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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #53945 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53945)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book of The Cevennes, by S. Baring-Gould
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: A Book of The Cevennes
-
-Author: S. Baring-Gould
-
-Release Date: January 11, 2017 [EBook #53945]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF THE CEVENNES ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Edwards, Christian Boissonnas and the
-Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-(This file was produced from images generously made
-available by The Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-  A BOOK OF
-  THE CEVENNES
-
-
-
-
-  BY THE SAME AUTHOR
-
-  MEHALAH
-  THE TRAGEDY OF THE CÆSARS
-  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 WITH THIS VOLUME
-
-  A BOOK OF BRITTANY
-  A BOOK OF DARTMOOR
-  A BOOK OF THE WEST
-     I. DEVON
-    II. 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
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: THE TAMARGUE FROM LA SOUCHE]
-
-
-
-
-  A BOOK OF
-  THE CEVENNES
-
-  BY S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.
-
-  "ILLE TERRARUM MIHI PRÆTER OMNES
-  ANGULUS RIDET, UBI NON HYMETTO
-  MELLA DECEDUNT, VIRIDIQUE CERTAT
-              BACCA VENAFRO;
-  VER UBI LONGUM, TEPIDASQUE PRÆBET
-  JUPITER BRUMAS."
-
-                   _Hor._ Od. ii. 6.
-
-  [Illustration]
-
-  WITH FORTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
-  EIGHT OF WHICH ARE IN COLOUR, AND A MAP
-
-
-  London
-  John Long
-  Norris Street, Haymarket
-
-  [_All rights reserved_]
-
-
-
-
-  _First Published in 1907_
-
-
-  Illustrations reproduced by the Hentschel-Colourtype Process
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
-  CHAPTER                                                          PAGE
-
-     I. THE CRESCENT                                                  1
-
-    II. LE VELAY                                                     15
-
-   III. LE PUY                                                       34
-
-    IV. ROUND ABOUT LE PUY                                           60
-
-     V. L'AUBERGE DE PEYRABEILLE                                     84
-
-    VI. LES BOUTIÈRES                                               103
-
-   VII. THE VOLCANOES OF THE VIVARAIS                               114
-
-  VIII. THE CANON OF THE ARDÈCHE                                    137
-
-    IX. THE WOOD OF PAÏOLIVE                                        153
-
-     X. THE RAVINE OF THE ALLIER                                    161
-
-    XI. THE CAMISARDS                                               177
-
-   XII. ALAIS                                                       203
-
-  XIII. GANGES                                                      221
-
-   XIV. LE VIGAN                                                    237
-
-    XV. L'AIGOUAL                                                   248
-
-   XVI. THE LAND OF FERDINAND FABRE                                 262
-
-  XVII. THE HÉRAULT                                                 282
-
-        INDEX                                                       305
-
-
-
-
-ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-
-  IN COLOUR
-
-  THE TAMARGUE FROM LA SOUCHE                            _Frontispiece_
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  LACEMAKER, LE PUIS                                                 25
-
-  LACEMAKERS                                                        102
-    From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont.
-
-  CASTLE OF VENTADOUR                                               128
-    From a photograph by Bigot-Croze.
-
-  PEASANTS OF THE CAUSSES                                           176
-
-  THE GOAT'S LEAP, LE VIGAN                                         241
-
-  PEASANT GIRLS OF THE CAUSSES                                      248
-
-  DOLMEN OF GRANDMONT                                               293
-    From a photograph by L. Froment.
-
-
-  IN MONOTONE
-
-  THE CYCLOPSES AT MOURÈZE                                            2
-    From a photograph by L. Froment.
-
-  LE SUC DE SARA                                                     14
-    From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont.
-
-  LA VOUTE-SUR-LOIRE                                                 23
-      From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont.
-
-  CASCADE DES ESTREYS                                                23
-    From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont.
-
-  LA BÉATE                                                           27
-    From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont.
-
-  CEVENOL PEASANT                                                    29
-    From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont.
-
-  CATHEDRAL, WEST FRONT, LE PUY                                      34
-    From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont.
-
-  PORCH, CATHEDRAL, LE PUY                                           40
-    From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont.
-
-  L'AIGUILHE                                                         42
-    From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont.
-
-  BASALT, ESPALY                                                     61
-    From a photograph by Vazelle.
-
-  LA ROCHE LAMBERT                                                   64
-    From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont.
-
-  MÉZENC                                                             69
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  GERBIER DE JONC                                                    72
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  THE TAVERN OF PEYRABEILLE                                          84
-    From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont.
-
-  MAYRES                                                             97
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  THE VIVARAIS CHAIN                                                114
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  THE VOLANE VALLEY                                                 121
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  LE FAUTEUIL DU DIABLE                                             123
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  FALL AT ANTRAIGUES                                                125
-    From a photograph by Bigot-Croze.
-
-  IN THE ARDÈCHE                                                    129
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  CRATER OF LA GRAVENNE                                             130
-    From a photograph by Bigot-Croze.
-
-  FALLS OF RUY PIC                                                  132
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  GORGES OF THE ARDÈCHE                                             137
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  PONT DE L'ARC                                                     144
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  "THE CATHEDRAL"                                                   147
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  PAÏOLIVE                                                          155
-    From a photograph by Artige frères.
-
-  CASTLE OF GANGES                                                  225
-    From a photograph by J. Bernard.
-
-  BRAMABIAU                                                         253
-    From a photograph by C. Bernheim.
-
-  CHEESEMAKERS, ROQUEFORT                                           275
-    From a photograph by E. Carrère.
-
-  S. GUILHEM-LE-DÉSERT                                              283
-    From a photograph by L. Froment.
-
-  IN THE CIRQUE, MOURÈZE                                            284
-    From a photograph by L. Froment.
-
-  GROUP AT MOURÈZE                                                  287
-    From a photograph by L. Froment.
-
-  THE SENTINEL AT MOURÈZE                                           288
-    From a photograph by L. Froment.
-
-  ON THE HÉRAULT                                                    296
-    From a photograph by L. Froment.
-
-  S. GUILHEM-LE-DÉSERT                                              298
-    From a photograph by L. Froment.
-
-  MILLS ON THE HÉRAULT                                              298
-    From a photograph by L. Froment.
-
-
-  IN THE TEXT
-                                                                   PAGE
-  SKETCH MAP OF THE CÉVENNES                                          4
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE
-
-
-The Cévennes are a mountain fringe to the uplifted plateau of
-Central France, and are less visited by English tourists than any
-other mountainous district in la belle France. They have been most
-unjustly 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 Cévennes should be visited from March to June, afterwards the heat
-is too great for travelling to be comfortable. 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 Armée 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 Cévennes—The character of
-     the range—The watershed—The Garrigues—The Boutières—Mézenc—The
-     Coiron—The mountains of the Vivarais—The Ardèche—Volcanoes—The
-     Camisard country—Larzac—The Hérault—The Espinouse—The Montagne
-     Noire—Neglect of the Cévennes—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 3,000 square
-miles. It dies down towards the 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 Gévaudan. 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 upheaval, 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 constitutes the Cévennes.
-These describe a half-moon, with its convexity towards the basin of the
-Rhône. Locally, indeed, the name Cévennes is limited to a tangle of
-schist ridges and deep-cleft ravines, constituting 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 undoubtedly,
-looking from the basin of the Rhône on the long purple chain, behind
-which set the sun in a glow of amber, as they passed up and down
-between Arles and Vienne—designated that range Cebennæ, and geographers
-still are disposed to so name the entire series, as constituting
-an orological entity, although the several portions have received
-distinguishing 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.
-
-[Illustration: THE CYCLOPSES, MOURÈZE]
-
-It seems therefore reasonable to take the entire curve as forming the
-Cévennes from the depression of the Jarrêt, 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 Cévennes," says Onésime 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 Hérault at Ganges,
-     between the Tarn at Pont-de-Montvert and the embattled gorges of
-     the Gardons, between the Allier at La Bastide and the ravines down
-     which rushes the Cèze, between the young Loire and the terrible
-     rapids of the Ardèche ... 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."[1]
-
-The chain of the Cévennes, of which Mézenc may be regarded as the
-hinge, forms a ridge on the right bank of the Rhône, running for a
-while parallel to the French Alps upon the left bank. But whereas these
-latter turn and curve to the east, forming the Maritime Alps, the
-Cévennes have bent in exactly the opposite direction.
-
-Geographically and historically the Cévennes divide into two great
-sections—the Cévennes Méridionales and the Cévennes Septentrionales.
-This continuous mountain 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 Cévennes 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 Cévennes towards the Rhône 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 coccifera_)
-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 underground and reappear often at great
-distances in copious springs.
-
-[Illustration: Sketch Map of THE CEVENNES]
-
-The northernmost portion of the Cévennes is the chain of the
-Boutières, composed of granite and gneiss, and they are the least
-interesting portion of the series. Few of the summits surpass 3,600
-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 Boutières attach themselves at their
-southern extremity to Mézenc, the loftiest peak of the Cévennes, 5,750
-feet. So also does the chain of the Mégal, separated from the Boutières
-by the valley of the Lignon. Seen from Le Puy, this ridge is fine,
-broken into peaks. The Mégal 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 Mézenc branches south-east the chain
-of the Coiron, volcanic as well, stretching to the Rhône, 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 Rhône has lowered its bed a thousand feet
-since the liquid stone flowed, and torrents have cut through lava and
-limestone, 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.
-
-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 excavations. 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 Cévennes,
-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
-interesting on account of the volcanic vents that remain in good
-preservation, and the wondrous walls of prismatic basalt that line the
-rivers.
-
-The Ardèche is certainly the most extraordinary river in Europe; after
-leaping, and burrowing, and sawing its way through basalt, it passes
-down a cleft of lias disposed 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 Cévennes, 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 Ardèche on the right bank of the Rhône 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 Ardèche 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 Mézenc and the Coiron to the east of the
-granitic plateau separates the southern from the northern Cévennes. 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 comparison with those of the principal range, which
-forms the watershed between the Loire and the Rhône, in the centre
-of which range is the three-toothed Mézenc, 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 Cévennes 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.
-
-The Cévennes are drifting westward. In Hérault 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 Hérault, that gives its name to the department, flows through
-a ravine, up which runs no road, save to S. Guilhem-le-Désert. Another
-river not easy to be explored is its tributary, the Vis. One can look
-down into the cañon from above, but not thread it.
-
-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 Cévennes 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 portion of the Cévennes well deserving of a visit.
-
-The Monts de Lacaune, almost wholly sterile, link the Cévennes of
-Hérault 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, 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 _bourées_, 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."[2]
-
-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 Cévennes are
-less interesting than that which intervenes, and, also, lest I should
-unduly extend the book.
-
-It is strange that the region of the Cévennes should 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
-Cévennes far away as a bank of cloud silver-fringed on their right
-hand beyond the Rhône. On their way back to England in spring they are
-disinclined 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 Lozère, dealt with in the former work, but confine
-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.
-However fine they may be, there are others in the departments of
-Ardèche, Gard, and Hérault, that fall but little, if at all, short of
-them in savagery and strangeness.
-
-There are no great towns in the Cévennes. Such as there are are sleepy
-and stationary; but from Béziers, Montpellier, Nîmes, Le Puy, where
-every comfort may be found, it is easy to run into the mountains,
-and return from them to recruit. Hotels are vastly improved 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 Cévennes 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 vegetation, 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 Ardèche, 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 Cévennes_—a delightful book, but dealing very little
-with the Cévennes proper, mainly with the Upper Gévaudan, and with that
-portion of Lozère threaded by the Tarn, and with neither of these do I
-deal in this volume.
-
-[Illustration: LE SUC DE SARA]
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[1] _France: Algérie et Colonies_, Paris, Hachette et Cie.
-
-[2] FIGUIER (L). _Mos de Lavène_, Paris, Marpon.
-
-
-
-
-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—Mézenc—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 Béate—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'Oïl. 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. Originally 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 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 surrounding 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 enumerate 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 overtaken 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 bodies. The relics of plants and animals in the same
-bed belong to species still existing in the neighbourhood.
-
-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
-     Cévennes. 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."[3]
-
-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 Baiæ.
-
-    "Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis prælucet amœnis,
-    Si dixit dives—lacus et mare sentit amorem
-    Festinantis heri."
-
-This originated a tale told by the peasantry to the 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 Gévaudan) 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 instead of throwing them into the tarn.
-This lake is now called Lac S. Andéol, on the mountains of Aubrac, and
-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 Cévennes is Mézenc, on the frontier of Haute Loire.
-It is 5,750 feet high, and was at one time the central point of violent
-Plutonic eruptions. 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-Boutières, remains very distinct.
-
-     "The phonolith of which Mézenc is composed," says Elisée 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
-     Mézenc, 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 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 Rhône, running in a precisely opposite direction,
-due south, to discharge into the Mediterranean.
-
-Then, again, going west, we have the Lot, the Tarn, the Jonte, the
-Truyère, 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 Lozère, 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 cañons were originally
-subterranean 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 Causses. They rise outside the
-limestone area, and cut right through it, separating one Causse from
-another.[4]
-
-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 Rhône 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 Ardèche, but flows in it for a short course only. It
-is still a feeble stream when it enters the department of 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 Sumène has entered it, under 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 superincumbent beds, from Peyredeyre to La Voute.
-The rock at this latter place sustains a restored castle belonging to
-the Duke of Polignac.
