbles in its interior, so that it was not a solid
mass through which the stream had to bore its way. It
was further aided by several springs rising within the
rock, all working in their several courses to effect their
escape.

The exploration of Bramabiau was accomplished
in June, 1888, by M. Martel and his guides. They
attempted first to penetrate by the opening through
which the Bonheur leaps into light again, but found
that the gallery consisted of a series of ascents, with
cascades and pools ; and although by wading and with
ladders they succeeded in reaching a considerable dis-
tance, they could not attain to the point where the
stream begins to dive underground. On the following
day these indefatigable explorers attacked the tunnel
from above, where the Bonheur enters, and were able
to descend to the point reached on the preceding day,
and further to pursue their course till they came out
where the stream issues, a distance as the crow flies of
a kilometre.

In January, 1888, a man of Camprieu disappeared,
and there was reason to suspect he had committed

254 THE CEVENNES

suicide. As his body could not be found, it was
supposed that he had flung himself down the abyss of
the Bonheur ; and, in fact, when M. Martel searched the
cavern he found the body wedged into a spot where, in
the cave itself, the stream disappears underground for
a while, to again reappear and continue its subterra-
nean course. It goes through these vagaries twice, and
perpetrates seven cascades.

"To avoid repetitions," says M. Martel in his account of
the exploration, " I will say no more of the magic of
magnesium light under vaults lofty as Gothic naves ; I must
only ask of the reader to figure, if he can in the profound
night of these caverns, the deafening roar of the falling water,
the dispersion of the party groping in all directions for passages,
the flicker of the feeble candles, the distant calls and signals,
whistles, and horns, the cords strained, and the ladders set up
against steep walls, our silhouettes magnified against the walls
in shadows, and profiled against the boiling torrent, all under
vaults 150 feet high and at the extremity of galleries of 300
feet.

"One portion of our course was effected only by a series of
gymnastics, according to the width of the gallery that varied
from three feet to ten feet, according to how far the ledges
were practicable — so we crept along, a few yards above the
torrent, clinging to the rock with our fingers, our breasts
against the wall, or else wading in the water up to our armpits.
Often our candles went out, caused by our rapid movements,
or by the rush of wind that swept through the tunnel ; the
drip of our soaked clothes, the difficulty of communication
amidst the roar of the falling water, increased our difficulties
tenfold."

Where the Bonheur escapes into daylight there is an
immense rift in the rocks, and out of this the stream
leaps in a fall of some dignity. Up to 1888 it was not

VALLERAUGUE 255

thought possible that the Bonheur could be the stream
that issued at Bramabiau, for anything thrown in above
never issued below. But the exploration by M. Martel
solved the mystery. The stream sinks, filters through the
rock, leaving above that which is thrown in, and issues
limpid at the cascade that rushes from the entrance.

The descent of the Aigoual on the sideofValleraugue
is by a thousand steps hewn in granite and schist, and
at the bottom of this is the vegetable garden of the
officials of the Observatory.

Valleraugue lies at the bottom of a cirque of moun-
tains at the confluence of the rivers of the Mallet and the
Clareau, and it is after their marriage that the united
streams assume the name of Herault. The descent
from the Aigoual to Valleraugue occupies two hours,
the ascent .by the carriage road takes seven. Valle-
raugue is a busy factory town ; the population is mainly
engaged in silk spinning and weaving. The place is
almost wholly Protestant. This valley of the H6rault
as far as Ganges is one of the most active in silk industry
in the Cevennes. The vegetation is wholly southern ; the
hillsides disposed in terraces are planted with vines and
mulberries ; and ilexes abound, providing the tanneries
with their bark. " This valley," says Ardouin Dumazet,
" is a synthesis of all the somewhat severe graces of the
Cevenol land." The Roman road over I'Hospitalet
has been already referred to. It runs from Avignon to
Anduze and then ascends the crest above the Gardon,
and passing under Barre stretches away to Florae. Barre
itself occupies a Gallo-Roman oppidum, of which traces
remain, and throughout the neighbourhood relics of the
Roman tenure of the land are found. After the Col
dAire de Cote ensues a series of frightful cirques, whose

256 THE CEVENNES

vertical walls crumble away by degrees under the action
of the weather. The flanks of the mountain areprofoundly
breached, and form precipices. The nature of the rock
contributes to augment the savagery of the region. It
is composed of schists steeply inclined towards the
north, and penetrated by numerous veins of porphyry
that metamorphized them. Here are needles, here
masses of schist support tables of limestone. A little
triangular plateau, a lost islet of the Causse, succeeds
to the schists. This is the Can de I'Hospitalet.

"Here, atmospheric agencies have carved the strangest
edifices. Huge calcareous hats cover and overhang slender
schistous supports, shaped like the tables in a glacier. Many
of these gigantic mushrooms have reeled on their corroded
stalks and are thrown into a sloping position like fallen
dolmens. The plateau of I'Hospitalet is both picturesque and
of scientific interest." ^

Florae hardly comes within the range that I have
marked out for description, and yet some words must
be given to it, as it was the centre of the Cevenol
revolt, and was the scene of several conflicts and of the
execution of Camisards.

It is a very dirty place, originally walled ; the houses
were so crowded that the streets were contracted to the
narrowest possible width. One has to be careful not to
walk down them before eight o'clock in the morning, as
all the slops are thrown from the windows into the
street, and may fall on the head of the incautious
passenger ; and here no warning call is given, as in the
narrow lanes of old Edinburgh, to put the man in the
street on his guard. What is cast forth remains where
it falls till torrential rains sweep away the accumulated

^ Martel : Les Cevenves. Paris, 1891.

FLORAC 257

filth of weeks and even months. In the Languedoc

towns that reek with evil odours, in a country too where

the hillsides are redolent with aromatic herbs, lavender,

sage, marjoram, rosemary, beds of violets, thyme in

sheets, one can hardly help repeating the lines of

Bishop Heber :

" What though the spicy breezes
Blow sweet o'er Ceylon's isle,
And every prospect pleases,
Yet only man is vile."

But it is not man who is vile, that he is nowhere, it is
the refuse he casts about him that is offensive, and the
offensiveness is a provision of nature to instruct him to
remove it beyond the reach of the nose. But familiarity
must breed a liking for these disgusting odours, or
women would not sit on their doorsteps all day working
and chatting, and let their children play about amidst
festering garbage.

Florae is, in spite of dragonades and gallows and the
stake, almost entirely Protestant. The large meeting-
house contains nothing but a pulpit and bare benches.
The Catholic church is a new and mean structure, the
temple bare as a barn, the church ugly as a modern
French architect can make one.

Florae is near the influx of the Mimente into the
Tarnon. The three valleys of the Mimente, the Tarn,
and the Tarnon lead into the inextricable labyrinth of
defiles in which the Camisards were able to establish
their arsenals, hospitals, and storehouses. The Mi-
mente rises in the mountain of Bouges, whose summit
is crowned by the forest of Altefage, where under three
huge beech trees met the murderers of the Abb^ du
Chayla. At Cassagnas, a village near the source of
s

258 . THE CEVENNES

the Mimente, the caverns may be inspected that served
the Camisards as magazines, filled with corn, wine, oil,
and above all chestnuts. Roland had established here
a powder factory ; the saltpetre was obtained, as later
during the European wars of Bonaparte, from the
numerous caverns that contained the bones of extinct
beasts. Drugs were procured for the wounded from
Montpellier, where there were many well-wishers ready
to smuggle them into the mountains. When the water-
mills for grinding the corn were destroyed by the
military commander of Languedoc, the Camisards
reverted to the use of querns. In some of the caves
whole flocks and herds were secreted ; others were
stored with salted meat.

Florae possesses its natural curiosity, the Fontaine du
richer, that discharges the water infiltrated from the
plateau of M^jan. It pours forth in an abundant
stream and forms a cascade, but the water is at once
eagerly captured for the purpose of irrigation. During
the winter and after a storm it vomits forth a torrent
with a roar like that of a lion.

After a visit to the summit of the Aigoual it would
be well to descend the Dourbie to Milau, reaching the
Dourbie by the ravine of the Tr^vesel. The Pas de
r Ase is a profound gorge, i ,200 feet deep, between fiery-
red dolomitic cliffs, in three stages superposed and
separated by slopes of detritus. At midday, when the
sun streams down on these rocks, the effect is dazzling.
At Treves, where are coal mines, is the cave called the
Baume de S. Firmin, and near by the ruins of a castle.

S. Firmin was the grandson of Tonantius Ferreolus,
Prefect of Gaul, who, as we have seen, was the host of
Sidonius Apollinaris. He had a villa here, Trevido, as

S. FIRMIN 259

the town was then called, and in it he died in the year
470. Firminus was educated by his uncle Noricus,
Bishop of Uzes, the son of Tonantius, and he in turn
became bishop of the same see, and died at the early
age of thirty-seven, in the year 553, and was succeeded
by his nephew, Ferreolus ; so that at that time it is
pretty clear bishoprics had become the perquisites of
members of the great families of Gallo-Roman origin.
When S. Firmin visited his grandfather or his father, at
Treves, he was wont to retire to the cave that bears his
name, for reading and devotion. Possibly the dampness
of this grotto may have sowed the seeds of the disorder
from which he died. The cave runs deep into the
mountain, and is adorned with numerous white and
graceful stalactites. But it is very damp; notwith-
standing this, prehistoric man occupied it, for in the
first two halls of the grotto have been found old hearths,
remains of feasts, broken and split bones, and fragments
of badly burnt pottery.

About ninety feet above the Baume de S. Firmin is
another cave forming a great vault that is filled with
water during heavy rains. Nevertheless man inhabited
it at a remote period; for thence also have been
excavated numerous fragments of vessels, which by
their paste and ornamentation show that they belonged
to the age of polished stone.

How the men of that period must have suffered from
rheumatism ! And it has been noticed that among the
bones of prehistoric man, who was a cave dweller,
rheumatic swellings of the joints are common. Usually
the caves in limestone and chalk are tolerably dry.
France must have teemed with peoples at that early
period, for not only on the Causse, but also in the chalk

26o THE CEVENNES

districts of Dordogne and Lot, and in the sandstone
regions of Maine-et- Loire and Vienne, troglodite habita-
tions abound.

After crossing the Col de la Pierre-Plantee, the road
winds down into the valley of the Dourbie, which
wriggles along at a great depth below between rocks
of quartz and schist, then passes among chestnut trees,
and reaches S. Jean-du-Bruel, when we are in the valley
of the Dourbie. Here comes in the road from Saudieres,
where is a station on the line from Le Vigan to the
junction on the main line opposite Roquefort ; and the
lower valley of the Dourbie can be visited from Le
Vigan by taking the train to Saudieres and a carriage
thence to Milau.

Nant, a little town on the left bank of the Dourbie, has
a Celtic name, very descriptive, for Nant signifies a valley
or a river bottom. Nantes in Brittany has the same
derivation, as has also Devon in Welsh, Dyffneint, the
county of valleys. So also the Dourbie and the
Durzon proclaim that they were named by Celts, for
dotir signifies water in Welsh.

The church of S. Pierre of the twelfth century is all
that remains of a Benedictine abbey ; the Romanesque
chapel of S. Alban stands on a barren rock 2400 feet
high. But the great attraction is the source of the
Durzon, as Reclus describes it : —

" A little river issuing from a deep foux some six or seven
kilometres from Nant, near the Mas-de-Pommier, at the
bottom of a cirque where walls, which are those of the
Larzac, rise above the well to the height of 900 feet. There
opens a great gulf, im dormant qui tie dort pas toujours. A
slight rain on Larzac agitates it, and it begins to boil languidly
in the centre of the well ; but after a long rain, a storm, or the

S. VERAN 261

melting of the snows, the water rises in clashing floods like a
cascade turned upside down; it is no longer a murmuring
stream, but a growling torrent whose voice breaks the austere
silence of the cirque."

Still descending the valley, we see perched high up on
the right the curious village of Cantobre, on a point of
the Causse Begon, shaded by gigantic dolomitic mush-
rooms, and comprised within the walls of a ruined castle
that was destroyed in 1660, after its owner, Jean de
Fombesse, had been executed as a coiner.

But more curious even than Cantobre is the village of
S. Veran, plastered against the rocks which shoot up
into needles. The ravine opening behind it describes
a circus bristling with pinnacles and rocks scooped out
and shaped into the most fantastic forms. The whole
is commanded by an immense wall of limestone on
which, and intermingled with which, are the artificial
structures of a castle, the cradle of the family of Mont-
calm, whose most illustrious member was the Marquess
who fell on the heights of Abraham, 14th September,
1759, in the struggle over Quebec, that cost also the life
of Wolfe. The inhabitants of this poor hamlet, in a
barren and waste land, are themselves wretchedly poor.
Some one said to one of them : " So, the Montcalms
left this place ! " " Aye ! and would to God we could
leave it too," was the reply.

Below this is La Roque, whence Roquesaltes may be
visited, and the Rajol, extraordinary groups of rocks
little less curious than those of Montpellier le Vieux, that
are also reached from the valley of the Dourbie. But
these I have described elsewhere, and I am not so
garrulous that I care to repeat myself.

CHAPTER XVI
THE LAND OF FERDINAND FABRE

Ferdinand Fabre — His novels — Biography — The uncle — Discouragement
— Les Courbezon — B6darieux — Ruined by a strike — Herault — The
Population — Iberians — Ligurians — Umbranici — The Gauls — Chestnuts
— The Beaters — Ballad of the Chestnut-tree — The S^choire — F6tes in
Herault — Carotat at B^ziers — Pepezuc — The Ass of Gignac — Roquefort
Cheese — Le Bousquet d'Orbe — Lamalou — N. Dame de Capimont —
Extinction of the hermits — Villemagne — Gorge of the H6ric — S.
Gervais — The church spire — The inhabitants of the Highland and of
the Lowland— The Pillard.

THE number of readers of the novels of Ferdinand
Fabre in England is but few, I fear ; but those
few recognise in him one of the most graceful and
delightful of writers. His novels may be divided into
two categories : those that deal with his reminiscences of
early life in the Cevennes about Bedarieux, and those in
which he combats the intrigues of the Jesuits, " they
which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women
laden with sins " ; or who meddle with and thwart the
good work of the simple country and town cures, acting
as spies for Rome on the bishops and the parochial
clergy.

To the first class belong — I mention only the best —
Les Courbezon, Julien Savignac, Mon Oncle Cdestitiy
Barnab^, Monsieur Jean, and Xaviere. To the latter
a series — La Paroisse du Jugement Dernier, Le Calvaire
de Mme. Fuster, Le Couvent de la Falosque Bergonnier,

262

BIOGRAPHY 263

L Hospice des Enfants Assisth ; and the purely clerical
romances, Lucifer and VAbb^ Tigranne.

The delicacy of touch, the exquisite delineation of
character among the peasantry of the Cevennes, and
the beautiful descriptions of scenery and bird life in the
first category make these stories essential to a know-
ledge of the country I am describing in this chapter,
and no one should visit it without having read at least
some of them. Ferdinand Pabre was born in 1830 at
B6darieux, and was the son of an architect. After
having spent his first school years in his native place, he
was committed to his uncle, the cur6 of Camplong, and
he remained with him for two years. These years left
an indelible impression on his mind. The happy life
in the country, the habits of the villagers, the ways of
the birds, the bald causses, and the chestnut woods of
the valleys; above all, the kind, simple-minded old uncle,
and the grumbling, economising, but tender-hearted
old housekeeper, filled the young heart so full, that it
was Fabre's delight in mature life to pour forth his
reminiscences of those two happy years. The uncle
and the housekeeper recur again and again, the former
either as the Abbe Courbezon, the Cur6 Fulcran, or
Mon Oncle Celestin.

On leaving Camplong, Ferdinand entered the Petit
Seminaire at S. Pons, and thence passed in due time
to the Grand Seminaire at Montpellier. It was there
that he made those experiences of clerical life that he
has given forth in the remarkable novel, VAby Tigranne^
remarkable if only in this particular, that it is a novel
without a woman in it. This story represents the
conflict of an ultramontane bishop imposed on the
diocese with his clergy, who are Gallican-minded.

264 THE CEVENNES

Not feeling a vocation for the priesthood, Fabre
went to Paris, and was at first a lawyer's clerk, but
was soon left to his own resources. There he published
his first literary venture, Feuilles de Lierre^ 1853, which
attracted little notice, and, disheartened, with enfeebled
health, he returned to the south. Then he began to
write stories concerning scenes and personages with
which he was intimate. He produced Les Courbezon
in 1862, and this "caughfon" at once. The charm of
style, the sweetness of mind it displayed, the keenness
of insight into character, and the daintiness of descrip-
tion caused the literary world to realise that a writer
of extraordinary merit had risen as a star on the
horizon. Les Courbezon was crowned by the Academic.
Next year, 1863, appeared Julien Savignac, a study of
a mind affected with incipient insanity. The tale is
powerful and painful. Le Chevrier was produced in
1868, a disappointing performance, but, with the curious
perversity that characterises many an author, preferred
by Fabre to his other works ; and as it did not obtain
success as a novel, he converted it into a drama, which
was also a failure. Barnabi, an excellent study of a
class of men now completely passed away, appeared
in 1875. Fabre died in Paris on 11 February, 1898.

Bedarieux is, or rather was, a busy manufacturing
town, with forges and glass works, indebted for its coal
to the neighbouring mines of Grassensac. But a few
years ago a strike took place. The ironmasters and
glassmasters could not meet the demands of the men,
and forges and factories have since been closed, and
the population has dwindled to nearly half what it was.
This also has seriously affected the miners of Grassensac.

Bedarieux is on the Orbe at the confluence into it

CLIMATE 265

of the Courbezon. The station is three-quarters of a
mile from the town. There is nothing of interest in
the place itself, except the church of S. Alexandre of
the fifteenth century, and that not remarkable. For
a centre of excursions it is good, but preferable is
Lamalou-les- Bains, where are excellent hotels; but
Bedarieux must be tarried at for a few nights if Roche-
fort, Lunas, and Boussagues are to be visited, or much
time will be lost in the trains. Bedarieux is the station
of bifurcation of three lines from the main trunk from
Clermont to Beziers, and any one who has had experi-
ence of French lines will know that as often as not
this implies a tedious halt, perhaps of an hour, at the
station where a change has to be made.

The nature of the mountains through and by which
flows the Orb differs greatly from that of the schisty
Cevennes — the Cevennes proper — and the limestone
of the causses and of the garigues. They are a
ripple rather than a billow, and being sheltered from
the north winds by the high range at their back form
a sort of natural hothouse, in which the sweetest fruits
of a southern clime ripen readily, where the spring
comes earliest and the autumn sun lingers longest.

In the Languedoc plain, in Roussillon, even to
Perpignan, the icy blasts from the Cevennes are
dreaded. The olives, the planes, the mulberries are
bent, leaning towards the south, permanently given this
incline under the influence of these cruel winds. They
scourge Beziers and Montpellier as with a cat-o'-nine-
tails dipped in water that has been frozen. But these
winds pass over Bedarieux and the valley of the Orb
to expend their violence elsewhere. Here in the upper
reaches of the Orb the vine, the fig, the olive, the

266 THE CEVENNES

pomegranate, the almond, the nettle -tree luxuriate,
untortured, unnipped.

Villages are many, clustering as so many sets of
beehives in every warm and sheltered nook that faces
the sun, and has a mountain wall at its back.

And it is precisely here, where least wanted, that a
prodigal nature lavishes heating material in beds of
anthracite and other coal.

"The peasants of the low hills of the Monts d'Orb are
less accessible to superstition than those of the highlands,
but they have less character and veritable greatness. The
sun has not only heated their land, it has also sucked up from
their brains all those vapours full of poetry that make of the
merk of the causses a type original and picturesque. Between
the inhabitant of Servier, who never sowed a seed, and he
of Camplong, who gets fuddled on new wine, the distance is
immeasurable, and yet they are parted by nothing more than
the granite mass of Bataillo."

This is what Fabre says of the natives. There are
two types not due to difference of blood, but of sur-
roundings and of occupations. We are now in the depart-
ment of H6rault, of Lower Languedoc, and I may be
allowed a few words on the mixture of peoples of
diverse origin that have been fused together into a
homogeneous race.

From a period before history began, this country was
inhabited by populations of diverse origins, habits, and
language, drawn thither by the delicious climate, its
natural resources, or simply by the chance of migration.
One fact characterises the establishment of the tribes
or nationalities in these parts ; so far as we can judge, it
was their attitude towards the people who preceded

ANCIENT INHABITANTS 267

them. If some of them swept away the indigenous race,
more often they planted themselves beside the earlier
population peaceably and fused with them. Most of
these invaders seem to have possessed gentle manners,
and were not goaded on by the passion for extermina-
tion, for which there was no provocation or need, as the
land was wide and rich enough to sustain all. This
mode of colonisation had the result of filhng Lower
Languedoc with very heterogeneous inhabitants, the
complexity of which explains the apparent contradic-
tions of early writers. But on one point these writers
are unanimous : the variety of races or mixtures that
occupied the land in Gallia Narbonensis. In the first
century before Christ, Cicero notices this ; and in the
fourth century after Christ, Ausonius sang : " Who can
record all thy ports, thy mountains and thy lakes, who
the diversity of thy peoples, their vestures and their
languages ? "

The most ancient inhabitants recorded were the
Iberians, who extended their domination over the
Spanish peninsula and to the Rhone on the east, which
formed the boundary between them and the Ligurians.
But at a time difficult to determine these latter crossed
the river and invaded the territories of the Iberians.
But instead of expelling the conquered peoples, the
Ligurians, having an aptitude for absorption, mingled
with those whom they had subdued and formed the
mixed race of the Iberian-Ligurian. There was,
however, already in the land a third nation, that of the
Umbranici, apparently the same as the Umbrians of
Northern Italy. They have left their name at Ambrus-
sum, now Pont-Ambroise, on the Vidourle. Twenty-
three inscriptions remain, mostly in Gard, in an unknown

268 THE CEVENNES

tongue, but written in Greek characters, that bears an
affinity alike to the Ossian and Umbrian language in Italy.

The Greek trade of Marseilles spread through the land.
At Murviel, a cyclopean enclosure, not many miles from
Montpellier, have been found Greek coins of Marseilles.

In the fourth century before the Christian era a new
ethnic element came to add to what already existed.
The Gauls appeared in the land. A branch of this stock
was that of the Volci. These established themselves
between the Rhone and the Garonne, and extended their
authority over the Ibero-Ligurians. These new arri-
vals seem to have treated the conquered much as the
Ligurians had the Iberians. They established them-
selves peaceably among them or alongside of them.
This was the more easy, for, as Strabo says, though the
Gauls belonged to a wholly different stock, yet they
resembled the Ligurians in their mode of life.

Their dominion was not for long — not for more than
two centuries — for in B.C. 121 their country was con-
quered by the Romans.

Such, then, is the origin of the population of Lower
Languedoc, and explains the diverse origin of the
names of rivers, mountains and towns, some Iberic,
some Celtic, some Latin, some of undiscoverable deriva-
tion, given perhaps by the Umbrian colony.

The staple of life in the Cevennes, mainly in the
southern portion, is not corn, but the chestnut. That
is why we see this tree everywhere, old and twisted, but
sturdy still, young and vigorous when recently planted.
But unhappily a malady has broken- out among them,
the cause of which has not been discovered with cer-
tainty, nor has any remedy been found efficacious. In
some years the leaves fall in September, and the fruit

THE CHESTNUT 269

comes to nothing, reducing the people to a condition
almost of famine. In order to preserve the nuts through
the winter and spring and prevent the sprouting, they
are subjected to desiccation in cledes that may be seen
as a part of the outbuildings of every farmhouse and of
many cottages.

The Spanish chestnut is a beautiful tree. It was
indigenous in England. A few years ago I was draining
a field by the river, and cut down to glacial clay nearly
nine feet below the surface, and lying on this was a huge
tree, black as ebony. With great labour I had it
removed to the sawmill, thinking it to have been black
bog oak. It was Spanish chestnut, and since then others
have been found in the same valley. It seems willing
to grow anywhere. The peasants build up terraces no
larger than a doormat, and it grows there. But where
there is plenty of soil it will grow much more vigorously
than on a ledge of rock.

" I wish," said R. L. Stevenson, " I could convey a notion
of the growth of these noble trees ; of how they strike out
boughs like the oak, and trail sprays of drooping foliage like
the willow ; of how they stand as upright fluted columns like
the pillars of a church ; or like the olive, from the most
shattered bole can put out smooth and youthful shoots, and
begin a new life upon the ruins of the old. Thus they
partake of the nature of many different trees ; and even their
prickly top-knots, seen near at hand against the sky, have a
certain palm-like air that impresses the imagination. But this
individuality, although compounded of so many elements, is
but the richer and the more original. And to look down upon
a level filled with these knolls of foliage, or to see a clan of
old unconquerable chestnuts cluster like herded elephants
upon the spurs of a mountain, is to rise to higher thoughts of
the powers that are in Nature."

270 . THE CEVENNES

I believe that the reason why we have so few old
chestnuts in England, why we have not woods of them,
is that the rabbit dearly loves its sweet bark when young.
In planting chestnuts they must be protected by wire,
or every one will be pealed in early spring by these
wretched rodents. The beating of the trees and the
gathering of the fallen chestnuts is a great festival
among the Cevenol, as is the vintage in the plains. I
will give an account of the beginning of the gathering
in from the pen of Ferdinand Fabre. I must premise
that the mountaineers from the bald causses come
down to the zone where the precious tree grows and
hire themselves out as beaters and gatherers. A body
of men, mostly young, arrive in a village waving
branches, and is met by the old people in the
street

" Our old men and women, very attached to the Fete of the
Chestnuts which brightened their youthful years, had quitted
the fireside and had advanced to the first house of the village.
There they drew up in file, ranged against the south wall.
From one end of the line to the other the features were grave
with wrinkles and furrows, softened on some by their white
hair. Warped, bowed, shivering, they looked ahead with glassy
eyes kindled with curiosity. The young folk of the mountain
were about to pass by and they desired to see them, and in
seeing them revive recollections of their own young days, and
warm themselves thereat.

*' At the first house the arrivals halted ; then waving their
boughs in salutation, asked altogether, ' Good folk, how go
the chestnuts this year ? ' ' Very well, children,' replied the
old people. Then a little woman, aged eighty-five, detached
herself from her nook in the wall and advanced towards the
beaters. * You have not forgotten, friends, the Complaint of

BALLAD OF THE CHESTNUT 271

the Chestnut Tree ? ' ' To be sure, the Complaint of the
Chestnut Tree,' cried all.

" From the midst of the grove of boughs carried in their
hands, and which seemed suddenly to have taken root in the
soil of the road, rose the Complainte (ballad), so popular
among the Cevenols of the south, and which, like most of their
popular songs, express their toil, their sweat, their sighs of
hunger at last assuaged by labour.

" Quand le chataignier est plante
II monte, monte, monte !
Quand le chataignier est plants
Nous buvons largement k sa sante.

Quand le chataignier est en fleur,

Belle, belle, belle !
Quand le chataignier est en fleur,

Le pays prend son odeur.

Quand le chataignier a graine,

II graine, graine, graine !
Quand le chataignier a graine,

Chacun danse dans son pre.

Quand les chataignes nous avons,

Bonnes, bonnes, bonnes !
Quand les chataignes nous avons,

Nous les mangeons, puis nous mourons.

" After the fourth couplet the ballad was interrupted.
Our Cevenols raised their boughs, brandished the leaves, and
made therewith the sign of the cross,

* On your knees ! ' said the old woman, extending her hand.
The beaters knelt at once. Then, all at once, from a thousand
sturdy breasts young for the most part, rolled forth the final
verse of the Complainte du Chataignier. It was as grand, as
beautiful, as sublime as any psalm, any hymn I have heard in
any church.

272 . THE CEVENNES

" Cevennes pleins de rochers,
Hautes, hautes, hautes !
Cevennes pleins de rochers,
Faites nous forts et religieux."

When the chestnuts have been gathered, then in
November they are dried in sichoirs. These are small
square structures with a door and window on one side,
and on the other three or more long narrow loopholes,
called in the country carezeiros, that are never closed.
A fire of coals is lighted and kept burning incessantly
in the drying-house, and the smoke passes through
shelves on which the chestnuts are laid, in stages, and
escapes by the loopholes. To any one unaccustomed
to the atmosphere in these sichoirs, it is hard to
endure the smoke, and one stands the risk of being
asphyxiated. Nevertheless the peasants spend two
months in the }ear in these habitations, amidst cobwebs
and soot, swarming with mice and rats, and the smoke
at once acrid and moist, for in drying the chestnuts
exude a greenish fluid that falls in a rain from the shelves.
The natives do not seem to mind the dirt and smell of
these horrible holes. Moreover, if there be in a village
any one suffering from phthisis, at the end of autumn
the patient is taken by the relations in his or her bed,
and this is deposited in a corner of the skhotr. The sick
person is not allowed to leave the drying-house, and it
is a singular phenomenon that not infrequently, under
the influence of the heat and the sulphurous smoke,
the tuberculosis is arrested, and the sufferer lives on for
many long years.

It is economy that drives the peasants to live in the
drying-houses. As they are forced to light fires for the
chestnuts, they extinguish those on their hearths in the

THE CAROTAT 273

farm-houses. Why have two fires going when one will
suffice ? So the peasant bids his wife and children cook
their soup at the brazier in the sechoir. And he him-
self, driven under shelter by the rain and cold, brings to
the common hearth his hatchet and long strips of wild
chestnut, of which he fashions hoops for barrels or
baskets for the collectors of olives. Through the two
months from the Jour des Morts to Christmas Eve the
sichoir is the village centre ; to it flock the poorest
members of the commune, who have no drying-houses
of their own.

The fetes in Herault are often very curious, and
evidently date from an early period, and are reminis-
cences of paganism.

For instance, the Carotat at Beziers on Ascension
Day has nothing Christian about it. Till 1878, on the
eve, the servants of the Consuls were wont to parade
the town with music going before them, and knock at
the doors of houses asking for contributions. They
were followed by a clumsy wooden structure covered
with hide to represent a camel ; and all largesses re-
ceived were put into the mouth of the beast.

Next day, to the sound of cannon and bells, the Cor-
poration assembled in three ranks, led by the Provost
bearing a cake decked out with ribbons and attached to
his left arm, attended by a servant carrying a basket of
bread, followed by the camel. This fdte is dead. But
what does survive at Beziers and at Montpellier and
elsewhere is the Danse des Treilles at the fSte called
Roumarin. The young people, in their gala dresses
and adorned with bunches of rosemary, carry hoops
similarly decorated, with which they perform the evolu-
tions of a graceful ballet in which there are seven

274 THE CEVENNES

figures ; and the bystanders pelt them with violets. At
Montpellier the dance is considered to be a com-
memoration of the marriage of Peter II. of Aragon
to Marie de Montpellier, June 15th, 1204.^

At B^ziers no public festival formerly took place
without a preliminary visit to Pepezuc, a mutilated
white marble statue with the head knocked off and
replaced by one of common stone. It is obviously a
representation of a Roman emperor, perhaps of Au-
gustus. It stood on a fluted column, and on the base is
inscribed P.P.E.S.V. But the common story was that
it represented a gallant officer who had driven out the
English from the town, of which they had obtained
possession. Pepezuc was wont to be dressed up and
decorated with flowers. That is stopped, as the statue
has been removed to the town museum.

The Ass of Gignac continues to be feted. The town
was besieged by the Saracens. One night, after a hard
day's fighting, the defenders, wearied out, had gone to
sleep, when an ass brayed long and loud. His master
had forgotten to feed him, and this he resented. The
man awoke, for the braying of an ass would rouse the
Seven Sleepers, and he saw that the enemy was
escalading the walls. He roused the garrison, and they
succeeded in hurling back the ladders. However, the
deliverance was temporary, for a few days later the town
was captured and burnt. In gratitude for what the ass
had done, the people of Gignac instituted an annual
commemoration, in which they march a figure of an ass
through the street to the sound of fife and tabor. Then
in reminiscence of the fight a contest takes place in a
field called Le Senibelet, in which one duellist wears

* Ferd. Troubat : Dam* des TreilUs, Toulouse, 1900.