-
-[Illustration: CASTLE OF LA VOUTE-SUR-LOIRE]
-
-[Illustration: CASCADE DES ESTREYS]
-
-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 Chamalières. 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 l'Aiguilhe. Perhaps as interesting an example as any
-of the way in which an insignificant stream has 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
-considerable 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 Polignacs 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 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 mountaineers,
-     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 impossible and
-     sometimes perilous."
-
-To this fact is due the creation of the great industry of the
-land—lacemaking.
-
-[Illustration: A LACEMAKER, LE PUY]
-
-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 abandoned 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, Nîmes,
-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 patronage 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 1547, 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 lacemaker.
-
-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 discontent, 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 production 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 _commis 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
-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.
-
-[Illustration: LA BÉATE]
-
-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 communication 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 béate_. 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 Béate. This woman,
-whose official title is _Dame de l'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
-communications are difficult and are often impossible. It is then
-that they flock to the house of the Béate, 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 crêche, 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 curé, 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 evenings 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
-movements, 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. He makes no
-     distinction in his address to any one to whatever rank he may
-     belong, and however wealthy he may be. Communicative when on
-     terms of familiarity with him, an expression 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."
-
-[Illustration: CEVENOL PEASANT]
-
-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 unmistakable.
-
-Robert Louis Stevenson's account of the people of Le Velay is
-peculiarly unpleasant. He speaks of their discourtesy, 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'où '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."
-
-But I will quote again, and this time from Georges Sand:—
-
-     "I find here a race very marked in its characteristics, altogether
-     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 cleanliness 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 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 congeries 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 fighting 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 Taillefer, 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.
-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
-fulfilled 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 Chalençon, 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 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.
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[3] _Jean de la Roche_, Paris, Calmann-Lévy.
-
-[4] See "The Cañons of Southern France," by A. T. Jukes-Browne, in
-_Natural Science_, vol. vi., 1895.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-LE PUY
-
-     The basin of Le Puy—Situation of the city—Mont Anis
-     and l'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 façade—Cloister—Vaulting
-     of nave—Tower—Lay canonry—Paintings—Walls—Old houses—S. Michel de
-     l'Aiguilhe—How did the builders work?—S. Laurent—Du Guesclin—The
-     Bible of Theodulf—Wealth of the see—Bad bishops—Bertrand de
-     Chalençon—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'Allègre—The Huguenots retire—The Revolution.
-
-
-Assuredly no city in Europe occupies a site so 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.
-
-[Illustration: WEST FRONT OF CATHEDRAL, LE PUY]
-
-In this basin the climate is mild compared with that of the uplands,
-and the soil is fertile. The train from 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 the _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
-moreover 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 Nîmes in a
-day, for at the junction, S. George's d'Aubrac, the trains do not
-communicate, and there is 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 capstone. 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 monogram 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 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 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 returning 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 Isis 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 approached from the
-west by the Rue des Tables, so named on account of the stalls set out
-there at the 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 façade is enriched 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 façade 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, Nam Regina poli vult sine sorde
-coli." "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 intricate 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 intersection.
-Later on the church was carried further westward, and the singular
-western portion, a nave over a porch, was raised in the twelfth century.
-
-[Illustration: PORCH, CATHEDRAL, LE PUY]
-
-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 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 personages 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
-Mérimée 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 Perréal, painter to Kings Charles
-IX. and Francis I. In the Museum may be seen reproductions of some
-paintings from Langeac, in which the 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 allegorically 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 turbulence 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, doorways richly carved, and if one can
-look into the courtyards, 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 l'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 conglomerate of which it
-     is composed must have been originally enveloped and supported by
-     surrounding beds of softer materials, since worn away by aqueous
-     erosion."
-
-[Illustration: L'AIGUILHE, LE PUY]
-
-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 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 exercise
-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 VII.'s Chapel at Westminster. The Huguenots destroyed all
-these figures in the niches. They were restored and again broken up at
-the Revolution, but have not been reinstated.
-
-In the same hamlet of l'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 Orléans, 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 Companies desolated the Gévaudan, 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 Gévaudan to lay siege to
-Châteauneuf Randon, 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
-sickness, 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 épaules larges, le col court, la tête 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 Orléans (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 Débonaire," 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 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 overlaid 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 allotted to that Church, for of their successors none
-could lay claim to much holiness, and many were a disgrace 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 Chalençon's
-hands were also stained by blood; he exasperated his flock to madness
-by his exactions, heavily fining widows who remarried, and levying
-exorbitant fees on burials. When Innocent III. proclaimed a holy war
-against the Albigenses, and promised pardon for all sins to such as
-should outrage, rob, and murder these heretics, Bertrand headed an army
-of Crusaders, composed of the riff-raff of Velay, Auvergne, and the
-Gévaudan, 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 resentment of his followers. But they had full scope for
-their brutal instincts at Béziers 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 looking on, is reported to have said, smiling, "Kill all; God
-will know His own!"
-
-Bernard de Montaigu (1237-48), to enforce recognition 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
-fortifications, and outraged her. The guild of the butchers complained
-to the prelate, who scoffed at the deputation, 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 harrying 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 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 impregnated 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 1321, 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.
-
-Le Puy saw the formation of a remarkable confederacy 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 1182, 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 carpenter was a tool in the hands of one of the canons,
-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 representation 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 exhorted
-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 freebooters 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 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 disappearance gave free scope for the great Companies
-to reorganise and resume their depredations.
-
-When the massacre of S. Bartholomew was determined 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 bodyguard. 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 encounters, 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 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 of 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 Churchman 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 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, pleading 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 1574, Vidal Guyard, a hatmaker of Le Puy, placed himself at the
-head of a hundred and twenty Calvinists, 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 Calvinists 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, 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 Dauphiné 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'Allègre, with 20,000 livres to treat with Blacons, and
-offer this sum if he would divert his column on some other town.
-Christopher d'Allègre, 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 inhabitants of the place, and hastily repaired the
-fortifications.
-
-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 to the Viscount Polignac 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.
-
-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 contemporary 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'Allègre as their envoy into the city. This man must have been endowed
-with considerable 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 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 imprudent 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, nec vincetur," or
-in the words of Odo de Gissey, "Ne fut oncq' surmontée, 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
-     remains—Julien, the sculptor—Barrier of the Loire—Vorey—La
-     Lepreuse—Chamalières—Mézenc—Les Estables—Ascent—La Foire
-     aux Violettes—The violet harvest—Flora of Mézenc—Gerbier de
-     Jonc—View—Lake of Issarlès—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 wherewith 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, cañon
-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 with basaltic columns
-is another, yet the same term must be employed for both.
-
-[Illustration: BASALT, ESPALY]
-
-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 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 surmounted 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 Beaudiné in
-Velay, held by the Huguenot captain, La Vacheresse, 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 dispossessing 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. Agrève, 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 Bédoués in the
-Gévaudan, 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.
-Agrève 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 besieged 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.
-
-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 excavation 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 Château 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."
-
-[Illustration: CASTLE OF LA ROCHE LAMBERT]
-
-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
-museum 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 Mézenc,
-and Mégal with its group of _sucs_. 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 encircling 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
-conjectured 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; 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, built into modern 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 Etruscilla, wife of
-the Emperor Decius. The chapel of the Sisters of S. Joseph possesses a
-Romanesque doorway 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 uncle in the Jesuit
-Order. One day this priest, walking on a bit of wild moor scantily
-covered with coarse grass and juniper bushes, lit on his nephew, 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 père, 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
-surrendering 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 artist." So the uncle carried off young Julien and committed
-him 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 occupation 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 the basin of Emblavès 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 Mézenc, 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 Gerbison, which is striated with rills
-descending in small cascades.
-
-On June 16th, 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 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 Chamalières, 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 clerestory. 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.
-
-[Illustration: MÉZENC]
-
-The Mézenc, the highest of the Cévennes, 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 therefore 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 directions, they appear to have flowed
-     to great distances immediately upon their protrusion from the
-     volcanic vent.
-
-     "We shall be fully justified, by the universal declination of
-     these volcanic beds from the Mont Mézenc, 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 Boutières,
-     there still exists a semicircular basin whose steep sides are
-     entirely formed of scoriæ and loose masses of very cellular and
-     reddish-coloured clinkstones."
-
-The desolate tableland over which one travels to reach Mézenc 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 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 Mézenc, 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 Mézenc are so
-numerous and so large that in spring the mountain is arrayed in royal
-purple. The Mézenc 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 Nîmes. 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 hayloft, 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 Mézenc, and putting a few _petits sous_ into the pockets of
-those leading a hard life in this southern Siberia.
-
-The flora of Mézenc is subalpine, with many gaps. One rare plant alone
-is found on it, the _Senecio leucophyllus_, 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" Mézenc from Le Puy in a day. That admirable
-institution, the Syndicat d'Initiative, 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 mountain, not so high
-as the Mézenc, 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 the dislocation
-of the rock and the steepness make the climb somewhat laborious.
-
-[Illustration: GERBIER DE JONC]
-
-     "Yet—how one is repaid for the labour! The view over the Vivarais
-     is one of inexpressible beauty. No other belvedere 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 Cévennes; 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 _sucs_. 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 Issarlès is indisputably the most beautiful of the sheets
-of water in the Cévennes. It is circular, 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 Issarlès.
-
-But if no stream issues visibly from the lake, numerous 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 1156 by a Seigneur of Mézenc. The Carthusians used the lake
-not only as a fishpond to furnish their table, but also as a reservoir
-for the irrigation 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 16th Frimaire
-(4th to 6th December), and at the beginning of 1794 the Citizen
-Auzillon was deputed to inspect and report on Issarlès. 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 concealment in the neighbourhood.
-Auzillon declared in his report that the draining of the lake would
-cause an unwarrantable 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.
-
-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
-Issarlès.
-
-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 Nîmes 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 Abbé du Chayla at the Pont
-de Montvert. Noirot père had inherited from his ancestors nothing
-but an implacable hatred of Catholicism. 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 Nîmes 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 implacable dislike to his son. He sent him into the mountains
-to be fostered by peasants in the village of Issarlès, and thenceforth
-cared no further for him than to send grudgingly the meagre sum
-necessary for his keep.
-
-Pierre grew up in rough surroundings. His foster-parents, Antoine and
-Véronique Vidil, had three children, two boys and a girl, but lost
-their sons in one day by typhoid fever. Only the little Geneviève
-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 himself 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 reverse 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 happiness in the society of Geneviève.
-
-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 père 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; 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 Issarlès. 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 Issarlès for the Vidils to see
-him. He tasted of happiness only in the holidays, when he returned to
-Geneviève. Study was his great consolation. Philosophy and mathematics
-proved an irresistible 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 régimen of this institution
-suited him. He spent all his spare hours in the library. Pierre read
-voraciously 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: "Nîmes, 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 months, and accordingly
-returned to the Vidils, who received him with a warm welcome. These
-good people had planned to marry him to Geneviève, 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:—
-
-                                        "ISSARLÈS, _May 1st, 1859_.
-
-     "MY LITTLE ONE,
-
-     "I am obliged to apply to the béate, 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 Geneviève has died
-     of a languor. I am growing old, and am alone. Come and comfort
-     maman Véronique, 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."
-
-Geneviève 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
-Issarlès. 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 Issarlès to visit his friend there,
-the Curé Téraube; 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 wrapped in philosophic
-pursuits. He had brought away with him from Nîmes some of the doctrinal
-books that had belonged to his ancestors, but which père 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 perplexing 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
-presbytère to inform the Curé 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
-Curé managed to drag him out by the hair of his head. Pierre Noirot
-was conveyed to his bed. Life was not quite extinct. The Abbé Téraube,
-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?"
-
-At these words the eyes of Noirot opened; he looked up and said in a
-whisper: "Je vois—je sais—je crois—je suis désabusé."
-
-The Abbé, laying his hand on the unfortunate man's head, pronounced
-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.[5]
-
-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 drunkenness,
-     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. 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 tearing 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 characterless. 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 façade 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 renaissance 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
-became marvellously altered in the south. Theofred has been transformed
-into Chaffre, we have seen Evodius become Vozy, and in Hérault we come
-on St. Agatha disguised under the form of Ste. Chatte, and in Ardèche,
-Mélany 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.
-
-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 off 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. André 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 Philomène aged twelve.
-On November 27th, 1902, three peasants were returning from market at
-Lausanne, and had reached the glen of the Aubépine, 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 _l'Avenir_ at Le Puy went to the
-scene, but saw none of the performances. He contented himself with
-collecting evidence from eye-witnesses, and convinced 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 phenomena 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.
-
-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 something
-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 Philomène, and that the only spirits responsible 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.
-
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[5] _Révu du Vivarais_, 1893.
-
-
-
-
-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
-     Béraud—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.
-
-
-[Illustration: THE TAVERN OF PEYRABEILLE]
-
-The 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 Ardèche, 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. 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 Cæsar pressed in his memorable
-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 Ardèche, and followed down that
-river to Aubenas and thence into the Rhône valley. At almost the
-highest point, 3,850 feet above the sea, in a bleak spot away from
-other human habitations, stood a hostelry, Peyrabeille, 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 possessions
-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 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 staircase leading to the
-upper floor, where were the principal bedrooms. On the left a door gave
-access to the salle-à-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 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,
-consequently linked with the Rhône 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-préfet of Yssingeaux:—
-
-     "It was six o'clock at night. We decided reluctantly to 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-à-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 ventured to assassinate
-two men so well known as Haussmann 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 disappearance 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.
-
-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
-information of intending lodgers well furnished with money, in advance
-of the arrival of the guests. Furthermore, André 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 270,000 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 Béraud, 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 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, 1812, 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 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.