ROQUEFORT CHEESE 275

a huge helmet, preserved in the town hall, to represent
the Christian warrior, whilst the adversary has a turban
on his head. They fight with sticks of the garrigou,
that grows on the otherwise barren limestone, till the
Mussulman drops with exhaustion, when the victor is
divested of his helmet and conducted in triumph to the
house where the ass is supposed to have brayed.

A visit should certainly be made to Roquefort, where
the famous cheese is made from ewe's milk. The town
is built not only against, but into a rock of limestone
that has been riddled with caves natural and artificially
bored to serve as cellars, in which the cheese is kept at
an even temperature, and is supposed then to attain its
special flavour. The cheese is, however, not all made
there ; it is brought there from the Larzac, that main-
tains enormous flocks of sheep, and indeed from through-
out the arrondissement of Ste. Affrique. The cheeses
are conveyed to Roquefort, there to mature. The blue
mould in them is not, however, due to natural mildew
in the cheese, but to mildewed crumbs of bread blown
into the curd in process of formation. The cheeses are
ranged on stages of wooden boards by over nine hundred
girls in short petticoats, called cabanieres, whose special
duty it is to attend to the cheeses. They are clean,
good-natured, happy-faced lasses, who marry early,
usually at sixteen. It is extraordinary if one is still
unmarried at nineteen.

I have described the making of the cheese in my
Deserts of Central France. The natural caves in Roque-
fort number twenty-three, and there are thirty-four in
all. The rocks in part of the town overhang the
houses.

At Lunas, commanded by the escarpments of the

276 THE CEVENNES

Pioch, there is not much more to be seen than the
ruins of a castle and a church partly Romanesque.
Le Bousquet d'Orb occupies a picturesque situation, on
a mamelon in the midst of a basin. On the highest
terrace the church stands up boldly. This is a place
with mines of coal and copper. Boussagues is a very
ancient village, once a town enclosed within walls, and
possessing two churches and two castles. The town has
retained its medieval physiognomy — and its smells.

The train from Bedarieux to Lamalou follows the
Orb, that flows through a green and smiling plain.
Properly the Orb should pursue its further course due
south, but a low range of hills obstructs the way, and
the river is forced to turn abruptly round and flow due
west. The hills to the south rise ; on a lofty isolated
height above green forest gleams white a pilgrimage
chapel. We pass on to Lamalou, where every comfort
may be obtained.

Lamalou is picturesquely situated in a narrow lateral
valley of the Orb, in the midst of the buttresses of
the Espinouse, or rather of the Caroux, that links the
Cevennes proper to the Montaigne Noire. This thermal
station is growing in importance, the waters being
thought specially and peculiarly beneficial in spinal
troubles, above all in cases of S. Vitus's Dance. In
winter it has but 900 inhabitants, but in summer arrive
10,000 visitors, and a special train-de-luxe starts twice a
week from Paris for Lamalou, enabling the journey to be
made in fifteen hours.

A favourite walk is to N. D. de Capimont, which
occupies from two hours to two and a half This is a
little chapel on the height above the village, with a
hermitage attached. There is no hermit there now.

THE HERMITS 277

The last died five years ago. He was found dead in
his cell, some days apparently after that he had expired.
He was the last, and there are not likely to be any suc-
cessors to an Order that was by no means an element
of good in the country. Ferdinand Fabre has given a
graphic account of the hermits in Barnabe, and also in
Mon Oncle Celestin.

" I am in despair," says he. " Letters from the South in-
form me that one by one the hermitages are being closed;
that the hermits, knapsack on back, are quitting their solitary
chapels, and that they do not return. Did the order for their
suppression issue from the Prefecture or from the Episcopal
Palace? It is supposed from both simultaneously. What a
pity ! O how the picturesqueness of our South will be the
poorer thereby."

The hermits, calling themselves Free Brothers of
S. Francis, were a begging fraternity ; they rambled
about the country selling sacred pictures, rosaries, and
other religious trifles ; they frequented the fairs and the
taverns, and neither ate nor drank in moderation, and
their morals were not irreproachable. But they served
a purpose. They attended to the solitary chapels, and
made ample provision for the pilgrims who visited these
shrines.

*' Mon Dieu ! " says Fabre ; " I know well enough that the
Free Brothers of S. Francis, as they loved to entitle them-
selves, had allowed themselves a good deal of freedom, more
than was decorous. For instance, it was not particularly
edifying at Bedarieux on a market-day to see the hermits from
the mountains round about leave the tavern of the Golden
Grapes staggering, jolting against one another, shouting, and
at nightfall describing ridiculous zigzags as they went on their
way straying along the roads leading to their solitary dwellings.

278 . THE CEVENNES

" But as these monastically habited gentry in no way scan-
dalised the population of the South, who never confounded
the occupants of the hermitages with the cures of the parishes,
why sweep away these fantastic figures, who, without any
religious character, recruited from the farms, never educated in
seminaries, peasants at bottom, in no way priests, capable,
when required, to give a helping hand with the pruning-knife
in the vineyard or with the pole among the olives, or the
sickle among the corn. Alas ! they had their weaknesses, and
these weaknesses worked their ruin."

At the French Revolution the Free Brothers of
S. Francis did not creep into their shells and hide their,
heads there — they knew better than that. Though not
even in minor orders, they did something smack of the
clerical, and might be sent d la lanterne. So they
doffed the brown habit and donned the blouse, went to
farmers and served them till the tyranny was over-
passed. In 1806 the cures of the parishes were glad to
find any pious laymen who would keep the chapels
clean and serve at Mass on the days when pilgrims
streamed to them. The men thus installed assumed a
Franciscan snuff-coloured habit, and called themselves,
without other justification, Brethren of S. Francis.

When he was a child, Fabre says, there were six
hermitages in the upper valley of the Orb. Now most
of the chapels are falling to decay, as there is no one
authorised to look after them. But N. D. de Capimont
is still in considerable repute, and is frequented by
crowds on the Feast of the Assumption. A curious old
town, situated high, may be visited from either Lamalou
or Bedarieux. This is Villemagne, with a ruined abbey
and niint. The abbey was founded by Charlemagne in
780. The church of the parish is dedicated to S. Majan,

GORGES OF HERIC 279

and is a vast building ; the choir alone was erected in
the fourteenth century. It contains a curious altar of
the sixth century, now used as a benitier. The old
church of S. Gregory, of the thirteenth century, long
used as a granary, has been restored. The old town is
full of ancient buildings, in narrow streets, and is very
curious.

But the finest excursion of all is that to the gorge of
Heric. For this it is advisable to take the train to
Colombieres and walk thence, or drive from Lamalou.
The station of Trivalle is close to the entrance of the
gorge, but from that side it can rarely be ascended, as
the path built up against the precipice is often broken
down and not repaired. But from the other side the
ascent is easily made. The view up the ravine to the
needle rocks of granite above is hardly to be surpassed
for beauty of colour and form. The sides are precipitous
for goo feet. By the path one can reach the village
of Heric, lost at the extremity of this tremendous
ravine, and by this is its only means of communication
with the outer world ; and so dangerous is the path that
there is a saying in the country that no inhabitant of Heric
dies in his bed. What I have said before I repeat here.
None of the gorges in the Cevennes resemble one
another ; they have not even a family likeness, for the
Caroux from which the stream descends, and into the
bowels of which this gorge is cleft, is of granite ; and
what resemblance can there be between granite and
basalt or dolomitic limestone? When I visited the
ravine, snow powdered the silvery-grey needles at the
head and lay in the laps. So seen, the picture of that
ravine is indelibly impressed on my memory as one of
surpassing savage beauty.

28o . THE CEVENNES

S. Gervais is a picturesque little town situated at the
junction of the Casselouvres and the Mare, that takes its
rise in the Signal de I'Espinouse, 3,380 feet. Its church
has the peculiarity of the spire being a grove of trees and
a bed of wallflowers that have rooted themselves in the
stonework and been allowed to grow there unmolested.
The town, notwithstanding that it preserves many relics
of the Middle Ages and a general aspect that is venerable,
is but modern compared with the older town, now aban-
doned, that was built on a jagged rock, its ruins ming-
ling with the rock and scarce distinguishable from it.
The more modern town is planted on a hillock standing
by itself; the streets are narrow, scrambling up the side
of the hill, and the houses are dingy, dirty, and dilapi-
dated. The still more modern town lies below the hill.
There is an intermittent spring in the side of the Hotel
Soulie. At Saint Gervais at fair time may be noted the
contrast that exists between the inhabitant of the sun-
baked, semi-tropical lower land, rich in oil, honey, and
wine, and the mountaineer who descends there to sell
his cattle. Those who live in the sheltered valleys are
clothed in stout broadcloth and serge, or bottle-green
velvet. They arrive at a fair or market, noisy, sprightly,
their mules laden with corn and fruit. On the other
hand, the inhabitant of the heights of the Espin-
ouse or Larzac is grave, reserved, uncommunicative,
clothed in a garment of coarse cloth called grisaoud,
followed by interminable flocks of sheep, goats, and
oxen.

At B6darieux —

"They trade, they chaffer over almonds, olives, honey,
cocoons, wheat, the produce of a sunny nature; at Saint
Gervais is a cattle market, and is of a graver character, for

THE PILLARDS 281

though a man can dispose lightly of the fruits of the earth
that he has tilled, of the tree he has planted, it is not without
a pang that the shepherd can separate himself from the beast
he has nourished. Between the pastor and his flock do there
not exist, moreover, mutual sentiments of affection, even of
love, that defy all psychology ? "

But the market is not one of cattle and corn only, it is
of human beings as well, for hither come the shepherds
to hire boys to attend during the year on the sheep and
herds of swine. These lads are locally called pillardsy
and the token that one has been engaged is that the
shepherd buys the boy a pair of new sabots out of his
own money, a sort of investiture in the pastoral office.
These lads and the shepherds lead a lonely life in the
mountains. The boys are not unkindly treated, for the
Cevenol, if rough and silent, has a gentle and kindly
heart. But what a life for a growing boy in wild
nature, among mountains and shrubs, birds of all kinds,
and creeping things innumerable, and at night with the
stars shining above his head with a sharpness and
intensity as though they stabbed him to the heart, but
left an exquisite pain behind. He learns to know the
signs of the times, the winds, the voices of nature, to
distinguish one bird's note from another, and to ascertain
the virtues of the aromatic herbs on the limestone
causse. The life may be hard, but it is healthy both to
body and mind and soul.

CHAPTER XVII

THE HERAULT

Clermont I'Herault — Church and castle — Aimar Guilhetn — Deserts the
cause of his Count — Peyrolles the Potter — N.D. du Peyrou — Ville-
neuvette — Military cloth factory — Its semi-feudal organisation — Valley
of the Dourbie — Moureze — The quarries — Decomposition of the rock —
Church — Lodeve — The Count — Contest with him carried on by S.
Fulcran — The bishops — Perjury — The people gain the victory —
Cathedral — S. Michel-de-Grammont — Dolmen — Caverns — L'Escalette
— Larzac — Le Caylar — Flora of Larzac — Abdias Maurel — La Couver-
toirade — Aniane — Gorges of the Herault — Mills— S. Guilhem-lc-
Desert — Guillaume de Courtenez — His parting from his wife — His
visit to Paris — Church — Monuments — Cloister — Saracen inscriptions —
Farewell to the Cevennes.

AN admirable centre for several expeditions of no
J~\ little interest is Clermont I'Herault, where is a
good hotel.

Clermont, though called I'Herault, is not actually on
the river of that name, though near it. The town is
built at the base and up the sides of a steep hill crowned
by a ruined castle.

The church is one of the very few in the department
with side aisles to the nave. Indeed, the form affected
throughout southern Languedoc is a vast nave without
pillars, and chapels between the buttresses. This church
was begun in 1275 and ended in 1313. It has a seven-
sided apse. Over the west window is a gallery with

a82

S. Guilhem-le-Desert

Page 282

AIMAR GUILHEM 283

machicolations, so that it could be used as a fortress,
and melted lead or boiling pitch could be thrown down
on besiegers. Narrow, steep, and dirty streets climb
the hillside to the castle, now enclosed within the walls of
a convent ; little remains, however, but a keep of this once
sumptuous seigneural residence of the barons of Cler-
mont Formerly it consisted of a semicircular ring of
wall defended at intervals by seven round towers, and
with an eighth on the side of the chord of the arc.
The view from the height extends over the plain watered
by the Herault and the Lergue, that begins at the feet
of the Lodeve Mountains and extends to the low range
of the Taillades de Gignac. From thirty to forty towns,
villages, and hamlets dot this plain.

In 1209 Aimar Guilhem, seigneur of Clermont, was
the ally of the unfortunate Raymond, Count of Tou-
louse, against whom Innocent III. hurled the thunders
of excommunication because he would not butcher and
burn his subjects, who had embraced the Albigensian
heresy; and Aimar was accordingly involved in his sen-
tence. Innocent called together the riff-raff of Europe
to join in a crusade against Raymond, promising life
eternal and absolution from all sins to those who would
join in an indiscriminate slaughter of the Albigenses,
and placed Simon de Montfort at the head of this horde
of the Children of God, as they called themselves, who
swept over the land committing indescribable horrors.
After the massacre of the inhabitants of Beziers by the
crusaders, Aimar retired to his castle and awaited
events. His conduct may have been prudent, as he
saved the town from sack and slaughter, but it was
unworthy of him ; as had he roused the country of
Lodeve, he would have menaced the rear of Simon de

284 • THE CEVENNES

Montfort, and might have forced this commander of
the soldiers of the Papacy to deal less cruelly with
the seigneurs of Languedoc, whom he robbed of their
domains with impunity.

On the Place under trees is a monument, surmounted
by a bust of Peyrolles, a potter of Clermont, who com-
posed verses in the Languedoc dialect. He became
jealous of the fame acquired by Jasmin, the hairdresser
of Agen, the great vernacular poet, and sent him a
challenge. " I will go to Montpellier any day and hour
you choose to name. Let four men of literary notoriety
give us three themes on which to compose poems in
twenty-four hours ; and let us be shut up in one room,
with no admission of any one to us or of anything but
our food — and see who in the time will turn out most
poetry." Jasmin replied that he declined the contest.
For his part, he could not produce verses as fast as
Peyrolles could pots ; his powers did not reach further
than the composition of two or three verses in a
day.

A delightful walk or drive is to Moureze, up the
valley of the Dourbie. On the col crossed by the road
leading into this valley is the quaint chapel of N. D. du
Peyrou. It is pointed, with an immense porch com-
posed of two flying buttresses sustaining a roof. A
chapel at the west end is out of line with the axis of
the principal building. The nave was rebuilt or altered
at the Renaissance. In the choir on one side are oval
frames containing representations of girls who have
made their first communion, in white paper cut out
with scissors, and on the other side similar frames con-
tain nuptial crowns. A largely attended pilgrimage
visits this chapel on Monday in Easter week. This

In the Cirque, Moureze

Page 284

VILLENEUVETTE 285

shrine is at the entrance to the beautiful basin of Ville-
neuvette, rich with cork trees, micocouh'ers {Celtis Aus-
tralis), mulberries, chestnuts, tall ancient cypresses,
pines, caper bushes, and the kermes-oak.

Here in the bottom, by the little river, is the indus-
trial settlement of Villeneuvette. An avenue of planes
leads to a wall, with a gateway in it, over which is the
inscription, " Honneur au travail." Up to 1848 it bore
the title " Manufacture royale." This is the last exist-
ing example of the factories established by Colbert in
1666 for the weaving of cloth for the Levant trade, and
for each piece of cloth woven was received a bonus of
ten francs. It was found that the trade in the Levant
of French cloth was failing owing to English competi-
tion. Colbert founded this among other colonies of
workmen to ensure that the cloth exported was of good
quality, and agents in Constantinople and in Pondi-
cherry received and sold it. In order to protect the
establishment during the religious wars that desolated
the Cevennes, the settlement was surrounded by a ram-
part, crenelated and flanked by redoubts. Within are
the factory, a church, and the houses of the artisans,
arranged on a formal plan. The colony had its own
municipal government, and elected its own mayor.
Every night the drawbridge was raised and the gate
fastened.