-
-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
-surprise 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 suspended 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 opportunity 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, observed 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 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 only did some
-     suspicion cross the mind of the old man, and he asked to share the
-     same room with me, but this was peremptorily refused.
-
-     "They led us to our separate bedrooms at some little distance
-     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 recommended 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
-     asleep—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,
-     however, 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 refusing 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 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 comment 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 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 sleeping 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 unable 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 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 Peyrabeille 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 circulate
-relative to the tavern, but no one was willing to speak out and lay a
-definite charge against the Martins.
-
-[Illustration: MAYRES]
-
-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 unconscious 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. 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 expedient 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 1831, 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 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 consented, and went with his kinsman to the fatal inn,
-which they reached at nightfall.
-
-There were in the house at the time André, the nephew of Pierre Martin,
-and a girl named Marie Arnaud, the betrothed of André, 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 requirements 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!" 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 Peyrebeille.
-
-The murder had been committed on the night of the 12th 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,
-accompanied 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 Coucouron 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 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 Lespéron 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 1st, Martin and his wife and his nephew André,
-and after that Jean Rochette, were arrested, but were not brought
-to trial for three years, as the prosecution 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. André, as
-already said, was acquitted, but Pierre and his wife and Jean Rochette
-were guillotined close to the inn on October 2nd, 1833.
-
-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
-previously. To Peyrabeille may be applied the words of Jules Claretie,
-relative to Paris after the Terror: "Il y avait encore dans Paris une
-odeur de sang, et Paris cependant s'ammusait; folle de joie."
-
-[Illustration: A GROUP OF LACEMAKERS]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-LES BOUTIÈRES
-
-     Geological formation—Characteristics of the Boutières 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 Dunnière—La
-     Tourette—Chalençon—Diana of Poitiers—Le Cheylard.
-
-
-Les Boutières 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
-Cévennes chain northwards. There are among them no craters, no floods
-of crystallised lava. Their heights are not extraordinary; they throw
-out long lateral spurs towards the Rhône. The scenery is tamer than in
-any other part of the Cévennes; 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, 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 sparkling 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 Rhône and Saône, 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 consumer. 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 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 XI., and was appointed governor of Dauphiné. The
-son married the heiress of Uzès, and with her the title of viscount
-passed to their son Charles, whose son Antoine was created Duke of
-Uzès. The ruined castle belongs still to the Uzès family.
-
-The castle was destroyed by Richelieu in 1623.
-
-In my book, _In Troubadour Land_, I have told the story of how the
-Uzès 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 Rhône at S. Peray is the castle of Beauregard, formerly
-a State prison, now a café restaurant with a speciality in tripe. So
-the whirligig of Time brings about its revenges.
-
-The most interesting excursion among the Boutières is up the valley of
-the Erieux, that takes its rise above S. Agrève. 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.
-
-The line up the valley is a masterpiece of engineering; 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
-Rhône a couple of miles above La Voute, but the junction of the line
-to Le Cheylard is at this place. La Voute sur Rhône 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 1319, 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 walled terraces, with infinite
-labour, and where there are not vines there are chestnuts and cherry
-trees. At S. Fortunat, the Dunière enters the Erieux, and hence a road
-leads to Vernoux, the Geneva of the Protestants of Upper Ardèche. It
-is mainly occupied by descendants 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. Agrève and Vernoux. They represent the original
-Huguenots far more truly than those who call themselves Evangelicals,
-for these latter have lapsed into Freethought, Indifference,
-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 worship. 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 curés in every way 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 curé 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 Catholics 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 proportions had been the other
-way on, without a doubt the Catholics would have acted with precisely
-the same intolerance.
-
-As a curé 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. 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
-Boutières, 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 overlooked, 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
-montes nascetur ridiculus mus._
-
-In 1885, when at the election for the Legislature the Conservative
-list passed in its entirety, the Protestants of Les Boutières 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 whose châteaux 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 courteously 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 château 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 gained, by becoming a duke, for now I am
-only Belluno (Belle Lune)."
-
-The river Dunière sweeps past Vernoux, and the road from S. Fortunat to
-this town presents a succession of striking scenes. The gorge through
-which the Dunière 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 contracted throat of Pontpierre, after the bursting of storms in
-the Cévennes, 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 Roumézoux, 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 Dunière 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 repurchased the eagle nest of its ancestors and has
-put 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 1671, the Marquess de La Tourette bought the barony of Chalençon 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 Chalençon.
-
-In 1523, Jean de Poitiers, father of the famous Diana, Baron of
-Chalençon, 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 became Baroness Chalençon and Privas. She seems never to have set
-foot in either. This left-handed queen died in 1566, and bequeathed
-the barony to the youngest of her daughters, Louise, who had married
-in 1546 Claude de Lorraine, Duc d'Aumale. In the square of Chalençon
-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 Boutières to the cone of Mézenc, to which the
-chain hitches 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 château 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 Mézenc 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—Fête 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
-     Pourcheirolles—The Flandrins—Bourzet—Good Friday there—Prismatic
-     basalt—Montpezat—Le Pal—Huge crater—Suc de Bauzon—Thueyts—Pavé des
-     Géants—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 towards 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?
-
-[Illustration: THE VIVARAIS CHAIN]
-
-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 commands 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 illumination, 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 Ardèche, 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 Vogué 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 either
-because she is suffering from toothache or heartache at parting with
-her intended. But neither ache is very enduring. Before the train has
-gone a thousand mètres, 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 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 préfet, nor of the bishop, nor of a
-university.
-
-The department of Ardèche has been treated somewhat 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 lycée is near the other end of the department,
-also at its eastern limit, with only a streak of water between it and
-Drôme. 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 Largentière 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 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
-explosions that were heard. The stags, the wolves even, fled from the
-Cévennes 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 Vogué, who held
-it till the Revolution. It has happily not been destroyed, and now
-serves as mairie, tribunal of commerce, etc. The façade is imposing,
-flanked by round towers and commanded by a square keep. The whole
-was roofed 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 Corsica, 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 Orléans,
-the King's brother, and governor 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 intermittent
-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 sulphuretted
-hydrogen, which phthisic patients inhale eagerly. When the water falls
-it is sucked back into the bore.
-
-[Illustration: THE VOLANE VALLEY, BY VALS]
-
-     "For the inhabitants of the plains of Gard and the
-     Bouches-du-Rhône," 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
-     Précieuse 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 belonged to Fay-Gerlande till 1794, when
-it was sold. The 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 15th 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 Abbé Volle, curé
-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 magnificent gateway with twisted columns and the
-arms of Montlaun was erected by Claude René 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 façade is sustained on a
-structural 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 scoriæ 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 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_.
-
-[Illustration: VALÉE DE LA VOLANE (LE FAUTEUIL DU DIABLE)]
-
-Emmanuel-Louis-Henri de Launez, Comte d'Antraigues, was born at
-Villeneuve de Berg, in the Vivarais, in 1755. In 1788 he published a
-_Mémoire sur les états généraux_, 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 following 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 Revolution 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 counterrevolution
-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 outpost of the French army
-in Italy, and was arrested with all his papers that contained full
-evidence of the conspiracy 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 attaché 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
-obtained 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 realisation 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, 1812,
-the Count d'Antraigues having expressed his intention to visit the
-Prime Minister to 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 circumstances 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 Aquæ, between
-the three streams—the Volane, the Bise, and the Mas.
-
-[Illustration: FALL AT ANTRAIGUES]
-
-On August 16th, the fête of S. Roch, a great pilgrimage is made to
-Antraigues, attended by many thousand persons. The neighbouring
-villages send their processions 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 processions 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 constructed 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 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 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 off 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."
-
-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 Ardèche 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 (pronounced Two-ets) and that to Jaujac, where the Lignon flows
-into the Ardèche.
-
-[Illustration: CASTLE OF VENTADOUR]
-
-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 wonderful 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 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 strongholds, Richelieu, in 1626.
-
-[Illustration: IN THE ARDÈCHE]
-
-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 Tanargue, 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 smashing 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 of _foie gras_ and battered
-sardine-tins, that the volcanic vent conveys the impression of having
-been the eruption of a great establishment of grocery and preserves.
-
-The sides of the bowl of the crater are dotted with chestnut trees, so
-as somewhat to disguise its character. Volcanic dust and cinder seem to
-be peculiarly favourable 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 château, 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 Ardèche.
-
-     "A wide and massive plateau of basalt thus formed, after entering
-     the valley of La Beaume, prolongs itself to some distance below
-     Neigles, bordering the Ardèche 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
-Fontollière to the fertile basin of Champagne, 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 150 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 Fontollière 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 Fontollière and Pourseilles.
-
-[Illustration: CRATER OF LA GRAVENNE]
-
-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 amorphous 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 Ardèche. The castle,
-perched as a vultures' lair in the midst of the valley of Montpezat,
-suspended between precipices, seems calculated 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
-Mézenc in 1312. 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 Fontollière, 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 perpendicular.
-A walk of from three to four hours from 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.
-
-[Illustration: FALLS OF RUY PIC]
-
-At Burzet, on Good Friday, a procession perambulates 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 uncrystallised 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 Italy, 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 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 thereabouts, 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 remarkable 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 ineffaceable characters on the slopes of the crater.
-Here was one of sand and mud, there one of lava and scoriæ 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 Rhône and of the
-     Loire. When winter came with its hurricanes of snow, deluges of
-     water were precipitated 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."[6]
-
-From the foot of the cone issues the source of the Fontollière, 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 Suc de Bauzon, another volcanic
-vent, red-headed, and 4,430 feet high. On the summit is a large stone
-table, at which, according to tradition, every year the four Seigneurs
-of Montpezat, 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 _suc_.
-
-We return again to the valley of the Ardèche 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 Pavé des Géants, 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 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 Ardèche, 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 Cévennes.
-
-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 mountains—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 1751, when Guettard and
-Malesherbes arrived at Montélimar 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 1751, that same year, Guettard
-published his _Mémoire sur quelques Montagnes de la France qui ont
-été 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
-Montélimar Guettard and Malesherbes had dined with an Abbé 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 1870, placed the further existence of volcanoes beyond
-possibility of dispute.
-
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[6] _Voyage aux Pays Volcaniques du Vivarais_, Privas, 1878.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII
-
-THE CAÑON OF THE ARDÈCHE
-
-     Ruoms—The church—Aven of Réméjadou—Sampson—Vallon—Captain
-     Merle—The last Marquess—Tapestries—Clotilde de Surville—Pont
-     de l'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—Aiguèze—S.
-     Martin—The return journey—Two men in a boat—Grotte de S.
-     Marcel—The Gours—Dolmens—The Aven of Vigneclose.
-
-
-[Illustration: THE GORGES OF THE ARDÈCHE]
-
-Ruoms is a quaint little town on the Ardèche, 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 Argentière. Ruoms
-was a walled town, and a considerable portion of the fortifications
-remains enclosing 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 lights in recesses
-under relieving arches. The tower has a zigzag ornament above the bell
-windows in black lava alternating with white limestone.
-
-The Ardèche is joined below the town by the river of La Beaume, that
-flows through a cañon very similar to that through which the Ardèche
-itself has run before it reaches the bridge of Ruoms. These cañons
-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 _aven_ or pot-hole of Réméjadou, 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 shepherd
-     of Bourbouillet asserted, that this subterranean stream issues
-     at the spring of that name. According to him, the inhabitants of
-     Bourbouillet were much surprised one day to see the water of this
-     spring charged with sawdust, and the explanation 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_."[7]
-
-This pot-hole was explored in 1892 by M. Gaupillat, and he established
-the curious fact that the underground stream enters and leaves the
-_aven_ by natural 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 Ardèche 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 abruptly 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 cañon of the Ardèche. 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 Ardèche are too small to accommodate baggage.
-
-Vallon is not a town in itself of much interest, but it contains the
-château of the redoubtable Huguenot captain, Merle de Lagorce, 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 remained to the Catholics.
-Opposite that, on the further side of the river, is Salavas, where a
-strong and extensive castle, now in ruins, occupied the crest of a
-precipitous rock. These two positions Merle was determined 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 Hérail de Merle, Baron de Lagorce, joined the Church, and
-entered into the service of the King.
-
-On February 6th, 1842, died in the château of Vallon the Marquess
-Emmanuel de Merle de Lagorce, last male descendant of the eldest
-branch of the family, and left the château 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 château
-of Montréal in L'Argentière, 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 Eléonore 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 château of Vallon.
-Her mother, Pulchérie de Fay Collon, had lived in the court of Gaston
-Phœbus, 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 Béranger de Surville, who
-quitted her early to fight under the command of the Dauphin, afterwards
-Charles VII. It was then that she wrote a Héroïde, opening with the
-words "Clotilde au sien amy doulce mande accolade." But the composition
-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 was 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 à Marguerite
-d'Hélicon."
-
-Clotilde lost her husband at the siege of Orléans after a union that
-had lasted but one year. About 1450 she married her son to Héloise 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 à mon premier né"
-that begin "O cher enfantelet, vray pourtraict de ton père," there
-is obvious imitation of a romance by Bérguin, published in 1775. But
-the whole tone and character of the poems make it quite certain that
-they were composed in the eighteenth century, to be palmed off as
-the literary achievements 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 Ardèche to the Pont de l'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, 110 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 cañon 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. 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 cañon 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. Hérail de Merle,
-son of the great Huguenot captain, abjured Protestantism, and married
-the daughter of Montréal, chief of the Catholics of the Vivarais.
-Profiting 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 captured 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 Chadenède 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 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.
-
-[Illustration: LE PONT DE L'ARC]
-
-Before reaching the Pont de l'Arc the cañon 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 Ardèche. 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 l'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 prehistoric 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 inhabitants of S. Remèze 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 Ardèche, 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
-transformed to a mirror, so that from the opposite side, that of
-the Castle of Ebbo, when the sun is full on the white 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 shooting 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 Gruyère 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 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 portions 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.
-
-[Illustration: "THE CATHEDRAL"]
-
-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
-precipices, 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 Aiguèze,
-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 rock opposite S. Martin,
-to disfigure the last spur of crag on the Ardèche. 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 halfway 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 cañon.
-
-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 Ardèche.
-
-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 garçon 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
-considerable, and we could not wait to send back for it. Any one who
-knows what a French _café 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 _déjeuné_, having eaten nothing since 8 a.m.; but we had
-hardly felt 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,
-thinking 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 imbibing 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 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 refreshment. I must
-assuredly give him a glass of something 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, goodness only knows. We left
-Vallon next day at 11 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.
-
-This I relate as a caution to future visitors to the cañon of the
-Ardèche. 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. Remèze. 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 Forêt-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 décimètres to several mètres—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 antennæ of polypi, all either white, yellow, or rose colour,
-     forming all together a vast pyramid of water-basins in onyx set
-     with diamonds."[8]
-
-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 _aven_ 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
-limestone 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.
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[7] A. Janet, _Annuaire du Club Alpin_, 1891.
-
-[8] _Les Abîmes_, Paris, 1894.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX
-
-THE WOOD OF PAÏOLIVE
-
-     Curiosity of the wood—How the rock disintegrated—Extraordinary
-     shapes—A labyrinth—La Gleyzasse—Hermitage—the King of Païolive—The
-     Royalists of 1792—Jalès—The Bailli of Suffren—Taking the
-     inventories.
-
-
-Le Bois de Païolive 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. Païolive is _Pagus Olivæ_. Curious the wood is,
-but cannot compare with Mourèze or Montpellier le Vieux, which have
-characteristics in common with it. The characteristics are these.
-There is an extensive elevated platform of cretaceous limestone 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 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. 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.
-
-[Illustration: PAÏOLIVE: THE LION AND THE BEAR]
-
-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 Païolive. But the mysterious
-wood grows above a whole subterranean 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 precipice
-     one can reach the Grotte of the Chouans. One descends, or rather
-     jumps, down to it, where it opens on a precipice 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 fragments of wall are worked into the fissures
-and surmount 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. Eugène, at the
-fringe of the forest. It is as though 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 King of Païolive.
-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. Eugène,
-and requiring of him as recognition of suzerainty annually a pair of
-partridges—a tribute, however, that was never paid. The succession of
-kings of Païolive 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 Païolive, confident that it would not be possible for the
-Republican troops to dislodge them, and their head-quarters was in the
-Grotto of Gleyzasse, three hundred feet above the river. The Directory
-of Ardèche, however, found means of securing the conspirators when they
-met at the Château of Jalès, and they were taken to Les Vans and there
-put to death, the Count among them. Jalès 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 Templars succeeded the Knights of Malta. The most celebrated
-commander among these, who resided at Jalès, was the Bailli of Suffren,
-whom the vassals complained 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 "Mirèio." The Bailli was killed in a duel by
-the Marquess of Mirepoix, in 1788.
-
-                "Our Captain was Bailly Suffren;
-                  We had sail'd from Toulon,
-                Five-hundred seafaring Provençeaux,
-                  Stout-hearted and strong:
-    'Twas the sweet hope of meeting the English that made our hearts
-          burn,
-    And till we had thrashed them we vowed we would never return."
-
-And, of course, these stout-hearted Provençeaux 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
-Païolive, the inventories were being taken in the churches of Banne and
-Berrias. As we drove to the wood the bell of Banne church 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. Outside 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 ordering 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 curés has been diverse. Here
-the taking of the inventory has been opposed by force, there permitted
-under protest. At Lodève, 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 curé 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 curés in most places took no lead in the demonstrations,
-which were often organised by reactionaries 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 demonstration. 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, à
-tout prix—des émotions."
-
-
-
-
-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 Ardèche—Langeac—Chanteuges—Disorderly monks—Fête
-     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 Vogué—Proprietorship _versus_
-     tenancy—Pradelles—Delivered from the Huguenots—Château 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 Cévennes.
-
-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 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 Dège 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 cañon.
-
-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 department 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 cañon of the Ardèche; this of the Allier is also
-a cañon, 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 Ardèche 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 Ardèche in every one of these particulars
-is southern. The Ardèche has cut its way through a level plateau; the
-Allier flows between ranges of mountains. The cañon of the Ardèche is a
-street; the defile of the Allier is a lane. We cannot seek the Ardèche
-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 distance from the station in the town. The
-place itself is of no great interest. It has manufactures, favoured
-by 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 Dège with the Allier. 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 suppression 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 quitting the world and embracing a life
-of religion. Accordingly he assumed the cowl in Chanteuges. But the
-old Adam was not dead in him. _Cucullus non facit monachum._ 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 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 abandoned 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 plundered 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
-converted 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 cavalcade issues from the gate, with cowls drawn
-over grinning skulls, and with serge habits flapping in the wind, 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 fête at Chanteuges is on Whitsun Day, and has a peculiar
-observance. It begins in the Pré 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 _fou_ has been discovered, he is grasped by the legs, thrown on his
-back, and spun round once by each of the youths forming the procession.
-Then a pistol is discharged, the procession reforms, 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 flows into the
-Allier. 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, 1777-1785. The Marquess was born at Chavagnac, 1757, on the
-tableland about the junction of lines at S. Georges d'Aurac. The castle
-was built in 1701.
-
-From Langeac one can explore the granitic Margeride, 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 mountains. 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 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 Ceffyl-y-Dwyr, the water-horse of Marchlyn. Can this myth have
-originated and been told by the Celtic race before its separation into
-several 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 Général 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:—
-
-    "Hic tibi rex regum hoc condidit Odilo templum
-    Agminibus superis quem miscuit arbiter orbis."
-
-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 Allier above Langeac presents many faces like organ
-fronts of basalt; in places the pillars form a _pavé de géants_. The
-prisms are employed 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 superincumbent 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 laminæ. 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
-excavated 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 discarded.
-
-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 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 employed 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 instruments 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 upwards 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 Gévaudan, of some commercial importance. A monastery
-was founded here in 998 by Stephen Count of the Gévaudan, and Silvester
-II. 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 1562 for nearly a
-century and a half the Gévaudan was devastated turn and turn 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 Agelmodis, the widow of the founder of church and monastery.
-It was accorded a crown in 1900 by the Pope, and the anniversary of
-this ceremony, July 29th, is kept as a fête 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 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 otherwise 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 householders 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 contaminated, 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
-propriétaire says to himself, "_I_ never 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 (_pratellæ_). The many Prades that occur in
-the south are all so called from the pratæ 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 gagnée!" 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 Lozère, is an ancient house with a
-tower that formed a portion of the château of Mgr. de Belsunce, the
-brave Bishop of Marseilles, who was so devoted in his attentions 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 Ardèche. It lies high—3,565 feet.
-On the face of an enormous basaltic rock is a remarkable 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
-Cévennes.
-
-The breaking out of this complaint caused consternation 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, they have shown
-the peasantry of the High Cévennes 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_, published 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?"
-
-[Illustration: PEASANTS OF THE CAUS]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI
-
-THE CAMISARDS
-
-     The country of the Camisards—Revocation of the Edict of
-     Nantes—Shepherdess and angel—Corbière—Gabriel Astier—Excitement in
-     the Boutières—Expectations of help from England—Prophecies—Murder
-     of Tirbon—Prophetic gifts at Porchères—Attack of Cheilaret—What
-     the prophetic gift really was—Isabeau Charras—Vivens—Battle of
-     Florac—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 Abbé du
-     Chayla—Séguier—Pont de Montvert—Fresh murders—Séguier taken and
-     burnt—Catinat—Murder of Saint Cômes—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
-prophetesses, 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 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 everywhere, and crowds went to see
-the girl and hear her narrative from her own lips. This was the first
-manifestation, but it was not till twenty years had elapsed that such
-became common. A preacher, Corbière, 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. Corbière 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 Dauphiné 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 remembered
-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 inspired. He had a medal struck with "Jurius
-Propheta" on it, and largely circulated in the Cévennes. Moreover, 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 Rhône into
-the Vivarais, and, followed by a troup of prophets and prophetesses,
-he went through the Boutières. 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 mountains, 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 multitude 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: "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 summoned William of Orange to the throne.
-William, it must be remembered, drew his title from the Principality of
-Orange, which he held, and this adjoined Dauphiné, 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 replaced
-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 Bâville, intendant of Languedoc,
-went to Porchères where he heard that a religious assembly was to be
-held. In this hamlet lived a poor old man named Paul Béraut, who had
-for long resisted the Spirit; but one day he heard his children 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. Béraut 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 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.
-
-Fléchier, 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.
-
-     "Ils furent surpris du spectacle qui s'offrit à leurs yeux.
-     La prophétesse était couchée à la renverse dans une cuisine,
-     les jambes nues et l'estomac tout à fait découvert. Tous les
-     assistants, à genoux autour d'elle, étaient attentifs à ces
-     pieuses nudités. Le prêtre voulut faire quelque remontrance à la
-     fille, mais la mère indignée lui dit: 'Quoi! malheureux que tu
-     êtes, vous ne respectez pas ma fille qui a le Saint Esprit dans
-     l'estomac!'"
-
-Gabriel Astier was finally taken and broken on the wheel in 1690.
-
-François 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 Cévennes 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 Bâville and de Broglie near
-Florac 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.
-
-Bâville executed several persons charged with having given him
-shelter. To revenge this Vivens, with his own hand, killed the curé of
-Conguérac, 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-Mortes, march across
-the plain, and join hands with the Cevenols. The correspondence was
-intercepted, and Bâville, 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 surmounted,
-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 himself shot by a man who had succeeded in creeping
-down in his rear. All but one of the pastors in the Cévennes, Pierre
-Roman, had been captured and hung. The death of Vivens and the peace of
-Ryswick deprived the Calvinists 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 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 Ardèche brought the prophetic gift into the
-Cévennes. 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 Cévennes preached and prophesied. The
-Governor of Languedoc had a number of them arrested and put in prison,
-and required 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 were _fanatics_. That was
-the sum of what they had to say.
-
-Bâville released the youngest of the children, but 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. Bâville 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 consequence 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 increased, and the Governor
-of Languedoc began to deal with hearers as he had with prophets. In
-October, 1701, he sent a company to disperse one of these meetings 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 down. Thus, in one day, the wife was deprived of
-husband, children, home, and substance.
-
-Throughout the Cévennes 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 Séguier, received similar
-revelations.
-
-The Abbé du Chayla, arch-priest and inspector of missions in the
-Cévennes, had a house in which he sometimes dwelt at Pont-de-Montvert.
-He had been a missionary in China, and had there suffered martyrdom,
-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 Bougès, when
-Séguier fell into ecstasy and prophesied. He was a wool-carder,
-tall, black-faced, and toothless, but a man full of energy 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 Séguier, 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 rejeté, Seigneur, sans espérance
-        De ton sein paternel?
-    N'apaiseras-tu pas, après tant de soufferances,
-        Ton courroux éternel?
-    Sion, qui dut avoir l'éclat et la durée
-        Du céleste flambeau,
-    Regarde, hélas! Seigneur, ta Sion adorée
-        N'est qu'un vaste tombeau!"
-
-Du Chayla heard the chant, and did not trouble himself 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
-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?" Séguier gave the order, and he was despatched,
-in the _place_ of the little town to which they dragged him. According
-to Brueys, Séguier 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 Abbé 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.
-
-Séguier 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 Frugères. When the last notes of their psalmody
-died away, two Capuchins who had managed to conceal themselves in a
-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! Frugères, S. Maurice, S. André 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.
-
-Séguier, 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, command."
-
-Whilst the funeral of Du Chayla was in progress, actually Séguier,
-followed by a band of thirty men singing psalms, had entered Frugères
-and shot the parish priest. They went on to S. Marcel, but thence the
-vicaire had escaped. At S. André the curé, hearing of the approach of
-the band, rang the alarm bell. Séguier's men pursued him, flung him out
-of a belfry window, and then hacked him to death. The school-master
-was also murdered and his body mutilated. Wherever he went Séguier
-destroyed the crosses and every emblem of Catholicism. On the night
-of the 29th July the band surrounded the Castle of Ladevèse, where was
-a store of arms taken from the Protestants. When summoned 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 château, 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 command of the troops to a Captain
-Poul, who managed to capture Esprit Séguier, and The Mower was tried
-at Florac and sentenced to have his hand cut off and then to be
-burnt alive. On August 12th, 1702, Séguier 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 Séguier was avenged on the following day. The band,
-knowing that the Baron de Saint-Cômes, 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
-Lozère 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 recruits. Circumstances favoured his project.
-Executions had multiplied of persons merely suspected of having
-attended the religious assemblies, so that the Calvinists alarmed fled
-their homes and in great numbers 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 curés 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
-impetuosity. 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.
-
-Roland, nephew of Laporte, now assumed the command. 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 constitution; 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 Announcement, 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 regarded 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 magazines,
-powder mills, arsenals, and even hospitals in the caverns that abound
-in the Cévennes, notably in the limestone mountains. He also required
-all his co-religionists to pay a tax in money or goods for the
-maintenance of the army. He formed wind and water 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 murmured 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
-"Théâtre sacré des Cévennes," 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!
-     à 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 movements of the breast and great sobs. M.