Villeneuvette owns a considerable territory around it,
and the land is parcelled out among the workmen
engaged in the factory. Each family has its garden,
its vineyard, and its plantation of mulberries, so that
when work is slack in the factory there is plenty of
occupation for the hands in the fields.

For more than two centuries Villeneuvette has been

286. THE CEVENNES

in private hands. It had failed to be a success finan-
cially in 1703, and was disposed of to M. Castam^-
d'Aurac, who built the church. A century later, in
1803, it became the property of the family of Maistre,
and it has remained in the same hands ever since.

It now turns out exclusively cloth for the army and
uniforms for colleges and railway officials. Long
stretches of dark blue and crimson cloth are seen in the
meadows outside the walls, destined to be cut into the
jackets and breeches of the military. ViNeneuvette has
retained much of its curious patriarchal organisation.
There is no village outside the embattled walls ; of the
ninety-eight cottages all are given rent free to the
artisans, and nothing more is exacted of them save
respect for rules of decency and cleanliness. Here no
slops may be thrown out of the windows, nor may
birds' nests be molested. These restrictions have been
indignantly protested against by the Radicals, who
charge the organisation of the little community with
being bound down by the chains of feudalism. Where
is liberty if a householder may not throw his slops
down on the head of any one passing in the street ?
Where is equality if the urchins of Clermont may rob
robins' nests and not those of Villeneuvette ? Where is
fraternity if the artisans may not get fuddled together
and roar and riot in drunken bands ?

The road ascends the valley of the Dourbie,but to reach
Moureze it makes a circuit round the conical mountain,
Le Puy de Bissou, on the summit of which is a chapel
where once lived a hermit, but to which no pilgrimages
are now made. A bridge has been thrown over the
river, and a new road has been begun which will give
speedier access by carriage to Moureze, but which can

MOUREZE 287

now only be traced on foot. The sparkling stream
slides over contorted slate rocks, and trout dart through
the pools. The hillsides are covered with pale grey
flowered heath and the stunted kermes-oak with its
glistening leaves. This, the Quercus cocci/era, never
grows higher than five feet, the garus it is that gives
its name to the garigues, the desolate regions of lime-
stone on which nothing else will grow. On its leaves
feeds the kermes insect, round as a ball, and formerly
supposed to be the fruit growing out of the rib of the
leaf as does the berry of the butchers' broom. It produces
a red dye, less brilliant than cochineal, and some of the
Oriental reds are produced from it. The dye of the
kermes is more permanent than cochineal. Suddenly
on our eyes bursts Moureze, one of the most fantastic
groups of rock, castle, church, and village to be seen
anywhere. We are disposed to regard the pictures by
Gustave Dore of rock scenery interspersed with ruined
towers as in his series, Le Juif errant, to be the creations
of a fevered dream. But they are not so. He must have
lived or travelled among the dolomitic formations of
Languedoc, and thence drawn his inspiration.

The approach to Moureze by the old carriage road is
different ; it is through red sandstone, soft and friable,
and torn by streams into gullies. One would suppose
that Moureze had been founded originally by refugees
from a world devastated by wars. It is concealed from
view on all sides. It is Nature's hiding-place for perse-
cuted men. At its back start up sheer cliffs of lime-
stone, pink and yellow and grey, rising from 1,300
to 1,600 feet. Dolomitic limestone is composed of
carbonate of lime and carbonate of magnesia, and
the- texture is mostly crystalline and granulated.

288 THE CEVENNES

Each grain, having a power of resistance different
from the other, yields or remains under the influence
of the air and rains, so that alongside of massive
rocks, eroded, hollowed out, perforated, or protruding
in knots and elbows, are heaps of sand formed by
the decomposition of the cement that held the grains
in place. Thus are obtained the most bizarre and
varied shapes of rock. All that imagination can
picture of what is strange is found here — dismantled
towers, gigantic monoliths, excavated walls, narrow
gullies between monstrous shapes, great porticoes,
pyramids standing on their heads, grouped together,
and among them cottages clinging to their sides, a
church on a ledge above a precipice, and over all
a castle, the walls of which can hardly be distinguished
from the rock out of which they grow. Contrast adds
to the picturesque effect. The dolomite bristling with
needles lies in the lap of a great cirque or cradle of
more compact calcareous rock, disposed in regular
horizontal beds, and attaining to a top over i,6io feet
that supports the ruins of the Romanesque church of
S. Jean d'Aureillan. These walls back the scene on the
north. The south is closed by the Puy de Bissou,
clothed in woods, 1450 feet. To the west is the
mountain of S. Scholastica, 1,500 feet, and wooded
ranges to the east of less elevation complete the en-
closure and the screen that hides Moureze from the
world without.

The dolomite formation of Moureze forms an almost
continuous belt from B6darieux to Bories and the north
of Clermont. The region of Carlencas on this line
presents an equally extraordinary appearance. The
same rock is found north of Lodeve, above Pegairolles,

The Sentinel, Moureze

age 388

LODEVE 289

where they constitute the picturesque passage of
I'Escalette,

The castle is mentioned in records from 790; it is
called Castrum Morelinum, or Morazios Villa; Mourez^s
in 1625, and Moureze in 1659.

The church, of two bays, has a seven-sided apse, and
is of the thirteenth century. It is vaulted, and has
no aisles. The tower is square.

The train will take one to Lodeve, an ancient
cathedral city, and before that a Roman Castrum
Luteva. Paris was also a Luteva.

When Charlemagne completed the expulsion of the
Arabs out of Septimania, he made of Lodeve a county
under his empire, and granted considerable privileges
to the bishops.

There arose by degrees three powers to dispute pos-
session of the land, the Municipality, the Count, and
the Bishop, representing the people, the aristocracy,
and the clergy. The history of Lodeve is thenceforth
a history of their conflicts for pre-eminence. In the
tenth century arose a man who gave a new direction to
affairs. Hitherto the counts had retained the mastery ;
now the Church would attempt to grapple with their
power.

This man was Fulcran, who ascended the episcopal
throne at the age of thirty in 947. He was noted for
his beauty, for his grace of manner towards all men, so
that, although a member of a noble family, he was
greatly beloved by the common people. He wrote
nothing ; he was above all an orator and a man of
action. He began to build a tower to his cathedral.
The Count Eldin, who occupied the Castle of Mont-
brun, ordered him to pull it down. Fulcran refused.

290. THE CEVENNES

Meanwhile the oppressions of the people by the count
had become intolerable. They were crushed with taxa-
tion and denied municipal rights. The tower served as
an excuse for a quarrel. Gentle as he was, Fulcran was
determined to come to conclusions with the count. At
his word the citizens rose, were aided by the country
folk, Montbrun was stormed, and the bishop held Count
Eldin prisoner till he had given guarantees not to con-
tinue his misrule. When Fulcran died in 1006 he had
marked out the course his successors were to follow.
They continued to snatch from the seigneur one right
after another, and when the county passed into the
hands of the Duke of Rodez, the Castle of Montbrun
went by way of purchase to the bishops, and they
became both spiritual and temporal lords of the
county.

But what all this while of the people ? At the outset
it had assisted Fulcran in his strife with the count ; it
had contributed to effect the revolution that finally
transferred the temporal power from lay into ecclesi-
astical hands. The ambition of Fulcran's successors
knew no limits. After having conquered the seigneur
they attacked the municipal liberties.

The people of Lodeve soon saw that they had
changed masters for the worse. A struggle broke out
between them and their masters that caused much
blood to flow. One bishop was driven from his palace.
Later, in 1202, the inhabitants sent delegates to the
prelate, Pierre de Frotier, to complain of his unendur-
able exactions. He refused to admit them to his pre-
sence. Then the mob broke in on him and made him
swear to grant concessions. He appealed to Innocent
in., who at once relieved him of his oath. The people.

THE CATHEDRAL 291

enraged at this bit of deceit, again rose, broke into the
palace, and killed the perjured bishop. The punish-
ment inflicted on the town for this act was severe.
However, the citizens were determined on resistance,
and at last the controversy was submitted to arbitra-
tion, and they gained most of what they had de-
manded.

The cathedral is of the fourteenth century. The nave
of three bays has side aisles and chapels on the south
side, one of which, dedicated to S. Michael, is recessed
behind richly moulded arches. The choir consists of
two bays, with a nine-sided apse with lofty narrow two-
light windows in each side. A curious arrangement is
the walling up on each side of the choir so as to trans-
form the continuation of the aisles into lengthy inde-
pendent chapels. On the north side is the richly
adorned chapel of S. Fulcran. The west front has no
doorway in it, but a beautiful rose window between
machicolated turrets. To see it one must enter the
gendarmerie which occupies this end of the building.
Poor fragmentary cloisters remain on the south.

Ferdinand Fabre thus describes the interior of the
cathedral : —

" It has a nave and side aisles. The choir is large, lengthy,
and occupies almost half the church, which gives an impression
of surprise, and awakes in one the unpleasant idea that there is
a want of proportion in the general disposition of the monu-
ment. But when this vexatious impression has passed away,
one admires the nine windows of the apse, of original design,
enormously lofty, certainly not in the purest style. The Gothic
of the South always retained something incomplete, coarse,
disagreeable, and never attained to the marvellous proportion,
to the supreme elegance, to the aerial grace of the North.

292 . THE CEVENNES

Nevertheless, with all its faults, the clumsiness of hand of an
unskilled artist, who opened these windows to let in the light
of heaven ; — these immense bays, enriched with little pillars
having carved capitals, divided into two by a single muUion
that rises unsustained to the point where the tracery begins,
and receive the ribs of the vaulting, lay hold of and retain
one's eyes. The vaults, distributed in five bays, are designed
not without dignity. The whole edifice, in spite of gross and
many architectural faults — faults of construction, faults of ar-
rangement — breathes a certain robust grace, a barbaric charm,
making it the most interesting and most grateful of sanctuaries
in our land."

A pretty, late flamboyant, melting into early Re-
naissance, chapel is between the cathedral and the
cloister.

The old episcopal palace has been converted into
municipal buildings, and the gardens into a fine pro-
menade ; so that the long conflict that endured for
centuries has ended in the complete victory of the
people. The bishopric was suppressed at the Con-
cordat.

Between Clermont and Lodeve the line runs through
a red sandstone district, curiously bare and water-torn.
The red stone seems to melt like butter under the rain,
and with the least rush of water it swims away in
masses, and grass can scarcely grow on the denuded
surface.

At the distance of an hour and a half from Lodeve
is the well-preserved monastery of S. Michel-de-Gram-
mont, now converted into farm buildings. It has a
Romanesque cloister and a pointed chapter-house. The
tower bears an octagonal campanile, rising out of a
square base, the four windows of which are flamboyant.

L'ESCALETTE 293

The octagon is surmounted by a dome. The church
is of great simplicity, and consists of a nave, vaulted,
with a circular apse. On the north side is a pretty
portal of three orders, resting on pillars with foliaged
capitals.

Near the church is a little chapel, on the front ot
which is inlaid an inscription in characters of the twelfth
century, stating that it was consecrated on the nth of
the Calends of June in honour of S. Michael, but with-
out date of the year.

At no considerable distance is a remarkably well-
preserved dolmen. The end stone is pierced with a
triangular opening, through which food was thrust for
the dead who lay within. From Lodeve the great
upland causse can be reached by the road that
leads to Le Caylar, through the valley of the Lergue
and by the passage of I'Escalette. This was formerly a
scramble up a stair of rocks, but now a good road has
been driven up the heights to the vast plateau of
Larzac, which has been seen as the train passes over it
from Le Vigan to Tournemire.

There are caves to be explored near Lodeve by such
as enjoy such underground excursions ; and these with
marvellous stalagmitic and stalactitic formations. Such
are the Mas de Bouquet, in the commune of Soubes.
Another is the Grotte de Labeil, opening out of a
cirque of rocks above the source of the Baume-Bauede,
that once found its issue thence, but has now burrowed
its way to a lower level.

Larzac {Larga saxa) is the most extensive and the
most barren of all the limestone causses — a Siberian
tundra in winter, an Arabia Petraea in summer.

It seems to be transpierced by the Cevennes, that

294 . THE CEVENNES

penetrate it at the Col de Sanctieres, and issue from its
huge bulk again at Mont Paon, a distance of fifteen
miles. But from its abrupt precipices above Milau to
the bold frontage of glaring white at L'Escalette is a
distance of twenty-four miles. Elisee Reclus says
of it :—

" The plateau of Larzac is a veritable table of stone. Water
lacks on its surface. The soil, pierced by fissures, is hardly
moistened by torrential rains. The drops falling on it pass
through it as through a sieve and disappear. At certain spots
the rifts in the rock are large, their walls have fallen in, and
one sees huge funnels, avens, open in the calcareous surface,
and descend to frightful depths. But almost everywhere the
surface of the causse is uniform, and the subterranean wells
are only indicated by superficial zigzags. Nowhere does a
single spring rise.

" The inhabitants have for their own use and that of their
cattle but the rain-water collected in cisterns or lavagnes, care-
fully cemented inside. Where water lacks, vegetation lacks
also, and so also inhabitants.

" On most of the causses not a tree is to be seen, hardly a
bush, save in dips offering some shelter from the wind. The
rock is covered with naught but a short herbage, and the
inhabitants, few in number, have utilised but scanty surfaces
for the growth of barley, oats, and potatoes."

When the water in the cisterns fails, the caussenard
has to make a day's journey to descend into the valleys
and fetch the pure liquid from one of the springs that
issue there, either in boisterous cascades or welling up
out of deep abysses, thrust forth silently by the pressure
of the water from above.

A century ago the Larzac could be reached from

LE CAYLAR 295

Lodeve only by ladders planted against the precipice at
the Pas de I'Escalette.

Le Caylar stands 2,400 feet above the sea, and was
once a walled town, with its castle on a rock above it.
From the summit the prospect is strange, and not to be
forgotten. The eye stretches over the vast barren plain
of the same white rock, that here and there assumes
strange forms. At night, when the moon glares over it,
these rocks with their black shadows stand up in the
most fantastic shapes, and nothing can be conceived
more surprising. One is in la belle France, indeed —
but where is the beauty .-'

The flora of these plateaux is sufficiently interesting.
A list of the plants that the Larzac produces will be
found in Fabre (A.), Hisioire du Canton du Caylar,
Montpellier, 1895.

Le Caylar was the birthplace of Abdias Maurel,
called Catinat, the Camisard chief, of whom I have
already related some of the achievements.

When Cavalier submitted, Catinat in wrath withdrew
and vowed to continue the conflict ; but finally he also
was compelled to abandon the struggle, and he retired
into Switzerland in September, 1704. But he was
restless, and two months later recrossed the frontier and
entered into a conspiracy, the object of which was to
remove the governor Baville and the Duke of Berwick
by assassination. The plot was discovered whilst he
was in Nimes, 20th April, 1705, and Catinat attempted
to escape from the town in disguise, having shaved his
face, A price had been set on his head. At the gate of
Nimes something suspicious in his appearance caused
his arrest, and compromising letters were discovered
secreted about his person. He was led to the Duke of

296 THE CEVENNES

Berwick. He demanded to be exchanged for Marshal
Tallard, who was a prisoner in the hands of the English,
and threatened that if this were not done the English
would make Tallard suffer the same death that was
inflicted on him. His trial was short, and he was con-
demned to be burnt alive along with Ravanel, his
accomplice in the intended murder.

At the stake Ravanel thundered forth a psalm of
Marot, but Catinat, who was chained by him, died
biting Ravanel's shoulder, possibly in the delirium of
his agony.

A very interesting walled town on the causse is
La Couvertoirade, for which there is a station on the
line from Le Vigan. It was a commandery of the
Templars, and after their suppression of the Knights of
S. John.