-     Cavalier made prayer. I was one of the first to embrace Clary and
-     examine his 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:
-
-     "1. 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 wild excitement in which the Calvinists were rendered
-them incapable of calm observation, 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 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 persecution 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 Cévennes, 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, Uzès, Nîmes and Montpellier—in fact, over the present
-departments of Lozère, Ardèche, Gard and Hérault.
-
-In January, 1703, the Marshal de Broglie, with a considerable force of
-dragoons and militia, went to Vaunage in quest of Cavalier, but could
-not find him, for he, in fact, was then in Nîmes, 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 insurgents saw the royal troops
-approach they drew up, prepared for battle, in a situation 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 "Voilà votre Poul (cock)! We have plucked
-his feathers; stay to eat him."
-
-Immediately after this success the Camisards marched to Roquecourbe,
-near Nîmes, 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 commanded 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.
-
-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. Julien, 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 Cévennes 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 curé 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 dismembered 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 committed atrocious acts. They tied three
-children up in 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 dismembered; 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. Génies 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 curé and vicaire.
-
-At Ambais Sommière, on September 27th, 1703, the 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 who had been actively engaged in hostilities, but
-inoffensive peasants.
-
-Thirty-one parishes in the Cévennes, 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 Jonquière,
-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 Bâville, 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 retired, first to
-Holland and then to England. The revolt lingered on, the most fanatical
-refusing all compromise; 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 pertained to Catholic faith and
-worship. They recognised but one sin—attendance at Mass.
-
-Their fanaticism was the natural and irresistible outcome 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, inspiration, 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 prophecy 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 nowhere
-     has it succeeded worse. It is the chastisement of all 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 fêted as a hero,
-received into the best society, and died Governor of Jersey in receipt
-of a handsome income; 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
-
-ALAIS
-
-     Descent from La Bastide—Viaduct of the Luech—Coal-beds—The
-     town of Alais—Rochebelle—Ancient oppidum—Hermitage—The last
-     hermit—Sidonius Apollinaris—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 varnished 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. Génolhac is passed,
-that suffered cruelly from Catholic and Camisard alike, whence
-Pont-de-Montvert may be visited, and the house seen where lived the
-Abbé du Chayla.
-
-A magnificent curved viaduct crosses the basin of the Luech, carried
-on two stages of arcades 180 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 1721, a Carmelite,
-Esprit Boyer, worked indefatigably 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 nicknamed 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
-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 Brégis, 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 commanded 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 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 Condé. His war-cry was "Allez comme Alès!" and on his son's sword
-was inscribed:
-
-    "Je suis Cambis pour ma foi,
-    Ma maitresse et mon roi,
-    Si tu m'attends, confesse toi!"
-
-Both Jacques and his son died on the same day, August 21st, 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 convent to say that her husband walked and made unpleasant
-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 question the ghost. She asked, "Are you a good
-or a bad spirit?" _Answer_: "Good."—"Where are you now?" _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 moment 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 acrimonious that Pope John XXII. 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 XXII. had issued his homily, in which
-he asserted that the dead did enjoy the beatific vision. Jean Gobi saw
-his opportunity. He published at once an account of his interview 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 contended,
-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 massacred 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 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 Switzerland 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 1801, 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 République,
-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 B.C. 2,697, and great secrecy
-was observed as to how the silkworm was reared and how the cocoon
-was unwound; 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 mulberry 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 quantities, 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,
-forbidden 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 mulberries, crushed them in water, and obtaining thus
-the seed alone, dried it and enclosed it in their hollow bamboo canes.
-Then they departed on their return journey. On reaching Greece they
-related their adventures 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 vigorously, 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 Ægean the culture spread
-to Sicily, to Italy, and to Spain. The Arabs, who had already in the
-East acquired a knowledge 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
-had attended Charles VIII. brought back with them the seed of the white
-mulberry and the eggs of the silkworm into Languedoc and Provence. The
-first mulberries planted there were at Alban, near Montélimar, 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
-stockings, 1550. The religious troubles and the rivalries between the
-great seigneurs did much to impede the progress of agriculture and of
-sericulture. The cultivators 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 agriculture 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 Béarnais, 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 encouraging the production of silk in France, and he confided
-to a gentleman of the Vivarais, Olivier de Serres, the mission of
-developing sericulture by writing a treatise advocating it. De Serres
-published his "La cueillette de la soie" in 1599. Two years later he
-brought to Paris twenty thousand young mulberry trees, which were
-planted in the gardens of the Tuileries. At the same time Traucat, a
-gardener at Nîmes, with royal assistance, erected vast nurseries, which
-in forty years supplied over five millions of mulberry 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 commemoration of
-the great minister of Henry.
-
-Sériculture made no progress during the reign of Louis XIII. It lost
-ground, and it was Colbert, the celebrated 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 indifference among
-nobles and peasants alike. Colbert, following 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 magnanaries 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 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
-silkworms. In 1650 De Comprieu, Consul of Le Vigan, introduced the new
-industry into the Cévennes 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 prospering 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
-restrictions. In 1692 they obtained a patent, giving them the exclusive
-right to manufacture lute-strings and à-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 importation of
-all European manufactured goods, but also 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 £500,000 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 silkworms, 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, favourable to the
-industry. But an event that had considerable 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.
-
-     "The silkworm is the caterpillar of the mulberry-tree moth
-     (_Bombyx mori_) belonging to the tribe of mealy-winged nocturnal
-     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 (_Morus nigra_), so well known in
-     Great Britain, is not the best species for the nourishment of the
-     silkworm. The white-fruited mulberry (_M. alba_), a native of
-     China, is the best, and is greatly preferred by the insect."[9]
-
-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
-sluggish, 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
-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, antennæ
-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.
-
-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 husbandry is completed within six
-weeks from the end of April.[10]
-
-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 provision 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 République is a bronze statue to Florian (Jean
-Pierre Claris), born in the château of Florian, near Sauve, in 1755,
-and who died in 1794. He wrote plays, stories, verses, and fables. Not
-knowing 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 œuvres 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 warld asleop is gane,
-    Thewaes o my heart fall in shovers fra my eye"—
-
-and so on.
-
-We have a fault, Florian is kind enough to inform us:—
-
-     "Ils dédaignent d'ouvrir les yeux sur le mérite, sur les qualités
-     qui sont propres à chaque peuple; cette insouciance donne à leurs
-     vertus un air d'orgueil qui en diminue l'attrait; enfin, ils
-     comptent pour fort peu de chose l'approbation, le suffrage des
-     autres; et le seul moyen d'être aimable, c'est de les compter pour
-     beaucoup."
-
-I suspect that this criticism is more just than his rendering of
-English surnames and his spelling of Scottish words.
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[9] Tomlinson's _Cyclopedia of the Useful Arts_, _sub voce_.
-
-[10] De l'Arbousset, _Les Cévennes Séricoles_, and _Cours de
-Sériculture Pratique_, Alais, n.d. Maillot (E.), _Leçons sur le Ver à
-Soie_, Paris, 1885.
-
-
-
-
-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—Manufactures of
-     Ganges—Season for excursions.
-
-
-From Alais the train that runs on to Nîmes drops one at Quissac, whence
-diverges a branch to Le Vigan and Tournemire on the main line from
-Paris to Bézier, 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
-Carée at Nîmes. 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 neighbourhood. 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.
-
-The micocoulier, or nettle tree (_Celtis Australis_), is much grown
-around Quissac. This tree flourishes along the south of Europe
-bordering on the Mediterranean, 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 curé, aged seventy. They swept together forty of
-the parish priests of the neighbourhood 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.)
-
-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 Sommières 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 produce 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, 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 Sumène with the Hérault,
-and near where the Vis emerges from its gorge to shed its waters into
-the Hérault. 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 château 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, 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 explain
-the motive of the murderers, and we shall be obliged to distinguish
-between these and the facts that were proved.
-
-[Illustration: CASTLE COURT, GANGES]
-
-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 Christina 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 Nochères, 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 Mediterranean. 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 Abbé de Ganges, did his utmost to estrange the
-married couple.
-
-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 Abbé. 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 commendam_, 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 Abbé. 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 dissipation of a capital. He left his two younger brothers at the
-château, and placed the management of his estates in the hands of the
-Abbé.
-
-According to Pitaval, both brothers fell in love with the far older
-Marquise, and the Abbé ventured to declare his sentiments towards
-her, and was repulsed with disdain so cutting as to fill him with
-resentment. Soon after M. de Nochères 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 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 Abbé and the Chevalier were circumspect.
-
-But before long the dowager marquise left for Montpellier, 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 Abbé 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 Abbé 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 Abbé, 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
-Abbé 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 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 Abbé 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 Abbé 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 Abbé roused and attempted to talk, but manifestly
-with an effort. Nor would either of them eat. Presently the party broke
-up. The Abbé undertook the duties of host, and accompanied the ladies
-to the door of the château. 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 Abbé 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 Abbé entered the bedroom, a pistol in one hand and a tumbler
-with some dark turbid liquid in the other. 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 Abbé 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 Abbé. 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 dissolved 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 convulsive 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 soul as well as my body;
-send for a confessor." Both brothers left the room. They had no reason
-for refusing 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, nevertheless
-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 braining 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 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 Abbé coming up,
-pistol in hand, stood on the threshold and threatened to shoot any one
-who interfered. His sister-in-law in her madness 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
-unfortunate 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 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 Abbé, 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 Abbé 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 Avignon he had got wind of what she had done to protect
-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 Abbé
-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 Abbé escaped into Lippe, where, under the assumed name of
-Montellière, 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 Montellière well enough, but objected that he was not noble.
-
-"Oh! as to that, do not concern yourself," said the Abbé, "I am the
-Abbé 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 Abbé 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 of Amsterdam. "You
-are the Abbé 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 archæological 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 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 residing 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 opening 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 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. Marvels 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 remarkably 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 embroidresses 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 château 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 Hérault, 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 Daudé—Execution of Bénézet—Reprisals—Avèze—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 Chevalier 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 presently 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
-Mediterranean. 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, 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 runnels 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'Is, and the bath and
-remains of her temple are under the present corn market.
-
-The Saracens penetrated the defiles of the Cévennes, and attacked and
-destroyed Vindomagus. They have left their traces in the terminology of
-certain localities about the town, as Le Champ de Mâoureses and Le Camp
-Sarrasin.
-
-In the Middle Ages Le Vigan was a walled town, about a priory; the
-prior exercised rights of high justice alternately 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 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 l'Angleterre,
-    On met au ministère
-    Peyrenc dont le grand-père,
-    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 neighbourhood, 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
-conversion, 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 l'Oiselette, visible
-from Le Vigan, to hear one of the pastors preach, when a body of
-dragoons, guided 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 marketplace of Le Vigan.
-
-On June 5th, 1704, the delegate of Bâville at Le Vigan, named Daudé,
-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 cornfield. 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 condemned 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 Bénézet, 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 dragoons. Marazel managed to escape;
-the other was conveyed a prisoner to Montpellier. Bénézet 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 suspected of having betrayed the ministers, was found dead, with
-her tongue torn out of her head.
-
-[Illustration: THE GOAT'S LEAP, LE VIGAN]
-
-Above Le Vigan is Avèze, where is the sacred spring of Isis, the
-source of the Vézénobres, 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 calcareous rocks near
-Aulas. Avèze is a village built in amphitheatre above the junction of
-the Gleppe and the Coudeloux, which disembouch into the Arre. Avèze
-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, the civil authorities at Le
-Vigan implored 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 d'Ayémard,
-was assassinated on the high road by murderers sent 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 Avèze was a matter of a lawsuit that lasted over a
-century and a half. Sentence was pronounced against De Beaufort, its
-legitimate owner, but he refused submission to the judgment. He armed
-his vassals, defended himself, and killed some of the constables sent
-to demand the surrender of the castle. He had, however, finally to
-yield; and the château became later, by a judgment of the Parliament
-of Toulouse in 1788, the property of the family of Montcalm, descended
-from the Sire de Beaufort. Next year the marquess, son of the heroic
-defender of Quebec, came to inhabit Avèze, and it is a satisfaction to
-know that during the turmoil of the Revolution the venerated name of
-Montcalm preserved the château from being destroyed. It still belongs
-to the family, and is surrounded 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 1621 it was one of the five
-most important places in the district devoted to the principles of
-the Reformation, that was fortified by De Châtillon, grandson of the
-Admiral Coligny. Castle and walls have fallen; they were levelled after
-the peace of Alais. Just beyond Aulas is the Château de Clapisse, in
-which was born, in 1740, Henri de Celadon, Chevalier de Lanuéjols,
-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 Rhône,
-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
-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 successive times was
-not there. Then he instituted inquiries, and ascertained that his foe
-had died two years previously. What the cause of the long-protracted
-quarrel was never came to light; De Celadon, who died in 1810, 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
-Hérault, 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 (_mons arduus_) is five miles from Le Vigan, and to reach
-it the Causse has to be passed under from Avèse. 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 Duc,
-occupies a well-timbered height above the little stream that joins the
-Arre at Avèze. 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 François 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 Montpellier. 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
-limestone, 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, 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 nakedness 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 position 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 cañon. 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."[11]
-
-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.
-
-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
-Cévennes, 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
-recommend 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 during 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 Clostercamp 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 threatened 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, 3,000 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.
-
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[11] Chante: _Un Coin des Cévennes_. Paris, Berger-Levrault.
-
-
-
-
-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—Valleraugue—Roman
-     road—Barre—Limestone cirques—Causse de l'Hospitalet—Florac—Dirty
-     streets—Mimente—Cassagnas—Fontaine du Pêcher—The
-     Dourbie—Trèves—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 Cévennes,
-as Mézenc is that of the outer range. On one of its summits sits a
-meteorological 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.