La Couvertoirade seems to attest to the present day
the power of these military orders, and to reveal to us
as in a picture the story of their greatness, their faults,
and their misfortunes. The general plan is that of an
irregular hexagon ; the southern portion is occupied by
a huge rock that sustains the castle and the church.
The ramparts of the town, that are almost perfect, were
begun at the end of the thirteenth century and finished
at the beginning of the fourteenth. The houses of the
little place have a character that harmonises well with
the ring of walls enclosing them. If La Couvertoirade
shows traces of decay produced by time or the violence
of men, the town is, nevertheless, one of the most
curious and best-preserved examples of a fortified place
of the Middle Ages that can be found in Southern
France.

S. Guilhem-le-Desert is one of the strangest and most

;^-. ^

THE HERAULT 297

picturesque towns in France. It can be reached from
Montpellier by taking the train to Aniane and walking
or driving thence, or from Clermont in a carriage.

The Herault escapes from its gorges at S. Jean de
Foss, a little walled town, of which one gate remains.
The church, crowded about by houses, is very early
Romanesque and peculiar in many ways. It under-
went alterations in the second Pointed period. There
is a west tower, and the chancel is bored out under
another.

Aniane is an uninteresting place, with a church built
in the eighteenth century, very ugly. The huge abbey
was also rebuilt about the same period, and now serves
as a prison. I have not stayed the night at Aniane,
and think that perhaps the inns may be better on the
inside than they appear without. They do not invite to
try their internal comforts.

The Herault breaks out into the plain through a
gorge of calcareous rocks, and it has sawn for itself
a deep cleft in the bed below the roadway. The strata
therein are strangely contorted. From Aniane a bridge
is crossed, Le Pont du Diable, not very alarming, in spite
of its name, and above is an aqueduct that conveys the
water of the H6rault by a channel into the plain to
Gignac and beyond that to S. Andre, carrying fertility
with it.

Springs break forth from the cliffs, forming tables of
calcareous deposit. One of these, of a high tempera-
ture, has constructed a large shelf extending towards
the river, into which it flows.

The cliffs on each side of the ravine are very bare,
striated, grey and yellow and white, spotted here and
there with shrubs, aromatic and evergreen, and the

298 . THE CEVENNES

wild pomegranate with its crimson flowers may be found
here and about Aniane.

As we ascend the valley, looking down into emerald
green pools or wreaths of foam, we light on curious
domed structures by the water. These are ancient
mills, vaulted over with stone as a protection against
floods that sometimes cover them many feet with
rolling water, and in one place is a tower beside them up
which the millers might fly for refuge when the torrent
came rolling down unexpectedly.

All at once we reach the opening of a narrow lateral
valley, where are the remains of a tower and walls, and
where also are two humble inns, in one of which, as I
can vouch, at very short notice an excellent dejeuner
can be improvised. " Go up and see S. Guilhem," said
the old woman of the inn, " and see what I shall have
when you return." So we went, and on coming back
she produced crayfish just caught in a net, also a rabbit ;
further, a couple of fieldfares plump with juniper
berries ; these, with vegetable soup, /ote£-ras, boiled beef,
etc., made a rare lunch.

S. Guilhem is a little town drawn out in a thread
alongside of a small stream that rises at the base of a
cirque of pink and yellow Jura-limestone above the place.
It is itself surmounted by a crag towering high into the
sky with what appears to be a lacework of stone on top,
actually the ruins of a castle, called of Don Juan. Half-
way up is a tower and gateway, through which alone the
castle could be reached by a stair cut in the rock, but
now the summit can be attained by a circuitous path cut
for the purpose.

The village, or little town, grew about an abbey
founded by Guillaume, Duke of Aquitaine, in 804. He

GUILLAUME COURTENEZ 299

was grandson of Charles Martel, and he also was a
hammer to smite the Saracens. In 793 he fought them
at Carcassonne and drove them back ; in 797 he
wrested Narbonne from them. Then, pursuing them,
he drove them out of Barcelona. War made him a
misanthrope, and misanthropy made a monk of him.
He retired to this desert, settled there with his sisters
twain, Albara and Bertrara, and died there on May 28th,
812 ; and when he died the bells pealed of themselves.
His heroic life and pious end became the theme of one
of the longest and finest of the Proven9al Chansons de
Gestes, that of Guillaume de Courtenez — whence the
honoured name of Courtenay in England. This is what
Fauriel says of the romance : —

"William is the ideal of the Christian knight, fighting for
the maintenance of his faith against the Saracens. The epic,
in accord with history, does not always paint him as happy, as
always victorious. It represents him sometimes as defeated,
reduced to the most deplorable extremities, but never losing
courage, and always vanquishing in the long run. No other
epic of the Carlovingian cycle is so deeply impressed with a
sentiment of shuddering apprehension, which one may assume
to be a traditional reflection of the contemporary feelings
excited by the terrible struggle that took place in the South
and lasted two centuries against the Andalusian Arabs."

I think I must find place for a single episode from
this poem. It relates to the parting of Guillaume and
his wife Gibors, when he was about to go to Paris to
ask for succour : —

" Sire Guillaume," said she, " you go into France so highly
lauded, and you leave me here, sad, among people that love
me not. In the honoured land of France you will meet with

300 . THE CEVENNES

many a fresh-faced damsel, many a well-dressed dame, and
therefore will lose your heart. You will forget me and this
land where you have suffered such pains and endured hunger
and thirst."

It must be known that at this time Guillaume and
Gibers had been married something like five-and-
twenty years. They were not a young couple just out
of their honeymoon. Then he replied, kissing Gibors
tenderly : —

" Gentle lady, do not concern yourself about me. Receive
now my solemn vow, which I will keep faithfully. During my
journey I will not change my linen or my coat. I will not
taste meat or anything peppered. I will not drink wine nor
water out of a goblet ; only such of the latter as I can scoop
up in my hand. And know further that never shall another
mouth be joined to mine, which has been kissed and made
spicy by your lips."

On reaching Paris, Guillaume was very badly re-
ceived. The reason was that Louis the Emperor had
married Blanchefleur, the sister of the Duke ; that she
was white only in name ; was, in fact, a disreputable char-
acter ; so dreading a scolding from her pious brother
she had prejudiced her husband against him. When he
reached the door of the palace, no squire came to his
aid, no one saluted him, no groom offered to take his
horse, which he accordingly tied to an olive tree. The
southern poet, never having been in the north, sup-
posed that the same trees grew there as in Provence
and Languedoc. Guillaume entered the royal hall and
saw the Emperor on his throne and the Empress in
ermine and gold at his side, both crowned. Neither
took notice of him, and all the princes and nobles
turned the cold shoulder to him. And indeed he cut a

S. GUILHEM-LE-DESERT 301

sorry figure. His garments were threadbare and ragged,
his linen had obviously not been washed for months,
nor was his hair combed and brushed. He was con-
strained to take a stool far back in the hall. Presently
his wrath overcame his astonishment at this insulting
reception. He stood up, as he saw his own father and
mother, the Count and Countess of Narbonne, received
with favour and seated beside the Emperor and Em-
press. In a loud and terrible voice he cried : " Louis !
for all the great services I have rendered you, for all
the battles I have fought for you — is this my reward ? "
" Set your mind at rest," answered the King ; " you
shall be rewarded by and by." " What ! " cried the
Queen, " will you rob me of my heritage to give it to
him ? " Then Guillaume shouted : " Tais-toi, impure
chienne ! " and he recited before all the court some of
his sister's escapades. Then, striding through the crowd
of nobles, he mounted to the throne, plucked the crown
from his sister's head, and dashed it on the floor.

The abbey church is a fine Romanesque building, not
earlier than the first years of the eleventh century. Of
that date are the nave and side aisles. Choir, transepts,
and porch were added at the end of the twelfth century.
The nave communicates with the side aisles by five
great arches supported by cruciform piers, and is lighted
by three loftily placed windows. The ornamentation
of the church is on the outside. To each transept is an
apse. The principal apse has an arcade externally like
the Lombardic churches on the Rhine. In the apse of
the north aisle are the sarcophagi of Guillaume Courtenez
and his sisters. That of the founder was so broken by
the Camisards that it was not possible to piece it
together again, as has been done with the tomb of the

302 THE CEVENNES

ladies, which they also broke. Their sarcophagus is a
Christian tomb of the fourth century, with Christ and
the evangeHsts, or apostles, carved on it ; at the extremi-
ties Adam and Eve and the Three Children in the
Furnace. Perhaps the greatest treasure in the church
is a black marble altar with panels of white marble and
inlaid work of coloured glass, very beautiful, of the date
1 138.

Pilgrimages arrive at S. Guilhem on Monday in
Easter week and October ist.

On the south side of the church is the cloister, very
early, contemporary with the nave, and with traces of
painting in it ; but it has been pulled to pieces. In the
midst stood a fountain that spouted water in as many
jets as there are days in the year. But it was sold to a
Paris dealer in antiquities, and where it now is cannot be
said. The old monastic buildings, burnt by the Cami-
sards, were reconstructed, and are now occupied by a
Baron d'Albenas.

Some of the houses in the town are certainly
Romanesque. There was a second church in the place,
but it is now in ruins.

Returning to Aniane, it is worth mentioning that in
destroying the old presbytery a marble slab was found
bearing an Arabic inscription : " In the name of Allah,
the clement and merciful, peace be with Mahomed.
There is but one God. It is to Him, and to Him
alone, that all power is due." A precisely identical in-
scription has been found at Montpellier, and this shows
that the Saracens were in Languedoc not only as
destroyers and raiders, but as inhabitants. Guillaume
planted himself very close to where they had been, and
whence he had turned them out.

ADIEU 303

And now my account is ended : not that I have
exhausted the country. I have done no more than
touch upon some points in it. It is a country that
fascinates any one who visits it, that lays hold of his
heart in strange fashion, and he is inclined when back
in England to say, with Ferdinand Fabre : —

" Quand men cerveau a vide sur le papier blanc sa mince
provision d'idees journalieres, les coudes a la barre d'appui (de
ma fenetre) je coule Ik, en una paresse delicieuse, de longues
hears a rever. Men ame alors s'envole au pays si profonde-
ment incruste en elle, ce pays que je retrouve dans le moindre
plis de mes pensees, ce pays qui, le plus ordinairement, lorsque
j'ose ecrire, me commande, et auquel j'obeis."

INDEX

Aigoual, Mt., 20, 248-58

Aigueze, 147

Aiguilhe, the, 16-35, 4^-4

Alais, 160, 186, 204-19

Albigensian crusade, 47-8, 283

AUeyras, 171

AUier, River, 19, 161-71

Alzon, 243

Aniane, 297, 302

Antraigues, 122-5 5 Comte d*, 123-5

Arabic inscriptions, 302

Ard^che, River, 8, 128, 137-48, 163

Arlempdes, 16, 81

Arzon, River, 68

Assas, Claude, 240 ; Louis, 246-7

Astier, Gabriel, 179-83

Aubenas, 114-15, 117-20

Auvergne violets, 246

Avens, 4, 138, 152, 155, 234-6

Aveze, 241-2, 243

Balmes de Montbrul, 8

Bar, crater of, 17

Barre des Cevennes, 252, 255

Basalt, 16, 22, 62, 81, 122, 129,

134, 135-6, 170
Bastide, La, 175, 203
Battle of the winds, 248-50
Baville, 180, 183, 185, 240, 295
Beate, La, 27-8
Bedarieux, 262, 264-5
Belzunce, Mgr. de, 174
Benedict XIL, 208
Benezet, 240-1
Berrias, 158-9
Beziers, 273-4
Bible of Theodulf, 45-6
Blacons, 56-9

Blandas, 244

Bonaparte, no

Borne, River, 23, 34, 62

Boulogne, Chateau de, 12 1-2

Bousquet d'Orb, 276

Boussagues, 265

Bouti^res Mountains, 7, 103-13

Bramabiau, 252-5

Broglie, M, de, iSo-i, 183, 196-7

Burzet, 1 3 1-2

Cachard, M, de, iio-ii

Cambis family, 206

Camisards, 9, 177-202, 221-2, 224,

240, 256-8
Camplong, 263
Camprieu, 252-3
Cantobre, 261
Carotat, 273
Castle of Ebbo, 145
Catinat, 191-2, 295
Causses, 10, 13, 144, 244, 256, 261,

263, 269, 293
Cavalier, Jean, 191, 195-202
Caylar, le, 293-5
Cendras, 204
Ceyssac, 24
Chacornac, 81
Chamalieres, 68
Chamborigaud, massacre at, 199-

204
Chames, 145
Chanteuges, 164-5
Chapeauroux, 171
Chassizac, River, 139, 154
Chayla, Abbe du, 187-90, 196, 204
Cheese, 275
Chestnut, 268-73

305

3o6

INDEX

Cheylard, le, 1 13

Chilhac, 170

Chorister murdered, 39

Clary, prophet, 194-5

Climates, N. and S., 3, 121, 203,

251, 265
Clotilde de Surville, 140-2
Coalfields, 3, 11, 161, 264
Coiron Mountains, 7, 9, 118
Colbert, 285

Companions, the Free, 33, 50-2
Costume, 30-1
Coupe d'Aizac, 127 ; de Jaujac, 9,

129-30
Couvertoirade, la, 296
Craters, 9, 15, 17, 19, 127, 129,

130, 132-4
Creux de Vaie, massacre, 180
Crussol, Castle, 104-5

Danse des Treilles, 273-4

Daude, murder of, 240

Denise, la, 16, 62, 65

Diana of Poitiers, II2

Dolmens, 243, 293

Dolomitic limestone, 8, 252, 287-8 ;

see also Jura limestone
Dourbie, River, 258-61
Drac, 168-9
Duel, a strange, 242-3
Du Guesclin, 33, 44-5
Duniere, River, ill
Durzon, source, 260-1

Eagle, 13s
Echelle du Roy, 134
Ecstasy, 178, 182, 187, 190
Erieux, River, 105-7, iii
Espaly, 54-6, 61-2
Espinouse, 11, 276, 280
Essences, 223
Estables, Les, 69-70
Estreys, 23

Fabre, Ferdinand, 2^2-4, 291, 303
Factory girls, 1 15-16
Fauteuil du Diable, 122
Faye le Froid, 16, 53-4
Fiandrin, Cardinal, 131
Florae, 191, 255-7

Florian, 218-20
FontoUiere, 131, 134

Ganges, 224-36 ; Marquise de,

murder of, 225-34
Garigues, 4, 223, 287
Gerbier de jonc, 9, 71-2, 113
Ghost story, 206-8
Gignac, 274-5
Gleyzasse, cave of, 155, 158
Gobi, Jean, 206-8
Goule de Foussoubie, 144
Goudet, 81
Grassensac, 264
Gravenne de Montpezat, 130-1 ;

de Soulhiol, 130
Gregory VII,, 31-2
Grotte des Demoiselles, 234
Guetard, 136
Gueule d'Enfer, 134
Guillaume Courtenez, 298-301

Haunted Mill, 81-3

Haute Loire, department, 15

Herault, fetes in, 273-4 ; River,

10, 236, 297-8
Hermits, 204-5, 276-8, 286
Heric, gorges of, 279
Hort Dieu, 251
Hierle, 242
Huguenots, 52-9, 62-3, 107-9, I39.

143-4, 172, 177-202, 208, 222,

224, 239-41

Iberians, 267

Innocent III., 47, 283, 290

Inspiration, degrees of, 193

Intermittent spring, 1 20- 1

Inventories, taking the, 158-60

Isabeau, la belle, 178-9

— another prophetess, 144

Jales, 158

Jaujac, 129-30

Joany, a Camisard, 199

John XXII., 207-8

Julien, sculptor, 66-7

Jura limestone, l, 142, 245 ; see

Dolomitic limestone
Jurieu, pastor, 178-9

INDEX

307

Kermes oak, 4, 2S7

Lac d'Anconne, 18

— de S. Andeol, 18

— de Bouchet, 17, 19

— d'Issarles, 72-3, 77

— Lemagne, 167
Lacemaking, 25-7
Lafayette, 167
Lagorce, murder of, 198
Lamalou-les-Bains, 265, 276
Langeac, 161, 163-4

Langue d'Oc, 2, 15; population of,

266-7
Larzac, 2, 10, 293-5
La Voute, 23
Lay canons, 41

Lepers burnt, 49 ; hospital for, 147
Lepreuse, la, 67-8
Le Puy, 31-3, 34-59, 61, 63, 66,

67, 71, 81
Levis family, 128-9
Lodeve, 160, 289-92
Loire, River, 20-3, 67-8
Luc, 175
Lunas, 275-6

MacHarren, Captain, 169
Madelaine, Ste., chapel of, 170

— de S. Nectaire, 52-3
Margeride, 163, 167-8
Mayres, 96, 135
Mamertus, S., 118
Mandrin, 81

Martin family, 84-102

Massacre of S. Bartholomew, 52,

108
Megal, 7, 65
Mejan, Causse de, 258
Merle, Captain, 139
Mezenc, 3, 9, 19, 67, 69-71, 113,

248
Micocoulier, 222
Mimente, River, 257
Monastier, 79, 80
Monistrol d'AUier, 170
Montaigne Noire, 1 1
Montcalm, 242, 261
Montdardier, 243-4
Montpellier le Vieux, 261

Montpezat, 132
Murriel, 268

Nant, 260

Noirot, Pierre, 74-9
Naussac, 174
Navacelles, 245

Oculist, Roman, 171
Oracle, 65

Orange, William of, 180
Orbe, River, 264-5
Ordeal by fire, 194-5
Ornano dukes, 1 18-20
Oustalas, 146

Paiolive, wood of, 153-7

Peasants, 28-30, 79-80, 167, 266,
280-1

Pepezuc, 274

Perbet mill, 81-3

Peyrabeille, tavern of, 84-102

Peyrenc, Jean, 239

PeyroUes, 284

Phonolith (clinkstone), 19, 70, 170

Pilat, Mont, 7

Pillard, le, 281

Plateau, great central, i

Polignac, 16, 23, 31-3, 65-6

Pont de I'Arc, 142, 144 ; de la
Beaume, 128-9, 130; de Mont-
vert, 187-9, 191 » 204; de Mousse,
241

Poui, Captain, 191-2, 197

Pourasse, la, 109

Pourceilles, River, 131

Pourcheirolles, Castle, 131

Pradelles, 174

Private ownership, 173-4

Prophetic inspiration, 182, 185

Prophets, see Camisards

Quissac, 221-2, 223

Rabanel, cave of, 235-6
Ray-Pic, cascade, 132
Red sandstone, 292
Remejadou, aven of, 138
Revolution, 33, 46, 106, 166, 209,
278

3o8

INDEX

Rochebelle, 204

Roche Lambert, Castle, 64

Roland, Camisard, 193, 200, 224,

258
Roquefort, 275
Roquesaltes, 261
Rouve, Baron de, 198
Ruoms, 137-8

S. Alban, 174-5

S. Arcons, 166

S. Evodius, 36

S. Firmin, 258-9

S. Fulcran, 289-90

S. Gervais, 2S0

S. Guilhem-le-Desert, 296, 298-302

S. Hippolite-le-Fort, 223-4

S. Jean de Foss, 297

S. Marcel, cave, 15 1-2

S. Martin-sur-Ardeclie, 147-9

S. Michel-de-Grammont, 292-3

S. Paulien, 36, 65-6

S. Peray, 104

S. Privat, 170-1

S. Veran, 261

Salavas, 143

Sampson, 139

Sauges, 168-9

Sauve, 222

Scutarius, tomb of, 36

Seguier, Pierre, 187-91

Sidonius Apollinaris, 205, 258

Silkworm culture, 204-18 ; disease,

175, 209
Sue de Bauzon, 134
Suffren, the Bailli of, 158
Sully, 112

Tanargue, Mount, 9, 129
Tapestries, 140

Tartara, cry of, 18 1-2

Tears of blood, 182

Templars, 145, 147, 158, 296

Thueyts, 134-5

Trappist monks, 175-6

Treves, 258

Triaire, 247

Tourette, la, 111-12

Two men in a boat, 149-50

Umbranici, 267-8
Uzes, 105

Valeraugue, 255

Vallon, 139-40

Vals, 1 14-15, 120-2

Vans, les, 154

Velay, le, 15-33, 34, 44, 61

Ventadour, 106, 128

Vernoux, 107-8, iii

Vestide du Pal, 132-4

Viaduct, 204

Vidal, Baron de S., 23, 54-6, 62-3

Vidourle, River, 223, 267

Vigan, le, 237-47

Villars, Marshal, 200

Villemagne, 278-9

Villeneuvette, 285-6

Violets, fair of, 70-1

Vis, River, 10, 236, 243

Vision, 178

Vivarais chain, 8, 114-36

Vivens, Fran9ois, Camisard 183-4

Viviers, 117

Volane, River, 120, 122

Vorey, 67-8

Voute Chilhac, 169-70

— sur Loire, 23 ; sur Rhone, 106

White Hoods, the, 51-2

PLYMOOTH
WILLIAM BREMDOIf AND SON, LIMITKD, PRINTKKS

Telegrams & Cables "Longing, London " June SepT I Q07

Telephone No. 9313 Central •' •> ^ /

MR. JOHN LONG'S

SUMMER AND EARLY
AUTUMN BOOKS 1907

SIX SHILLING NOVELS

Crown 8vo», cloth gilt
ITINERANT DAUGHTERS By Dorothea Gerard

(Mme. LoNGARD de Longgarde)

In this story Dorothea Gerard tells of the result of an experiment, invented
and tried on four girls, to whom home life had become irksome, by an
up-to-date doctor. This experiment forms, in the main, the peg on which the
story hangs, and which dissects and lays bare the characters of the heroines.
The manner in which the girls meet the fate falling to them provides a great
variety from the ordinary love-story, and the novel promises to be one of the
most original and amusing published for some considerable time. .

ONLY BETTY By Curtis Yorke. With Coloured

Frontispiece by E. J. Sherie

In "Only Betty" Curtis Yorke has imagined a story which gives full rein
for the display of those gifts of tenderness, naturalness, and distinction
which readers and critics alike associate with her work. " Only Betty " is one
of a large family left in poverty by the death of their father, and she answers
an advertisement for services in a remote Welsh village. Betty obtains the
post, and the authoress proceeds with great vivacity and charm to describe the
lively series of events which follow. Curtis Yorke's popularity grows with
every new book she produces, and her public will be immeasurably increased
by her latest.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket, London

John Long^s New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING NOVELS— Continued
MRS. BARRINGTON'S ATONEMENT By Violet

TWEEDALE

In Violet Tweedale's new novel an excellent plot is unfolded with subtlety
and force. It would spoil the reader's pleasure to enter fully into details —
the curious psychic experiences, the tragfedy and pathos of an immature soul,
misunderstanding and misunderstood — ^but we can promise to those who read
the novel that they will not find a dull page in this newest work of a writer
to whom we can always look for novelty, brilliance and substantial interest.

THE WHITE HAND AND THE BLACK By

Bertram Mitford

Mr. Bertram Mitford has done for South Africa what Mr. Rudyard Kipling
has done for India. He has brought home to the English people the character
of the work that Britons are doing in the outposts of Empire. Mr. Mitford's
knowledge, like Mr. Kipling's, has been acquired at first hand, by living in
the land and among the people he describes. In his new novel the author
chooses as background a Rising of the Blacks against the Whites. The
reader is brought into contact with various kinds of natives, good and bad,
with the British official of the better class, and with the grit and solidity and
daring of the ordinary Britisher who finds himself in a tight comer and fights
with his back against the wall. Trickling through the stirring incidents of
the story is a love romance. Mr. Mitford has intimate knowledge, insight,
sympathy and imagination, and he has written a novel of virility and vigour
whose superiority to most fiction may be observed on every page.

DELILAH OF THE SNOWS By Harold Bindloss

No living writer has a more intimate knowledge of colonial manners than
Mr. Harold Bindloss. He describes for the stay-at-home Englishman not so
much the well-ordered life in the great settlements as the virile, rugged,
desperate, and often lawless struggles among the colonists in the undeveloped
outposts of Empire. The earlier scenes in " Delilah of the Snows " take
place in England. Later on the characters are transplanted bodily to Western
Canada among the gold-seekers. In such surroundings Mr. Harold Bindloss,
as may be conjectured, is in his element, and he develops a story of consummate
artistry and strength. The spirit of adventure and tragedy and comedy is
over it all, and an unconventional ending is in keeping with the rest of this
brilliant book.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket, London

John Long's New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING NOVELS— Co«/z;z«^^
DR. MANTON By Morice Gerard

Mr. Morice Gerard has advanced with rapid strides to the position of one of
the most popular writers of the day. " Dr. Manton " is a splendid instance
of his power in weaving a dramatic story, made up of the great elements
of love, mystery and conflict between opposing forces, with a wondenful
dinov^ment, which no reader can read without being moved. Mr. Morice
Gerard believes in a happy ending; hero and heroine find their happiness and
peace achieved after stress and struggle. The story is up to date in every
respect.

A WOMAN PERFECTED By Richard Marsh

A new story by Mr. Richard Marsh is an event which is eagerly anticipated;
and " A Woman Perfected " will not disappoint the expectations, however
high, of any of Mr. Marsh's innumerable admirers. The starting-point of
the story is the sudden death of a man of mysterious habits and ostentatious
wealth, whose only daughter, Nora, is apparently left unprovided for. The
young girl has been led to believe that she would be a great heiress, but the
secret of her father's past and the source of his income cannot be discovered.
A series of events follow, which excite a curiosity that amounts to anxiety.
The author marshals his plot and characters with conscious mastery; and
he has written what may, with very truth, be described as a brilliant book.

CYNTHIA IN THE WILDERNESS By Hubert

Wales. Author of " Mr. and Mrs. Villiers," " The Yoke "

This book almost reverses the question raised by the author's earlier work,
" Mr. and Mrs. Villiers." It is a study of a wife who, through the incapacity
of her husband to understand or respond to the deeper woman in her, finds
herself shut out upon the wilderness of joyless things. Mr. Hubert Wales
has made his mark as an author, and his first two books, " Mr. and Mrs.
Villiers "and "The Yoke," have been out-standing successes.

HER FATHER'S SOUL By Lucas Cleeve

An incident which occurs in India between a Native Prince and an English
Peeress is the source whence the subsequent events spring. The power of the
story lies in its imagination and its phantasy. Lucas Cleeve has the great
gift of expression, and in "Her Father's Soul," she enables the reader to
realize something of the weird, mysterious beauty and fascination of the
land of the Oriental.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Hay market, London

John Long's New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING ^OY¥UE>— Continued

THE WHITE COUNTESS By Florence Warden

It may safely be stated of Miss Florence Warden's new story, "The
White Countess," that before the reader has reached the end of the first
chapter he will find himself immersed in a mystery of baffling complexity, and
that the sensational events which follow in swift succession will give him no
pause until the last lines are in sight. "The White Countess " is a story of
action and plot, and it will uphold Miss Florence Warden's reputation as a
writer of straightforward, dramatic, and exciting fiction.

THE CURSE OF THE FEVERALS By L. T. Meade.

With coloured Frontispiece by E. J. Sherie

Mrs. L. T. Meade has chosen the subject of heredity as the theme of
her new novel; but, as might be imagined, there is nothing unpleasant or
technical in her treatment of "The Curse of the Feverals." On the contary,
Mrs. Meade invariably looks at the brighter side of life — upon its joys rather
than its sorrows — and she has brought her best talents to bear in the con-
struction of this effective and moving story of domestic life.

THE HOUSE ON THE THAMES By G. W. Appleton

A boating accident on the Thames, the rescue of Jeannie, a beautiful girl,
and her sudden disappearance almost immediately afterwards, are the events
which occur in the first chapter of Mr. G. W. Appleton's new novel.
Thenceforward the reader's perplexity is mingled with an intense desire to
probe the mystery. Mr. Appleton keeps well within the region of probability,
and his sunny outlook upon life peeps forth in this exciting^ dramatic, and
withal humorous story.

KINDRED SPIRITS By L. T. Meade

Deals with the passionate love of two girls for one man, and shows how
the one whose love he did not return yet loved him so thoroughly, so nobly,
so unselfishly, that in the end she was the means of his salvation. The story
largely deals with an old family curse, and a strange mystery which is partially
founded on fact. The characters of some of the most important persons
are taken from life. In a word, this is the most exciting story that Mrs. Meade
has ever produced, and the publisher predicts a more than ordinary success
for it.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & H Norris Street, Haymarket, London

John Long^s New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING ISiOVELS— Continued

IN HIS GRIP By David Christie Murray

Mr. David Christie Murray has imagined in his new story a combination of
circumstances which afford ample scope for the exercise of his uncommon
powers. A merchant of character is left, by a dying friend, in the position
of trustee without documentary conditions, and the property, which he thinks
to be worthless, provesto be of untold value. His own financial embarrassments
create the temptation to which he momentarily succumbs. The story gallops
along at a furious pace amid an atmosphere of stirring events, through
which runs a delightful love episode.

A JACOBITE ADMIRAL By R. H. Forster

In the opinion of the critics, Mr. R. H. Forster knows Northumbria as
Mr. Hardy knows Wessex, as Mr. Crockett knows Galloway, and as
Mr. Blackmore knew Exmoor, Higher praise for a writer of historical
fiction it would be difficult to imagine. In "A Jacobite Admiral" the
Jacobite rebellion of 1715 forms the superstructure of the story, and the hero's
adventures in his loyalty to the doomed house of Stuart, as conspirator, rebel,
fugitive, and lover, afford ample scope for the description of scenes and
localities of great natural beauty and historic interest. Over and above this,
Mr. R. H. Forster has written a novel which is instinct with the finest romantic
spirit.

IN THE QUEEN'S SERVICE By Dick Donovan

Dick Donovan has gone back to the troublous times of Mary Queen of
Scots for the incidents which form the basis of his new romance, "In the
Queen's Service." Manners and morals were doubtless less refined and less
humane in those days, and objects were pursued with more violence and more
disregard of consequences. From the novelist's standpoint, the period is rich
in materials and possibilities. Intrigue, treachery, murder, disaster, chivalry,
gallantry, passion, self-sacrifice — these are the constituents of " In the Queen's
Service," and the author has, with his accustomed skill, created .Irpnj them
a story of great and penetrating interest. . ::)^oM

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Hay market, London

John Long's New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING "^OYYl^S— Continued

PURPLE HEATHER By Alan St. Aubyn

The late Hawley Smart was a master of the true sporting novel, and
Alan St. Aubyn has run him very close in ** Purple Heather." In this she
has given us a picture of the wilds of Exmoor the whole year round, with
vivid descriptions of some of the inhabitants, and at the same time has woven
about them a story of very human interest which centres on the packs of stag
and fox hounds.

THE SECRET SYNDICATE By Fred Whishaw

To the English reader there is a perennial fascination in the conditions of
life in the mighty realms of the Czar, and few English writers have a more
intimate knowledge of the various revolutionary currents in Russian affairs than
Mr. Fred Whishaw. The action of "The Victims" transpires mainly in St.
Petersburg, and the characters are wholly Russian. A young journalist and
a young girl of the landed class are the central figures, and around these two
are described the events which culminate in the recent peasant revolt. The
story is graphically told, and has the air of being a veritable transcript from
life.

THE PLEASURE MONGER By C. Ranger-Gull

The novel which tells of a complete, triumphant, and overwhelming success
is always delightful to read. This is the case in Mr. Ranger Gull's new book,
"The Pleasure Monger," one which will be found to be the best of all the
brilliant studies of modern life which this author has given us. The character
studies are especially strong and vivid, and the keen love-interest, which runs
like a scarlet thread through the warp and woof of the tale, is novel and
daring. It is very rarely, moreover, that a well-known author lifts the veil of
the modern literary life and shows it as it really is. Stories which deal in part
with literary life are nearly always written by amateurs. "The Pleasure
Monger," in short, will be found full of force, brilliancy, and interest.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket, London

John Long^s New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING "^OY^LS— Continued

THE SIN OF GABRIELLE By Mrs. Coulson Kernahan

In this story Mrs. Kernahan has shown in the character of Gabrielle
Desturnelle a beautiful young French adventuress, who has all the seductive
charm of " Fanchette," without that heroine's innocence. The story shows
how, by her arts and unscrupulous cleverness, she wrecks the life of Donovan
Fitzgerald, a man of high ideals. The heartlessness of Gabrielle is put forth
with power, while the nobility of Fitzgerald will win the sjrmpathy of the
reader.