-
-[Illustration: PEASANT GIRLS OF THE CAUSSES]
-
-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 interesting 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 Cévennes. 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 mustering 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 explosions 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, carrying 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 diminutive size, swell
-to the brim and overflow, carrying 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 weatherwise, and note
-many indications of an approaching 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 Lozère, 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 bén de l'Oual prén tons bioous et baï o l'oustal.
-    Se lo nibou bén de Louzero, prén tons bioous et baï 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 Lozère, take
-your oxen and go to the furrow."
-
-The Aigoual is a granitic mass, reaching to 5,140 feet, whereas the Roc
-de Malpertus, in the Mont Lozère 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 antediluvian 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 Fayède, looking towards the
-sun-bathed basin of the Rhône; 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 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 Florac, below which it enters
-the Tarn. A little to the north-east is the Signal de l'Hospitalet,
-and beyond Barre des Cévennes. The old Roman road ran over this latter
-col to penetrate into the heart of the Cévennes; 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. Bramabiau may also be visited from Le Vigan. The
-rivulet of the Bonheur, that descends from the Col de Séyrerède 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 onomatopœic,
-and signifies the bellowing of a bull, as the water in time of flood
-gives forth angry sounds.
-
-Nothing surprises one more than the apparent inadequacy 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.
-
-[Illustration: BRAMABIAU]
-
-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 distance, 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 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 subterranean 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 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 side of Valleraugue 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 mountains 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 Hérault. The
-descent from the Aigoual to Valleraugue occupies two hours, the ascent
-by the carriage road takes seven. Valleraugue 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 Hérault as far
-as Ganges is one of the most active in silk industry in the Cévennes.
-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 l'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 Florac. 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 d'Aire de Côte ensues a series of frightful cirques,
-whose vertical walls crumble away by degrees under the action of the
-weather. The flanks of the mountain are profoundly 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 l'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
-     l'Hospitalet is both picturesque and of scientific interest."[12]
-
-Florac 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 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.
-
-Florac 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.
-
-Florac 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 Mimente
-rises in the mountain of Bougès, whose summit is crowned by the forest
-of Altefage, where under three huge beech trees met the murderers of
-the Abbé du Chayla. At Cassagnas, a village near the source of 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.
-
-Florac possesses its natural curiosity, the Fontaine du Pêcher, that
-discharges the water infiltrated from the plateau of Méjan. 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 Trévesel. The Pas de l'Ase is a profound gorge, 1,200 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 Trèves, 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 the town was then called, and in it he died
-in the year 470. Firminus was educated by his uncle Noricus, Bishop
-of Uzès, 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 Trèves, 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;
-notwithstanding 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 districts of Dordogne and Lot, and in the sandstone
-regions of Maine-et-Loire and Vienne, troglodite habitations abound.
-
-After crossing the Col de la Pierre-Plantée, 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 Saudières, 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 Saudières 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 _dour_ 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 2,400 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,
-     _un dormant qui ne 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 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 Bégon, shaded
-by gigantic dolomitic mushrooms, 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 Montcalm, 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.
-
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[12] Martel: _Les Cévennes_. Paris, 1891.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI
-
-THE LAND OF FERDINAND FABRE
-
-     Ferdinand Fabre—His novels—Biography—The uncle—Discouragement—Les
-     Courbezon—Bédarieux—Ruined by a strike—Hérault—The
-     Population—Iberians—Ligurians—Umbranici—The Gauls—Chestnuts—The
-     Beaters—Ballad of the Chestnut-tree—The Séchoire—Fêtes in
-     Hérault—Carotat at Béziers—Pepezuc—The Ass of Gignac—Roquefort
-     Cheese—Le Bousquet d'Orbe—Lamalou—N. Dame de Capimont—Extinction
-     of the hermits—Villemagne—Gorge of the Héric—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
-Cévennes about Bédarieux, 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 curés, 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 Célestin_, _Barnabé_, _Monsieur Jean_,
-and _Xavière_. To the latter a series—_La Paroisse du Jugement
-Dernier_, _Le Calvaire de Mme. Fuster_, _Le Couvent de la Falosque
-Bergonnier_, _L'Hospice des Enfants Assistés_; and the purely clerical
-romances, _Lucifer_ and _l'Abbé Tigranne_.
-
-The delicacy of touch, the exquisite delineation of character among the
-peasantry of the Cévennes, and the beautiful descriptions of scenery
-and bird life in the first category make these stories essential to a
-knowledge of the country I am describing in this chapter, and no one
-should visit it without having read at least some of them. Ferdinand
-Fabre was born in 1830 at Bédarieux, 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 curé 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 Abbé Courbezon, the
-Curé Fulcran, or Mon Oncle Célestin.
-
-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, _l'Abbé 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.
-
-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 "caught on" at once.
-The charm of style, the sweetness of mind it displayed, the keenness
-of insight into character, and the daintiness of description 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 Académie. 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. _Barnabé_, an excellent study of a class of men now
-completely passed away, appeared in 1875. Fabre died in Paris on 11
-February, 1898.
-
-Bédarieux 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.
-
-Bédarieux is on the Orb at the confluence into it 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 Bédarieux must be tarried at for a few nights
-if Rochefort, Lunas, and Boussagues are to be visited, or much time
-will be lost in the trains. Bédarieux is the station of bifurcation of
-three lines from the main trunk from Clermont to Béziers, and any one
-who has had experience 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 Cévennes—the Cévennes 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 Cévennes 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 Béziers
-and Montpellier as with a cat-o'-nine-tails dipped in water that has
-been frozen. But these winds pass over Bédarieux 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 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 men 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 surroundings and of occupations. We are now
-in the department of Hérault, 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 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 extermination, 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 filling Lower Languedoc with
-very heterogeneous inhabitants, the complexity of which explains the
-apparent contradictions 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 Rhône 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 Ambrussum,
-now Pont-Ambroise, on the Vidourle. Twenty-three inscriptions remain,
-mostly in Gard, in an unknown 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 Rhône and the Garonne, and extended their
-authority over the Ibero-Ligurians. These new arrivals seem to have
-treated the conquered much as the Ligurians had the Iberians. They
-established themselves 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 conquered 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
-derivation, given perhaps by the Umbrian colony.
-
-The staple of life in the Cévennes, 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 certainty, nor has any remedy been
-found efficacious. In some years the leaves fall in September, and the
-fruit 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 _clèdes_
-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."
-
-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 Fête 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 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 châtaignier est planté
-          Il monte, monte, monte!
-        Quand le châtaignier est planté
-          Nous buvons largement à sa santé.
-
-        Quand le châtaignier est en fleur,
-          Belle, belle, belle!
-        Quand le châtaignier est en fleur,
-          Le pays prend son odeur.
-
-        Quand le châtaignier a grainé,
-          Il graine, graine, graine!
-        Quand le châtaignier a grainé,
-          Chacun danse dans son pré.
-
-        Quand les châtaignes nous avons,
-          Bonnes, bonnes, bonnes!
-        Quand les châtaignes 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 Châtaignier. It was as grand, as beautiful, as
-     sublime as any psalm, any hymn I have heard in any church.
-
-        "Cévennes pleins de rochers,
-          Hautes, hautes, hautes!
-        Cévennes pleins de rochers,
-          Faites nous forts et religieux."
-
-When the chestnuts have been gathered, then in November they are dried
-in _séchoirs_. 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 _carézéïros_, 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 _séchoirs_, it is hard to endure the smoke, and
-one stands the risk of being asphyxiated. Nevertheless the peasants
-spend two months in the year 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 _séchoir_. 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 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 _séchoir_. And he himself, 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 _séchoir_ is the village centre; to
-it flock the poorest members of the commune, who have no drying-houses
-of their own.
-
-The fêtes in Hérault are often very curious, and evidently date from an
-early period, and are reminiscences of paganism.
-
-For instance, the Carotat at Béziers 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 received were put into the mouth of the beast.
-
-Next day, to the sound of cannon and bells, the Corporation 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 fête is dead. But
-what does survive at Béziers and at Montpellier and elsewhere is the
-Danse des Treilles at the fête called Roumarin. The young people, in
-their gala dresses and adorned with bunches of rosemary, carry hoops
-similarly decorated, with which they perform the evolutions of a
-graceful ballet in which there are seven figures; and the bystanders
-pelt them with violets. At Montpellier the dance is considered to be
-a commemoration of the marriage of Peter II. of Aragon to Marie de
-Montpellier, June 15th, 1204.[13]
-
-At Béziers 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 Augustus. 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 fêted. 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 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 maintains enormous flocks of sheep, and
-indeed from throughout 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 _cabanières_, 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.
-
-[Illustration: CHEESEMAKERS, ROQUEFORT]
-
-I have described the making of the cheese in my _Deserts of Central
-France_. The natural caves in Roquefort 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 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 Bédarieux 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 Cévennes 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 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 successors 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 _Barnabé_, and also in _Mon Oncle Célestin_.
-
-     "I am in despair," says he. "Letters from the South inform 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 themselves, had allowed
-     themselves a good deal of freedom, more than was decorous. For
-     instance, it was not particularly edifying at Bédarieux 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.
-
-     "But as these monastically habited gentry in no way scandalised
-     the population of the South, who never confounded the occupants
-     of the hermitages with the curés 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 _à 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 curés 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 Bédarieux. This is Villemagne, with a
-ruined abbey and mint. The abbey was founded by Charlemagne in 780.
-The church of the parish is dedicated to S. Majan, 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 bénitier.
-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 Héric. For this
-it is advisable to take the train to Colombières 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 900 feet. By the path one can reach the village of Héric, 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
-Héric dies in his bed. What I have said before I repeat here. None of
-the gorges in the Cévennes 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.
-
-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
-l'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 abandoned, that was built on a jagged rock,
-its ruins mingling 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 dilapidated. The still more modern town lies
-below the hill. There is an intermittent spring in the side of the
-Hôtel Soulié. 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 Espinouse 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 Bédarieux—
-
-     "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 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 _pillards_, 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.
-
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[13] Ferd. Troubat: _Danse des Treilles_. Toulouse, 1900.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII
-
-THE HÉRAULT
-
-     Clermont l'Hérault—Church and castle—Aimar Guilhem—Deserts
-     the cause of his Count—Peyrolles the Potter—N.D.
-     du Peyrou—Villeneuvette—Military cloth factory—Its
-     semi-feudal organisation—Valley of the Dourbie—Mourèze—The
-     quarries—Decomposition of the rock—Church—Lodève—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
-     Couvertoirade—Aniane—Gorges of the Hérault—Mills—S.
-     Guilhem-le-Désert—Guillaume de Courtenez—His parting from his
-     wife—His visit to Paris—Church—Monuments—Cloister—Saracen
-     inscriptions—Farewell to the Cévennes.
-
-
-An admirable centre for several expeditions of no little interest is
-Clermont l'Hérault, where is a good hotel.
-
-Clermont, though called l'Hérault, 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 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 Clermont. 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 Hérault and the
-Lergue, that begins at the feet of the Lodève Mountains and extends to
-the low range of the Taillades de Gignac. From thirty to forty towns,
-villages, and hamlets dot this plain.
-
-[Illustration: S. GUILHEM-LE-DÉSERT]
-
-In 1209 Aimar Guilhem, seigneur of Clermont, was the ally of the
-unfortunate Raymond, Count of Toulouse, 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 sentence. 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 Béziers 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 Lodève,
-he would have menaced the rear of Simon de 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 composed 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.
-
-[Illustration: IN THE CIRQUE, MOURÈZE]
-
-A delightful walk or drive is to Mourèze, 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
-composed 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 contain nuptial crowns. A largely attended
-pilgrimage visits this chapel on Monday in Easter week. This shrine
-is at the entrance to the beautiful basin of Villeneuvette, rich with
-cork trees, micocouliers (_Celtis Australis_), mulberries, chestnuts,
-tall ancient cypresses, pines, caper bushes, and the kermes-oak.
-
-Here in the bottom, by the little river, is the industrial 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 existing
-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 competition.
-Colbert founded this among other colonies of workmen to ensure that the
-cloth exported was of good quality, and agents in Constantinople and in
-Pondicherry received and sold it. In order to protect the establishment
-during the religious wars that desolated the Cévennes, the settlement
-was surrounded by a rampart, 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 in private hands.
-It had failed to be a success financially in 1703, and was disposed of
-to M. Castamé-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. Villeneuvette 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 Mourèze 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 Mourèze, but which can 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
-coccifera_, never grows higher than five feet, the _garus_ it is that
-gives its name to the _garigues_, the desolate regions of limestone 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 Mourèze, 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 Doré
-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.
-
-[Illustration: GROUP AT MOURÈZE]
-
-The approach to Mourèze 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 Mourèze 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 persecuted men. At its
-back start up sheer cliffs of limestone, 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. 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 1,610 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, 1,450 feet. To the west is the mountain of S. Scholastica,
-1,500 feet, and wooded ranges to the east of less elevation complete
-the enclosure and the screen that hides Mourèze from the world without.
-
-[Illustration: THE SENTINEL, MOURÈZE]
-
-The dolomite formation of Mourèze forms an almost continuous belt from
-Bédarieux 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 Lodève, above Pégairolles, where they
-constitute the picturesque passage of l'Escalette.
-
-The castle is mentioned in records from 790; it is called Castrum
-Morelinum, or Morazios Villa; Mourezés in 1625, and Mourèze 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 Lodève, 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 Lodève a county under his empire, and granted
-considerable privileges to the bishops.