THE SECOND BEST By Coralie Stanton & Heath

HOSKEN

The work of Coralie Stanton and Heath Hosken stands out from the fiction
of to-day in bold outline ; there is nothing commonplace or anaemic about it.
Their new novel, "The Second Best," is a realistic story of modern English
society ; the characters are vivid and natural, and the incidents palpitate with
drama. The title is in keeping with the underlying idea, but " The Second
Best" is, in point of fact, the authors' very best; it grips from the first, and
a rich treat is in store for those who come within the spell of this rousing story.

A LOVELY LITTLE RADICAL By Alice M. Diehl

The work of Alice M. Diehl has two main recommendations — its freedom
from the unpleasant and its polished and artistic setting. " A Lovely Little
Radical," however, is not a placid story. It recounts the love of a young
girl of patrician birth and heritage for a simple man of the people. The
author manipulates her theme with unfailing tact and discrimination, and
succeeds in eliciting the reader's sympathies from the commencement. "A
Lovely Little Radical " may be regarded as the crowning achievement of this
popular romanticist.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Hay market, London

John Long^s New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING ]<SOYELS— Continued

THE LADY OF THE BLUE MOTOR By G.Sidney

Paternoster. With Coloured Frontispiece

Mr. Paternoster seems determined to prove in this novel that the motor-car
provides inimitable opportunities for the rebirth of romance in an unromantic
twentieth century. The central character, " My Lady Melody," is a veritable
heroine of romance. From the time she makes her appearance, enshrouded
in a cloud of mystery, in the salon of a hotel at Versailles, she is the centre of
a series of thrilling adventures and dramatic situations which enchain the
reader's attention until the happy outcome is reached.

INNOCENT MASQUERADERS By Sarah Tytler

This story is founded on an incident which happened at Blackheath up-
wards of thirty years ago. Two baby girls were exposed and left on the same
night at opposite points of the heath to the charity of wayfarers. There is
abundance of interest and incident before the mystery of their origin is solved.
On one occasion the wrong waif is installed with an old city knight and his lady
as their lost grandchild and heiress, but all comes right in the end. Best of
all, the two waifs are innocent, good girls, although their adventures should
appeal to every lover of true romance.

RUBINA By James Blyth. With Coloured Frontispiece

Mr. James Blyth stands almost alone among English novelists as a realist
of the Zola School, but superadded to his realism is a strain of thought at
once subtle and poetical. " Rubina " is the story of a girl of the people, and
her life is passed wholly in a village in the heart of the Fens. Surrounded by
the sights and sounds of nature, she herself is a child of nature, untrammelled
by the niceties and scruples of modern conventions. Mr. Blyth pursues his
theme in a legitimate and logical fashion, and he has produced a work which
is a veritable piece of life, the poigfnant emotional power and truth of which
will be acknowledged by every thoughtful reader.

JOHN LONG, 12. 13 & 14 Norris Street, Hay market, London

John Long's New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING '^OY'EUi— Continued

THE PASSING OF NIGHT By J. Fovargue Bradley

'* The Passing of Night " is a political novel written with a purpose. The
author is a Congreg-ational Minister who does not write at random, but whose
views will be found worthy of attention, if they do not find acceptance. The
story, from its argumentative side, treats of the attitude of the Church
Association towards the Ritual excesses in the Church of England, and of
Disestablishment in the interests of religious and social life ; but the author
challenges the advocates of Disendowment to show the equity of their case.
"The Passing of Night " is polemical and controversial, but it is also a romance
of consummate interest ; there is wit, imagination, insight, sense of character,
and high literary quality in it. It is a first work, but it is certain to be regarded
as one of the most remarkable novels of the year.

A BRIAR ROSE By Sarah Tytler

It is a characteristic of most fiction that the last chapters close to the
sound of wedding bells. In "A Briar Rose" the order has been reversed,
and the marriages take place at the commencement of the story. Miss Sarah
Tytler has chosen the everyday lives of two young couples as her foundation,
and around their joys and sorrows she has written a domestic story of quiet
and penetrating charm. In this book, as in all her works. Miss Sarah Tytler's
delicate literary gifts are distinctively apparent.

LITTLE JOSEPHINE By L. T. Meade. With Coloured

Frontispiece by E. J. Sherie

There is scarcely a household in which the novels of Mrs. L. T. Meade
are not known and appreciated ; her work is infinite in its variety, and
never dull. The thesis of her new story, " Little Josephine," is the marriage
of a good and charming young girl with a man of blemished character.
Incidentally, the follies and vices of the worst side of society are exposed and
castigated in the manner of Father Vaughan. Mrs. L. T. Meade has never
written with greater effect than in this poignant story.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Hay market, London

John Long^s New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING ^OYY.'LS— Continued

A WOMAN'S AYE OR NAY By Lucas Cleeve

All who are interested in the suffragette movement — and who is not? —
will read Lucas Cleeve's new novel with profit and pleasure. The story is set
some ten years ahead, when women are allowed to vote for Parliament ; but
although there is much in the novel of a quasi-political character, it is the love
side of it which is uppermost, and which will call for highest appreciation.
As an exponent of the "tender passion," few living novelists can compare
with Lucas Cleeve.

VALDORA By Thomas Pinkerton

" Valdora " belongs to the order of romance which is a perpetual joy to
the novel reader. A Princess of a small State secures the services of an
Englishman to defend her possessions from the attacks of envious neighbours.
There is the clash of arms, and the delight of love. "Valdora " suggests the
method of Mr. Anthony Hope, with whose work it will well bear comparison.

A WIFE FROM THE FORBIDDEN LAND By

Archer Philip Crouch

The particular fascination of Mr. A. P. Crouch's new story is that the
scene of its operations is placed in that weird, mysterious land, Thibet. A
young Englishman of the self-reliant, strong, and adventurous type determines
to visit Lhasa — the sacred Thibetan capital — a city which the foreigner is
not allowed to explore upon pain of death. How the Englishman succeeds
in his object, and how he brings back with him " A Wife from the Forbidden
Land," is the function of the story to tell. Mr. Crouch knows the peoples
of the wonderful East like a native ; and his book is not only an engrossing
romance : it is a vivid presentment of the customs, institutions, and manners of
a land which is as yet but little known to the European .

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket, London

John hong's New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING NOVELS— Co«//««^^
A YANKEE NAPOLEON By John F. Macpherson

The " Yankee Napoleon " is a scientist who manufactures a brain serum, by
which his own intellect and will-power are so enormously increased that the
whole of America lies helpless at his feet. He uses his power, not like a
benevolent genius, but like a criminal lunatic who is held in check by no law,
human or divine. How, after a devastating war, in which East and West are
involved, the "Yankee Napoleon's" plans are frustrated and brought to
nothingness by an English scientist and a Japanese Marquis, the reader
must discover for himself. He is confidently promised a story unique in plot
and inventive power, full of amazing thrills, and written witl) the pen of a
wizard. " '' '"

A FULL-LENGTH PORTRAIT OF EVE By Daniel

Douglas Brewer

The action of this story is placed in Paris, and the characters are wholly
French, but "A Full-Length Portrait of Eve" will appeal with irresistible
force to English readers. In its essence it is a love-story — a fiery, passionate,
overwhelming love-story ; and it is written with a beauty of phrase and a
distinctive style rarely to be found in the work of a new writer.

THE JEWEL HOUSE By Mrs. Isabel Smith

Mrs. Isabel Smith has already achieved a reputation by her first work,
" The Minister's Guest." In her new story, "The Jewel House," the same
qualities of quiet charm and literary style will be found united to a fine gift
of portraiture. The incidents happen in the country, and the chief characters
are a baronet, the scion of an ancient house, and a young and beautiful girl
of the yeoman class. " The Jewel House " is a love-story ; but it is natural,
healthy, and wholly delightful, and it cannot fail to win fresh admirers for
an authoress whose work has only to be known to be justly appreciated.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Hay market, London

John Long*s New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING '^OY'El.^^— Continued

IN SEARCH OF JEHANNE By Avis Hekking

A new historical romance which can bring effectively before the reader the
life and manners of a bygone age, and make real flesh and blood of the
characters which it introduces, is a rarity, and sure of a warm welcome. Such
is " In Search of J6hanne." Miss Avis Hekking has taken the sixteenth century
and the Massacre of the Huguenots as a background. The characters are
French, and the events happen wholly in France. " In Search of J^hanne " is a
romance of first-rate quality, and it should create for the author a high position
among writers of historical novels.

A LIGHT-HEARTED REBELLION By John Lang-

FIELD

In this story the author unwinds a plot in which there is nothing hackneyed
or commonplace, but which in character and incident is fresh and natural
and wholesome, and brimming with delightful comedy. Humorists are rare,
and readers will assuredly be glad to have their attention directed to this
light, bright, laughable, captivating book.

THE WAY OF WAR By Hew Scot

Of late there have been attempts (feeble, it must be admitted) to portray in
fiction the jealousy of Continental nations against our realm, but in no case
hcis one of them approached the realistic and thrilling description of the
sudden and secretly planned attempted invasion by Germany of Great Britain,
as set forth in Hew Scot's splendid work, "The Way of War," Commencing
with the admittance of a German patient into an Edinburgh hospital, and the
suggestion of a strong love interest, we are carried swiftly through seven
days of intense stress and adventure, during which the fate of our country
seems to hang on the skill and resource of a single individual, by whose
adroitness and courage the secret designs of the enemy are discovered, and
as far as possible prepared for, until the climax is reached in a naval battle,
when the steel-clad might of England, being at length let loose, swoops
down in all its tremendous power and sweeps the foe from our waters. This
is a book full of life and movement, and one it is impossible to lay aside,
having once commenced.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 &; 14 Norris Street, Hay market, London

John Long's New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING 'HOYEl.S— Continued
ONE EVENTFUL SUMMER By Ethel Grace Tapner

" One Eventful Summer " is the work of a new writer, but not since the
days of " Lorna Doone " has a story been written which conveys so much of
the subtle charm of Devonshire. The central idea of the story is whimsical,
but there is comedy and trcigedy in it — love and laughter and tears. " One
Eventful Summer " differs essentially from fiction in general, and upon that
account, as well as upon its undoubted intrinsic merits, it will be greatly
appreciated by those who are fortunate enough to read the book.

A HUMAN BACILLUS By Robert Eustace

A story that will make some demand upon the nerves of the reader, and
leave behind it a burning remembrance. Such is "A Human Bacillus."
It describes the life and love of a strange being — partly genius, partly saint,
and partly madman — whose subtle acts of renunciation and revenge lead to an
extraordinary denouement. The story is written by Robert Eustace, who is
well known as the collaborator of L. T. Meade in " The Brotherhood of the
Seven Kings," "The Sanctuary Club," "The Sorceress of the Strand," etc.

INCAPABLE LOVERS, LIMITED By W. W. Ward

A new work of humour is rare in these days, and if the humour is of the right
sort — if it is wholesome and natural and unforced — such a book is something
to be thankful for. " Incapable Lovers " is written in great good spirits, and
the characters and incidents sparkle and bubble over with delightful fun.
Not since the days of "Three Men in a Boat" has so popular and infectious
a work of humour appeared.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Hay market, London

John Long^s New & Forthcoming Books

SIX SHILLING "^OYYIS— Continued

THE SHADE OF THE ACACIA By Jessie E. Livesay

To say that " The Shade of the Acacia " fulfils the high promise which was
held out in the author's previous story, "The Little Tin Gods," does not
adequately describe the fine qualities of this novel. It not only shows literary
gifts of an unusual order, but there are flashes of insight and penetration in
it of rare power. The plot is taken up with the marriage of a baronet to
a young girl who loves her husband's best friend; and the eternal duel
between love and duty is presented in an entirely original form ; even the
minor characters are distinct and individual. In a word, " The Shade of the
Acacia " belongs to the higher rank of fiction.

THE SACRED HERB By Fergus Hume

This story deals with a herb, brought from the South Seas, which is used for
religious ceremonial, and is called the " Devil Root " by the natives. When
burnt, the fumes produce insensibility, and release the spirit, which can see
all that takes place on the physical world, without being able to interfere. The
hero is a witness (while in such a trance) to a murder, for which he is after-
wards blamed ; but he cannot prove his innocence, until assisted by the heroine,
whose psychic powers enable her to clear his character. The book is a new
departure for Mr. Fergus Hume, as, although the mystery is still retained, the
tale deals largely with the power of the occult in modern life.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarbet, London

John Long's New & Forthcoming Books

THE AUTHOR WITH THE LARGEST PUBLIC

The Sales of Nat Gould's Novels exceed
5,000,000 (five million) Copies

NAT GOULD'S NEW NOVELS

Mr. JOHN LONG is now the exclusive Publisher of all Mr. Nat
Gould's New Novels, with cover designs in four colours by Mr. Haring-
TON Biro, the well-known horse painter.

The following is the List to October, 1907 :

Price 2s. each, illustrated boards ; or in cloth gilt,
2s. 6d. each. Crown 8w., 2^^ pages

ONE OF A MOB Ready

THE SELLING PLATER

Ready

THE LADY TRAINER Ready
A STRAIGHT GOER Ready

A HUNDRED TO ONE

CHANCE Ready

A SPORTING SQUATTER
Ready

CHARGER AND CHASER
Ready

THE CHANCE OF A LIFE-
TIME Ready

THE LITTLE WONDER July

THE TOP WEIGHT October

FIFTH YEAR OF PUBLICATION

NAT GOULD'S ANNUAL, 1907

A STROKE OF LUCK
Price Is., large demy 8w., i6o pages, sewed, cover in colours
*,* Orders are now being taken for NAT GOULD'S ANNUAL for 1907

[Ready in October

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket, London

John Long's New & Forthcoming Books

NAT GOULD^S NEW SIXPENNY NOVELS

In large demy 8vo., sewed. Striking cover in colours

ONE OF A MOB Ready

THE SELLING PLATER

Ready

THE LADY TRAINER

Ready
A STRAIGHT GOER Jme

A HUNDRED TO ONE
A BIT OF A ROGUE Ready \ CHANCE August

A REPLY TO THE "NEW THEOLOGY"

BY THE AUTHOR OF "WHEN IT WAS LIGHT"

THE FOOL HATH SAID

"The fool hath said In bis heart, 'There is no Qod'"

Crown Svo., paper cover, Is. net; or in cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. net

"A real triumph of modern publishing:."— Pall Mall Gazette
"A marvel of cheapness." — Spectator

JOHN LONG'S LIBRARY OF MODERN CLASSICS

A series of great works of fiction by modern authors. Not pocket editions, but large,
handsome, and fully-illustrated volumes for the bookshelf, printed in large type on the best
paper. Biographical Introductions and Photogravure Portraits. Size, 8 in. by 5J in. ; thick-
ness, il in. Prices : Cloth Gilt, as. net each ; Leather, gold blocked and silk marker, 3s,
net each ; or in Classic Half- Vellum, 58. net each.

THE THREE CLERKS - - - . - (480 pp.) Anthony Trollope
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH - (672pp.) Charles Reade
THE WOMAN IN WHITE - - (576 pp.) Wilkie Collin.s

ADAM BEDE - (480 pp.) George Eliot

THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND (432 PP) W. M. Thackeray

WESTWARD HO! (600 pp.) Charles Kingsley

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS - - (320 pp.) Thomas Hughes
A TALE OF TWO CITIES - - - (384 pp.) Charles Dickens

Oiher Volumes to /allow.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Nor lis Street, Haymarket, London

John Long's New & Forthcoming Books

SHILLING NET EDITIONS OF THREE
FAMOUS BOOKS

Each in Crown 8vo., thread sewn, printed on superior antique wove

paper. With beautiful cover designs in colour by

Charles E. Dawson

CONFESSIONS OF A PRINCESS

Being the astounding Revelations of Manners and Morals in European Courts.

The late editor of the Saturday Review writes : " The book gives one an extraordinary
impression of reality; it is true, truer even than the shorthand account of a trial in our
Divorce Court. I have enjoyed the book, and I will maintain before all and sundry that it is
a good book, an excellent book, a book that had to be written."