-
-There arose by degrees three powers to dispute possession of the land,
-the Municipality, the Count, and the Bishop, representing the people,
-the aristocracy, and the clergy. The history of Lodève 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
-Montbrun, ordered him to pull it down. Fulcran refused. Meanwhile
-the oppressions of the people by the count had become intolerable.
-They were crushed with taxation 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 continue 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
-ecclesiastical hands. The ambition of Fulcran's successors knew no
-limits. After having conquered the seigneur they attacked the municipal
-liberties.
-
-The people of Lodève 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 unendurable exactions. He refused to admit them
-to his presence. Then the mob broke in on him and made him swear to
-grant concessions. He appealed to Innocent III., who at once relieved
-him of his oath. The people, enraged at this bit of deceit, again
-rose, broke into the palace, and killed the perjured bishop. The
-punishment inflicted on the town for this act was severe. However, the
-citizens were determined on resistance, and at last the controversy
-was submitted to arbitration, and they gained most of what they had
-demanded.
-
-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 transform the continuation of
-the aisles into lengthy independent 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 monument. 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. 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 mullion 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 arrangement—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 Renaissance, chapel is
-between the cathedral and the cloister.
-
-The old episcopal palace has been converted into municipal buildings,
-and the gardens into a fine promenade; so that the long conflict that
-endured for centuries has ended in the complete victory of the people.
-The bishopric was suppressed at the Concordat.
-
-Between Clermont and Lodève 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 Lodève is the well-preserved
-monastery of S. Michel-de-Grammont, 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.
-
-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 of which is inlaid an
-inscription in characters of the twelfth century, stating that it was
-consecrated on the 11th of the Calends of June in honour of S. Michael,
-but without date of the year.
-
-[Illustration: DOLMEN OF GRANDMONT]
-
-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 Lodève 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 l'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 Lodève 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
-Soubès. Another is the Grotte de Labeil, opening out of a cirque of
-rocks above the source of the Baume-Bauède, 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 Petræa in
-summer.
-
-It seems to be transpierced by the Cévennes, that penetrate it at the
-Col de Sanctières, 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. Elisée 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_, carefully
-     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 Lodève only by ladders
-planted against the precipice at the Pas de l'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.), _Histoire
-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 Bâville and the Duke of Berwick by assassination. The plot
-was discovered whilst he was in Nîmes, 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 Nîmes something
-suspicious in his appearance caused his arrest, and compromising
-letters were discovered secreted about his person. He was led to the
-Duke of 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 condemned 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.
-
-[Illustration: ON THE HÉRAULT]
-
-S. Guilhem-le-Désert is one of the strangest and most 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 Hérault 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 underwent
-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 Hérault 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
-Hérault by a channel into the plain to Gignac and beyond that to S.
-André, carrying fertility with it.
-
-Springs break forth from the cliffs, forming tables of calcareous
-deposit. One of these, of a high temperature, 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 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
-_déjeuner_ 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, _foie gras_, 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.
-
-[Illustration: S. GUILHEM-LE-DÉSERT]
-
-[Illustration: MILLS ON THE HÉRAULT]
-
-The village, or little town, grew about an abbey founded by Guillaume,
-Duke of Aquitaine, in 804. He 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 Provençal _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 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 Gibors 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 received. 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
-character; 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, supposed 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 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 constrained 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 Empress. 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 ladies, which they also broke. Their sarcophagus is a Christian
-tomb of the fourth century, with Christ and the evangelists, or
-apostles, carved on it; at the extremities 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 1138.
-
-Pilgrimages arrive at S. Guilhem on Monday in Easter week and October
-1st.
-
-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 Camisards, 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 inscription 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.
-
-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 mon cerveau à vidé sur le papier blanc sa mince provision
-     d'idées journalières, les coudes à la barre d'appui (de ma
-     fenêtre) je coule là, en une paresse délicieuse, de longues heurs
-     à rêver. Mon âme alors s'envole au pays si profondément incrusté
-     en elle, ce pays que je rétrouve dans le moindre plis de mes
-     pensées, ce pays qui, le plus ordinairement, lorsque j'ose écrire,
-     me commande, et auquel j'obéis."
-
-
-
-
-INDEX
-
-
-  Aigoual, Mt., 20, 248-58
-
-  Aiguèze, 147
-
-  Aiguilhe, the, 16-35, 42-4
-
-  Alais, 160, 186, 204-19
-
-  Albigensian crusade, 47-8, 283
-
-  Alleyras, 171
-
-  Allier, River, 19, 161-71
-
-  Alzon, 243
-
-  Aniane, 297, 302
-
-  Antraigues, 122-5;
-    Comte d', 123-5
-
-  Arabic inscriptions, 302
-
-  Ardèche, River, 8, 128, 137-48, 163
-
-  Arlempdes, 16, 81
-
-  Arzon, River, 68
-
-  Assas, Claude d., 240;
-    Louis, 246-7
-
-  Astier, Gabriel, 179-83
-
-  Aubenas, 114-15, 117-20
-
-  Auvergne violets, 246
-
-  Avens, 4, 138, 152, 155, 234-6
-
-  Avèze, 241-2, 243
-
-
-  Balmes de Montbrul, 8
-
-  Bar, crater of, 17
-
-  Barre des Cévennes, 252, 255
-
-  Basalt, 16, 22, 62, 81, 122, 129, 134, 135-6, 170
-
-  Bastide, La, 175, 203
-
-  Battle of the winds, 248-50
-
-  Bâville, 180, 183, 185, 240, 295
-
-  Béate, La, 27-8
-
-  Bédarieux, 262, 264-5
-
-  Belsunce, Mgr. de, 174
-
-  Benedict XII., 208
-
-  Bénézet, 240-1
-
-  Berrias, 158-9
-
-  Béziers, 273-4
-
-  Bible of Theodulf, 45-6
-
-  Blacons, 56-9
-
-  Blandas, 244
-
-  Bonaparte, 110
-
-  Borne, River, 23, 34, 62
-
-  Boulogne, Château de, 121-2
-
-  Bousquet d'Orb, 276
-
-  Boussagues, 265
-
-  Boutières Mountains, 7, 103-13
-
-  Bramabiau, 252-5
-
-  Broglie, M. de, 180-1, 183, 196-7
-
-  Burzet, 131-2
-
-
-  Cachard, M. de, 110-11
-
-  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
-
-  Chamalières, 68
-
-  Chamborigaud, massacre at, 199-204
-
-  Chames, 145
-
-  Chanteuges, 164-5
-
-  Chapeauroux, 171
-
-  Chassezac, River, 139, 154
-
-  Chayla, Abbé du, 187-90, 196, 204
-
-  Cheese, 275
-
-  Chestnut, 268-73
-
-  Cheylard, le, 113
-
-  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
-
-  Daudé, murder of, 240
-
-  Denise, la, 16, 62, 65
-
-  Diana of Poitiers, 112
-
-  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
-
-  Dunière, River, 111
-
-  Durzon, source, 260-1
-
-
-  Eagle, 135
-
-  Echelle du Roy, 134
-
-  Ecstasy, 178, 182, 187, 190
-
-  Erieux, River, 105-7, 111
-
-  Espaly, 54-6, 61-2
-
-  Espinouse, 11, 276, 280
-
-  Essences, 223
-
-  Estables, Les, 69-70
-
-  Estreys, 23
-
-
-  Fabre, Ferdinand, 262-4, 291, 303
-
-  Factory girls, 115-16
-
-  Fauteuil du Diable, 122
-
-  Faye le Froid, 16, 53-4
-
-  Flandrin, Cardinal, 131
-
-  Florac, 191, 255-7
-
-  Florian, 218-20
-
-  Fontollière, 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
-
-  Hérault, fêtes in, 273-4;
-    River, 10, 236, 297-8
-
-  Hermits, 204-5, 276-8, 286
-
-  Héric, gorges of, 279
-
-  Hort Dieu, 251
-
-  Hierle, 242
-
-  Huguenots, 52-9, 62-3, 107-9, 139, 143-4, 172, 177-202, 208, 222,
-    224, 239-41
-
-
-  Iberians, 267
-
-  Innocent III., 47, 283, 290
-
-  Inspiration, degrees of, 193
-
-  Intermittent spring, 120-1
-
-  Inventories, taking the, 158-60
-
-  Isabeau, la belle, 178-9
-
-  — another prophetess, 144
-
-
-  Jalès, 158
-
-  Jaujac, 129-30
-
-  Joany, a Camisard, 199
-
-  John XXII., 207-8
-
-  Julien, sculptor, 66-7
-
-  Jura limestone, 1, 142, 245; _see_ Dolomitic limestone
-
-  Jurieu, pastor, 178-9
-
-
-  Kermes oak, 4, 287
-
-
-  Lac d'Anconne, 18
-
-  — de S. Andéol, 18
-
-  — de Bouchet, 17, 19
-
-  — d'Issarlés, 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
-
-  Lodève, 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
-
-  Mégal, 7, 65
-
-  Méjan, Causse de, 258
-
-  Merle, Captain, 139
-
-  Mézenc, 3, 9, 19, 67, 69-71, 113, 248
-
-  Micocoulier, 222
-
-  Mimente, River, 257
-
-  Monastier, 79, 80
-
-  Monistrol d'Allier, 170
-
-  Montaigne Noire, 11
-
-  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, 118-20
-
-  Oustalas, 146
-
-
-  Païolive, 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
-
-  Peyrolles, 284
-
-  Phonolith (clinkstone), 19, 70, 170
-
-  Pilat, Mont, 7
-
-  Pillard, le, 281
-
-  Plateau, great central, 1
-
-  Polignac, 16, 23, 31-3, 65-6
-
-  Pont de l'Arc, 142, 144;
-    de la Beaume, 128-9, 130;
-    de Montvert, 187-9, 191, 204;
-    de Mousse, 241
-
-  Poul, 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
-
-  Réméjadou, aven of, 138
-
-  Revolution, 33, 46, 106, 166, 209, 278
-
-  Rochebelle, 204
-
-  Roche Lambert, Castle, 64
-
-  Roland, Camisard, 193, 200, 224, 258
-
-  Roquefort, 275
-
-  Roquesaltes, 261
-
-  Roure, 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, 280
-
-  S. Guilhem-le-Désert, 296, 298-302
-
-  S. Hippolyte-le-Fort, 223-4
-
-  S. Jean de Foss, 297
-
-  S. Marcel, cave, 151-2
-
-  S. Martin-sur-Ardèche, 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
-
-  Séguier, Pierre, 187-91
-
-  Sidonius Apollinaris, 205, 258
-
-  Silkworm culture, 204-18;
-    disease, 175, 209
-
-  Suc de Bauzon, 134
-
-  Suffren, the Bailli of, 158
-
-  Sully, 112
-
-
-  Tanargue, Mount, 9, 129
-
-  Tapestries, 140
-
-  Tartara, cry of, 181-2
-
-  Tears of blood, 182
-
-  Templars, 145, 147, 158, 296
-
-  Thueyts, 134-5
-
-  Trappist monks, 175-6
-
-  Trèves, 258
-
-  Triaire, 247
-
-  Tourette, la, 111-12
-
-  Two men in a boat, 149-50
-
-
-  Umbranici, 267-8
-
-  Uzès, 105
-
-
-  Valleraugue, 255
-
-  Vallon, 139-40
-
-  Vals, 114-15, 120-2
-
-  Vans, les, 154
-
-  Velay, le, 15-33, 34, 44, 61
-
-  Ventadour, 106, 128
-
-  Vernoux, 107-8, 111
-
-  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, François, Camisard 183-4
-
-  Viviers, 117
-
-  Volane, River, 120, 122
-
-  Vorey, 67-8
-
-  Voute Chilhac, 169-70
-
-  — sur Loire, 23;
-    sur Rhône, 106
-
-
-  White Hoods, the, 51-2
-
-
-
-
-PLYMOUTH
-
-WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LIMITED, PRINTERS
-
-
-
-
-  Telegrams & Cables "Longing, London"
-  Telephone No. 9313 Central
-
-  JUNE—SEPT. 1907
-
-  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.
-
-
-=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 tragedy 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 corner 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.
-
-
-=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
-wonderful _dénouement_, 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.
-
-
-=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
-contrary, 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 construction 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.
-
-
-=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, proves to 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 from them a
-story of great and penetrating interest.
-
-
-=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.
-
-
-=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 sympathy 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
-anæmic 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.
-
-
-=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
-Melodé," 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
-upwards 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 poignant emotional power and truth of which will be
-acknowledged by every thoughtful reader.
-
-
-=THE PASSING OF NIGHT= By J. FOVARGUE BRADLEY
-
-"The Passing of Night" is a political novel written with a purpose.
-The author is a Congregational 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.
-
-
-=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.
-
-
-=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 with 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.
-
-
-=IN SEARCH OF JÉHANNE= 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 Jéhanne." 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 Jéhanne" 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 LANGFIELD
-
-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 has 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.
-
-
-=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 tragedy 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 _dénouement_. 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.
-
-
-=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 afterwards 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.