N.B. — The Sales of this remarkable book in the more Expensive Edition exceeded
200,000 copies.

WILHELMINA IN LONDON

By Barry Pain, Author of " Eliza," etc.

Standard — " A most amusing and delightful book. Take it along in the train, and you
won't have to struggle for sleep against comfortless cushions and exiguous seats."

PcUl MtUl Gatett*. — " A light, charming piece of literary frivolity."

MR. AND MRS. VILLIERS

By Hubert Wales, Author of "The Yoke "

The Times: "The situations and the dialogue are handled with sureness and skill,
and the tw» sisters present feminine character studies of singular beauty." — Daily
Telegraph : " Hubert Wales is a capable writer, and has produced a story which is
worth being read." — Daily Chronicle : " The story is extremely well written, the
characterization admirable. Mr. Wales has amused us, and we have enjoyed his book."
Morning Leader : " There is no denying the cleverness of the book." — Athencevm :
" Powerfully written." — Tatler: "A very notable book."

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket, London

John Long's New & Forthcoming Books

GENERAL LITERATURE

A BOOK OF THE CEVENNES By S. Baring-

Gould, M.A.

With upwards of 40 Illustrations on art paper, printed in sepia, with 8 plates in

colours and a Map. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, price 6s.

*»* This work is uniform in scope and size with the author's well-known books on Devon,
Cornwall, Dartmoor, Brittany, the Riviera, etc. [Prospectus post Jree

PICTURES FROM NATURE'S GARDEN Or, Stories

from Life in Wood and Field. By H. W, Shepheard-Walwyn, M.A.,
F.Z.S., F.E.S., etc. Author of " Nature's Nursery," " Nature's Riddles,"
"The Lay of the Wee Brown Wren," etc.

With 78 Illustrations on art paper, printed in sepia, from the author's photographs
direct from Nature. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 6s. [Prospectus post free

TERRIERS : Their Points and Management By Frank

TowNEND Barton, M.R.C.V.S.
With upwards of 40 Illustrations jrom photographs on art paper, printed in sepia.
Crovm 8V0., cloth, heavily gilt, price 6S. net. {Prospectus post free

This is an entirely new and important work on Terriers, and the only
one of its kind yet published. It is a departure from the style usually
followed by authors in canine literature. In a word, it is a book for every-
body who wants to know all about terriers.

THREE NEW VOLUMES OF POEMS

In royal \bmo, cloth gilt and gilt top, with silh marher, price 3s. 6d. net each.

THE TESTAMENT OF OMAR KHAYYAM (The

Wasiyyat), comprising his Testament (or Last Words), A Song, Hymn of
Prayer, The Word in the Desert, Hymn of Praise, also the Marathi, or Odes
of the Disciples. By Louis C. Alexander

THE COMING OF SPRING ; and Other Poems By

ROWE LiNGSTON

VOCES AMORIS By John B. Rankin

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Hay market, London

John Long^s New & Forthcoming Books

" Will outbid all rivals." — The Bookman.

" Certainly wonderful . ' ' — A thencsum,

"It has remained for Mr. John Long to undersell all rivals by his
' Carlton Classics. ' The copy before us — Thackeray's ' English Humorists '
— is extremely well printed and nicely got up, and must certainly be
reckoned as the last word in cheap editions." — Daily News.

JOHN LONG^S CARLTON CLASSICS

Prices : Artistic Cloth, gilt, 6d. net ; Leather, gilt top, gold-blocked back and side,
IS. net ; postage, ijd. per toI. Length from i6o to 320 pages, newly set in clear, new type,
and printed on the best paper. Each Volume contains a Biographical Introduction by tha
Editor, Mr. Hannapord Bennett. The first iwehit only are bound in decorative ^aper

covers.

1. THE FOUR GEORGES

2. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE

3. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING -

4. WARREN HASTINGS

5. THE LIFE OF NELSON

6. TALES (Selected)

7. CHRISTABEL, and other Poems

8. A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

9. THE BLESSED DAMOZEL, and

other Poems . - . -

10. ON HEROES AND HERO WOR-

SHIP

11. SONNETS AND POEMS

12. RASSELAS ... -

13. SONNETS AND POEMS

14. ESSAYS (Selected)

15. HIS BOOK ... -

16. THE DUNCIAD, and other Poems -

17. ENGLISH HUMORISTS OF THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY -

18. THE JUMPING FROG, and Other

Sketches . . . .

19. SONGS

20. ESSAYS (Selected)

21. LETTERS OF JUNIUS

W. M. Thackeray
Lord Byron
Shakespeare
Lord Macaulay
Robert Southey
Edgar Allan Poe
S. T. Coleridge
Laurence Sterne

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Thomas Carlyle
Shakespeare
Samdel Johnson
Edmund Spenser
Joseph Addison
Artemds Ward
Alexander Pope

W. M. Thackeray

Mark Twain
Robert Burns
Leigh Hunt
Anonymous

[List continued ever.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket, London

John Long^s New & Forthcoming Books

CARLTON CLASSICS— Continued

22. HUMOROUS POEMS - - Thomas Hood

23. CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH

OPIUM EATER - - - Thomas De Quincey

24. A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT - - Dean Swift

25. GRACE ABOUNDING- - - John Bunyan

26. ESSAYS ----- Matthew Arnold

27. POEMS - . . - Percy Bysshe Shelley

28. MR. GILFIN'S LOVE STORY - George Eliot

29. SCENES FROM LORREQUER - Charles Lever

30. POEMS ----- Ben Jonson

31. COUNSELS CIVIL AND MORAL Francis Bacon

32. MINOR POEMS - - - John Milton

33. SELECTIONS - "OVIIH*^ " E°"°nd Burke

34. SONNETS - - ' -* - William Wordsworth

35. A VOYAGE TO LISBON - - Henry Fielding

36. ESSAYS ----- James Anthony Froude

Other Volumes in Preparation

THE HAYMARKET NOVELS

A Series of Copyright Novels by Popular Authors. The Volumes are printed upon
a superior Antique Wove Paper, handsomely bound in specially designed cover, red
cloth, heavily Gold Blocked at back. The size of the volumes is 7J in. by si in. by
ij in., the length from 300 to 350 pages, and the price 2s> 6cl. each.

VOLUMES NOW READY

FATHER ANTHONY (Illustrated) - - Robert Buchanan

A CABINET SECRET (Uluatrated) - - Guy Boothby

AN OUTSIDER'S TEAR - - . . Florence Warden

FUGITIVE ANNE ----- Mrs. Campbell Praed

THE FUTURE OF PHYLLIS - - Adeline Sergeant

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket, London

John Long's New & Forthcoming Books

THE HAYMARKET 'HOYBl.S— Continued

BENEATH THE VEIL ....

THE SCARLET SEAL ....

AN nj. WIND

MIDSUMMER MADNESS ....

THE SILENT HOUSE IN PIMLICO

THE CRIMSON CRYPTOGRAM

A TRAITOR IN LONDON ... -

THE MACHINATIONS OF JANET

THE MAGNETIC GIRL ... -

A FLIRTATION WITH TRUTH -

DELPHINE

THE OTHER MRS. JACOBS

A JILTS JOURNAL - - . .

THE INDISCRETION OF GLADYS
PARTNERS THREE - - - -

ONCE TOO OFTEN - . . .

THE LADY OF THE ISLAND (Illustrated)
THE WORLD MASTERS - - - -

HIS MASTER PURPOSE - . . -

TREWINNOT OF GUY'S - - - -

MRS. MUSGRAVE AND HER HUSBAND
THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY -

CURIOS : or, the Strange Adventures of Two
Bachelors (Illustrated) . . .

A BRIDE FROM THE SEA

ROSAMOND GRANT - -

THE JADE EYE

MISS ARNOTT'S MARRIAGE

AN IMPOSSIBLE HUSBAND

THE GIRL IN GREY . . . .

IN SPITE OF THE CZAR (Hlustrated)

SAINT ELIZABETH OF LONDON

THE OPAL SERPENT . . . .

THE MAID OF THE RIVER

THE FACE IN THE FLASHLIGHT

ALIX OF THE GLEN . - . -

Adeline Sergeant

Dick Donovan

Mrs. Lovett Cameron

Fergus Hume

Sarah Tytler

Richard Marsh

Curtis Yorke

Mrs. Campbell Praed

Rita

Lucas Cleeve

May Crommelin

Florence Warden

Guy Boothby

George Griffith

Harold Bindloss

Mrs. Coulson Kern ah an

Richard Marsh

Dick Donovan

Richard Marsh .
Guy Boothby
Mrs. Lovett Cameron
Fergus Hume
Richard Marsh
Florence Warden
Curtis Yorke
Guy Boothby
Lucas Cleeve
Fergus Hume
Mrs. Campbell Praed
Florence Warden
Curtis Yorke

[List continued (wer.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & H Norris Street, Haymarket, London

John Long's New & Forthcoming Books

THE HAYMARKET BOWELS— Continued

VOLUMES IN PREPARATION

THE SEC3RET PASSAGE - - - . Fergus Humb
OLIVE KINSELLA CuRTiS YoRKE

ADVENTURES OF MIRANDA

WATERS OF OBLIVION -

THE MASK

CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG LADY

THE NIGHT OF RECKONING

L. T. Meadk
Adeline Sergeant
William Le Queux
Richard Marsh
Frank Barrett

RECENT POPULAR NOVELS

SIX SHILLINGS EACH

THE WORLD AND DELIA
THE PENNILESS MILLIONAIRE
THE DUST OF CONFLICT
THE HOUSE IN THE CRESCENT
THE DUKE'S DILEMMA -
THE MISTRESS OF AYDON
THE DUCHESS OF PONTIFEX

SQUARE -
IZELLE OF THE DUNES -
THE LUCK OF THE LEURA
THE SWEETS OF OFFICE
THE YOKE (Author of " Mr, and

Mrs.Villiers ")
THE ROMANCE OF A MAID

OF HONOUR
SELMA - . . .

THE MAN WITH THE AMBER
EYES . . - -

THE HOUSE OF HOWE -

AMAZEMENT

THE MILLIONAIRE AND THE
LADY - - - -

Curtis Yorke
David Christie Murray
Harold Bindloss
Adeline Sergeant
Sir Wm. Magnav, Bart,
r. h. forster

G. W. Appleton
C. Guise Mitford
Mrs. Campbell Praed
Violet Tweedale

Hubert Wales

Richard Marsh
Lucas Cleeve

Florence Warden
May Crommelin
James Blyth

Gertrude Warden

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 ac 14 Norris Street, Haymarket, London

John Long's New & Forthcoming Books

RECENT POPULAR "^OYYl.^— Continued

KINDRED SPIRITS

A BUTTERFLY

DEYNCOURT OF DEYNCOURT

THE FOLLY OF THE WISE

INNOCENT MASQUERADERS

THE END OF A PASSION

THE SECOND EVIL

THE TWO FORCES -

ALL THAT A MAN HATH

THE DICTIONARY OF FOOLS
TWO WOMEN AND A MAHA-
RAJAH -
A SERPENT IN HIS WAY
A MINISTER OF FATE -
LEONE

THE STAIN ON THE SHIELD
A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK
FROM THE HAND OF THE

HUNTER -
THE GIRLS OF INVERBARNS

L. T. Meade

Baroness von Goldacker

Daisy Hugh Pryce

G. Sidney Paternoster

Sarah Tytler

Alice M. Diehl

Sadi Grant

E. Way Elkington

CoRALiE Stanton and

Heath Hosken
G. G. Chatterton

Mrs- C. E. Phillimore
Suzanne Somers
Charles Dawson
Lady Dunbar of Mochrum
Mrs. Darent Harrison
S. R. Keightley

L. T. Meade
Sarah Tytler

JOHN LONG'S SIXPENNY NOVELS

In Striking Picture Covers, 9 in. by 6 in.
NEW VOLUMES (JANUARY-SEPTEMBER, 1907)

58 A BRIDE FROM THE SEA Guy Boothby

59 WHEN IT WAS LIGHT (A Reply to " When It was

Dark") Well-known Author

60 A BIT OF A ROGUE Nat Gould

61 THE GIRL IN GREY Curtis Yorke

62 HIS ITALIAN WIFE Lucas Cleeve

63 THE LADY TRAINER " Nat Gould

64 THE SECRET PASSAGE Fergus Hume

65 IN SPITE OF THE CZAR Guv Boothby

66 A STRAIGHT GOER Nat Gould

67 AN INNOCENT IMPOSTOR Maxwell Gray

68 THE STORM OF LONDON F. Dickberry

69 A LOST CAUSE Guy Thorne

70 ONE HUNDRED TO ONE CHANCE - - . - Nat Gould

71 FUGITIVE ANNE Mrs. Campbell Praed

72 THE NIGHT OF RECKONING Frank Barrett

[List continued over.

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket, London

John Long^s New & Forthcoming Books

JOHN LONG'S SIXPENNY '^OY'E'LS— Continued

AN OUTSIDER'S YEAR Florence Warden

SOMETHING IN THE CITY Florence Warden

THE LOVELY MRS. PEMBERTON .... Florence Warden

THE MYSTERY OF DUDLEY HORNE - - • Florence Warden

KITTYS ENGAGEMENT Florence Warden

OUR WIDOW ....... Florence Warden

No. 3, THE SQUARE Florence Wardkm

THE JADE EYE - Fergus Hume

THE TURNPIKE HOUSE - .... Fergus Humk

THE GOLDEN WANG-HO Fhkgus Hume

THE SILENT HOUSE IN PIMLICO .... Fergus Humb

THE CRIMSON CRYPTOGRAM Fergus Hume

A TRAITOR IN LONDON Fergus Hume

WOMAN— THE SPHINX Fergus Hume

A WOMAN'S " NO ' Mrs. Lovett Cameron

THE CRAZE OF CHRISTINA Mrs. Lovett Cameron

A PASSING FANCY Mrs. Lovett Cameron

BITTER FRUIT - Mrs. Lovett Cameron

AN ILL WIND - - Mrs. Lovktt Cameron

MIDSUMMER MADNESS Mrs. Lovett Cameron

MRS. MUSGRAVE AND HER HUSBAND - - - Richard Marsh

ADA VERNHAM, ACTRESS Richard Marsh

THE MAGNETIC GIRL Richard Marsh

MISS ARNOTT'S MARRL&GE Richard Marsh

THE MASK - . . . ... William Le Queux

THE EYE OF ISTAR - William Le Queux

THE VEILED MAN William Le Queux

A MAN OF TO-DAY Helen Mathers

THE SIN OF HAGAR . - . - - Helen Mathers

THE JUGGLER AND THE SOUL .... Helen Mathers

FATHER ANTHONY Robert Buchanan

THE WOOING OF MONICA L. T. Meade

THE BURDEN OF HER YOUTH . ~ 2 L. T. Meade

A JILT'S JOURNAL ■ Rita

THE SIN OF JASPER STANDISH - - Rita

A CABINET SECRET Guv Boothby

THE LADY OF THE ISLAND Guv Boothby

THE FUTURE OF PHYLLIS Adeline Sergeant

BENEATH THE VEIL Adeline Sergeant

DELPHINE - . - Curtis Yorke

THE COUNTESS OF MOUNTBMOT .... John Strange Winter

THE SELLING PLATER Nat Gould

ONE OF A MOB Nat Gould

THE OTHER MRS. JACOBS Mrs. Campbell Praed

THE FLUTE OF PAN John Oliver Hobbes

THE KINGDOM OF MAMMON Violet Tweedale

THE STOLEN EMPEROR ...... Mrs. Hugh Fraser

A BEAUTIFUL REBEL .-...- Ernest Glanville

THE WORLD MASTERS George Griffith

IN SUMMER SHADE Mary E. Mann

LE SELVE Ouida

SWEET "DOLL "OF HADDON HALL ■ - J. E. Muddock

GEORGE AND SON Edward H. Cooper

THE SCARLET SEAL Dick Donovan

THE THREE DAYS' TERROR J. S. Fletcher

JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Nortis Street, Hay market, London

BILLING AND SONS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD

DC Baring-Gould, Sabine

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