-
-
-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. HARINGTON
-BIRD, 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 8vo., 288 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_ =1s.=, _large demy 8vo., 160 pages, sewed, cover in colours_
-
-[***] Orders are now being taken for NAT GOULD'S ANNUAL for 1907
-
-_Ready in October_
-
-
-NAT GOULD'S NEW SIXPENNY NOVELS
-
-_In large demy 8vo., sewed. Striking cover in colours_
-
-  ONE OF A MOB              _Ready_
-  THE SELLING PLATER        _Ready_
-  A BIT OF A ROGUE          _Ready_
-  THE LADY TRAINER          _Ready_
-  A STRAIGHT GOER           _June_
-  A HUNDRED TO ONE 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 his heart, 'There is no God'"
-
-_Crown 8vo., paper cover_, =1s.= _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 5-½ in.; thickness, 1-¼ in. Prices: Cloth Gilt, =2s.= net
-     each; Leather, gold blocked and silk marker, =3s.= net each; or in
-     Classic Half-Vellum, =5s.= net each.
-
-  =THE THREE CLERKS=               (480 pp.) ANTHONY TROLLOPE
-  =THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH=    (672 pp.) CHARLES READE
-  =THE WOMAN IN WHITE=             (576 pp.) WILKIE COLLINS
-  =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
-
-_Other Volumes to follow._
-
-
-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."
-
-_Pall Mall Gazette._—"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 two 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."—_Athenæum_:
-"Powerfully written."—_Tatler_: "A very notable book."
-
-
-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 free_
-
-
-=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 from photographs on art paper,
-printed in sepia. Crown 8vo., cloth, heavily gilt, price_ =5s.= _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
-everybody who wants to know all about terriers.
-
-
-THREE NEW VOLUMES OF POEMS
-
-_In royal 16mo, cloth gilt and gilt top, with silk marker, 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 Maráthi, 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
-
-"Will outbid all rivals."—_The Bookman._
-
-"Certainly wonderful."—_Athenæum._
-
-"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, =1s.= net; postage, 1-½d. per vol.
-     Length from 160 to 320 pages, newly set in clear, new type, and
-     printed on the best paper. Each Volume contains a Biographical
-     Introduction by the Editor, Mr. HANNAFORD BENNETT. _The first
-     twelve only are bound in decorative paper covers._
-
-  1. =THE FOUR GEORGES=                              W. M. THACKERAY
-  2. =CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE=                    LORD BYRON
-  3. =MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING=                        SHAKESPEARE
-  4. =WARREN HASTINGS=                               LORD MACAULAY
-  5. =THE LIFE OF NELSON=                            ROBERT SOUTHEY
-  6. =TALES (Selected)=                              EDGAR ALLAN POE
-  7. =CHRISTABEL, and other Poems=                   S. T. COLERIDGE
-  8. =A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY=                         LAURENCE STERNE
-  9. =THE BLESSED DAMOZEL, and other Poems=          DANTE GABRIEL
-                                                       ROSSETTI
-  10. =ON HEROES AND HERO WORSHIP=                   THOMAS CARLYLE
-  11. =SONNETS AND POEMS=                            SHAKESPEARE
-  12. =RASSELAS=                                     SAMUEL JOHNSON
-  13. =SONNETS AND POEMS=                            EDMUND SPENSER
-  14. =ESSAYS (Selected)=                            JOSEPH ADDISON
-  15. =HIS BOOK=                                     ARTEMUS WARD
-  16. =THE DUNCIAD, and other Poems=                 ALEXANDER POPE
-  17. =ENGLISH HUMORISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY=  W. M. THACKERAY
-  18. =THE JUMPING FROG, and Other Sketches=         MARK TWAIN
-  19. =SONGS=                                        ROBERT BURNS
-  20. =ESSAYS (Selected)=                            LEIGH HUNT
-  21. =LETTERS OF JUNIUS=                            ANONYMOUS
-  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=                                   EDMUND 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 7-½ in. by 5-¼ in. by 1-¼ in.,
-     the length from 300 to 350 pages, and the price =2s. 6d.= each.
-
-_VOLUMES NOW READY_
-
-  =FATHER ANTHONY (Illustrated)=            ROBERT BUCHANAN
-  =A CABINET SECRET (Illustrated)=          GUY BOOTHBY
-  =AN OUTSIDER'S YEAR=                      FLORENCE WARDEN
-  =FUGITIVE ANNE=                           MRS. CAMPBELL PRAED
-  =THE FUTURE OF PHYLLIS=                   ADELINE SERGEANT
-  =BENEATH THE VEIL=                        ADELINE SERGEANT
-  =THE SCARLET SEAL=                        DICK DONOVAN
-  =AN ILL WIND=                             MRS. LOVETT CAMERON
-  =MIDSUMMER MADNESS=                       MRS. LOVETT CAMERON
-  =THE SILENT HOUSE IN PIMLICO=             FERGUS HUME
-  =THE CRIMSON CRYPTOGRAM=                  FERGUS HUME
-  =A TRAITOR IN LONDON=                     FERGUS HUME
-  =THE MACHINATIONS OF JANET=               SARAH TYTLER
-  =THE MAGNETIC GIRL=                       RICHARD MARSH
-  =A FLIRTATION WITH TRUTH=                 CURTIS YORKE
-  =DELPHINE=                                CURTIS YORKE
-  =THE OTHER MRS. JACOBS=                   MRS. CAMPBELL PRAED
-  =A JILT'S JOURNAL=                        RITA
-  =THE INDISCRETION OF GLADYS=              LUCAS CLEEVE
-  =PARTNERS THREE=                          MAY CROMMELIN
-  =ONCE TOO OFTEN=                          FLORENCE WARDEN
-  =THE LADY OF THE ISLAND (Illustrated)=    GUY BOOTHBY
-  =THE WORLD MASTERS=                       GEORGE GRIFFITH
-  =HIS MASTER PURPOSE=                      HAROLD BINDLOSS
-  =TREWINNOT OF GUY'S=                      MRS. COULSON KERNAHAN
-  =MRS. MUSGRAVE AND HER HUSBAND=           RICHARD MARSH
-  =THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY=                DICK DONOVAN
-  =CURIOS: or, the Strange Adventures of
-    Two Bachelors (Illustrated)=            RICHARD MARSH
-  =A BRIDE FROM THE SEA=                    GUY BOOTHBY
-  =ROSAMOND GRANT=                          MRS. LOVETT CAMERON
-  =THE JADE EYE=                            FERGUS HUME
-  =MISS ARNOTT'S MARRIAGE=                  RICHARD MARSH
-  =AN IMPOSSIBLE HUSBAND=                   FLORENCE WARDEN
-  =THE GIRL IN GREY CURTIS=                 YORKE
-  =IN SPITE OF THE CZAR (Illustrated)=      GUY BOOTHBY
-  =SAINT ELIZABETH OF LONDON=               LUCAS CLEEVE
-  =THE OPAL SERPENT=                        FERGUS HUME
-  =THE MAID OF THE RIVER=                   MRS. CAMPBELL PRAED
-  =THE FACE IN THE FLASHLIGHT=              FLORENCE WARDEN
-  =ALIX OF THE GLEN=                        CURTIS YORKE
-
-_VOLUMES IN PREPARATION_
-
-  =THE SECRET PASSAGE=                      FERGUS HUME
-  =OLIVE KINSELLA=                          CURTIS YORKE
-  =ADVENTURES OF MIRANDA=                   L. T. MEADE
-  =WATERS OF OBLIVION=                      ADELINE SERGEANT
-  =THE MASK=                                WILLIAM LE QUEUX
-  =CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG LADY=             RICHARD MARSH
-  =THE NIGHT OF RECKONING=                  FRANK BARRETT
-
-
-RECENT POPULAR NOVELS
-
-_SIX SHILLINGS EACH_
-
-
-  =THE WORLD AND DELIA=                     CURTIS YORKE
-  =THE PENNILESS MILLIONAIRE=          DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY
-  =THE DUST OF CONFLICT=               HAROLD BINDLOSS
-  =THE HOUSE IN THE CRESCENT=          ADELINE SERGEANT
-  =THE DUKE'S DILEMMA=                 SIR WM. MAGNAY, BART.
-  =THE MISTRESS OF AYDON=              R. H. FORSTER
-  =THE DUCHESS OF PONTIFEX SQUARE=     G. W. APPLETON
-  =IZELLE OF THE DUNES=                C. GUISE MITFORD
-  =THE LUCK OF THE LEURA=              MRS. CAMPBELL PRAED
-  =THE SWEETS OF OFFICE=               VIOLET TWEEDALE
-  =THE YOKE= (Author of "Mr. and
-      Mrs. Villiers")                  HUBERT WALES
-  =THE ROMANCE OF A MAID OF HONOUR=    RICHARD MARSH
-  =SELMA=                              LUCAS CLEEVE
-  =THE MAN WITH THE AMBER EYES=        FLORENCE WARDEN
-  =THE HOUSE OF HOWE=                  MAY CROMMELIN
-  =AMAZEMENT=                          JAMES BLYTH
-  =THE MILLIONAIRE AND THE LADY=       GERTRUDE WARDEN
-  =KINDRED SPIRITS=                    L. T. MEADE
-  =A BUTTERFLY=                        BARONESS VON GOLDÄCKER
-  =DEYNCOURT OF DEYNCOURT=             DAISY HUGH PRYCE
-  =THE FOLLY OF THE WISE=              G. SIDNEY PATERNOSTER
-  =INNOCENT MASQUERADERS=              SARAH TYTLER
-  =THE END OF A PASSION=               ALICE M. DIEHL
-  =THE SECOND EVIL=                    SADI GRANT
-  =THE TWO FORCES=                     E. WAY ELKINGTON
-  =ALL THAT A MAN HATH=                CORALIE STANTON AND HEATH HOSKEN
-  =THE DICTIONARY OF FOOLS=            G. G. CHATTERTON
-  =TWO WOMEN AND A MAHARAJAH=          MRS. C. E. PHILLIMORE
-  =A SERPENT IN HIS WAY=               SUZANNE SOMERS
-  =A MINISTER OF FATE=                 CHARLES DAWSON
-  =LEONE=                              LADY DUNBAR OF MOCHRUM
-  =THE STAIN ON THE SHIELD=            MRS. DARENT HARRISON
-  =A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK=              S. R. KEIGHTLEY
-  =FROM THE HAND OF THE HUNTER=        L. T. MEADE
-  =THE GIRLS OF INVERBARNS=            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=           GUY 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
-  1 =AN OUTSIDER'S YEAR=              FLORENCE WARDEN
-  2 =SOMETHING IN THE CITY=           FLORENCE WARDEN
-  3 =THE LOVELY MRS. PEMBERTON=       FLORENCE WARDEN
-  4 =THE MYSTERY OF DUDLEY HORNE=     FLORENCE WARDEN
-  5 =KITTY'S ENGAGEMENT=              FLORENCE WARDEN
-  6 =OUR WIDOW=                       FLORENCE WARDEN
-  7 =No. 3, THE SQUARE=               FLORENCE WARDEN
-  8 =THE JADE EYE=                    FERGUS HUME
-  9 =THE TURNPIKE HOUSE=              FERGUS HUME
-  10 =THE GOLDEN WANG-HO=             FERGUS HUME
-  11 =THE SILENT HOUSE IN PIMLICO=    FERGUS HUME
-  12 =THE CRIMSON CRYPTOGRAM=         FERGUS HUME
-  13 =A TRAITOR IN LONDON=            FERGUS HUME
-  14 =WOMAN—THE SPHINX=               FERGUS HUME
-  15 =A WOMAN'S "NO"=                 MRS. LOVETT CAMERON
-  16 =THE CRAZE OF CHRISTINA=         MRS. LOVETT CAMERON
-  17 =A PASSING FANCY=                MRS. LOVETT CAMERON
-  18 =BITTER FRUIT=                   MRS. LOVETT CAMERON
-  19 =AN ILL WIND=                    MRS. LOVETT CAMERON
-  20 =MIDSUMMER MADNESS=              MRS. LOVETT CAMERON
-  22 =MRS. MUSGRAVE AND HER HUSBAND=  RICHARD MARSH
-  23 =ADA VERNHAM, ACTRESS=           RICHARD MARSH
-  24 =THE MAGNETIC GIRL=              RICHARD MARSH
-  25 =MISS ARNOTT'S MARRIAGE=         RICHARD MARSH
-  26 =THE MASK=                       WILLIAM LE QUEUX
-  27 =THE EYE OF ISTAR=               WILLIAM LE QUEUX
-  28 =THE VEILED MAN=                 WILLIAM LE QUEUX
-  29 =A MAN OF TO-DAY=                HELEN MATHERS
-  30 =THE SIN OF HAGAR=               HELEN MATHERS
-  31 =THE JUGGLER AND THE SOUL=       HELEN MATHERS
-  32 =FATHER ANTHONY=                 ROBERT BUCHANAN
-  33 =THE WOOING OF MONICA=           L. T. MEADE
-  34 =THE BURDEN OF HER YOUTH=        L. T. MEADE
-  35 =A JILT'S JOURNAL=               RITA
-  36 =THE SIN OF JASPER STANDISH=     RITA
-  37 =A CABINET SECRET=               GUY BOOTHBY
-  38 =THE LADY OF THE ISLAND=         GUY BOOTHBY
-  39 =THE FUTURE OF PHYLLIS=          ADELINE SERGEANT
-  40 =BENEATH THE VEIL=               ADELINE SERGEANT
-  41 =DELPHINE=                       CURTIS YORKE
-  42 =THE COUNTESS OF MOUNTENOY=      JOHN STRANGE WINTER
-  43 =THE SELLING PLATER=             NAT GOULD
-  44 =ONE OF A MOB=                   NAT GOULD
-  45 =THE OTHER MRS. JACOBS=          MRS. CAMPBELL PRAED
-  46 =THE FLUTE OF PAN=               JOHN OLIVER HOBBES
-  47 =THE KINGDOM OF MAMMON=          VIOLET TWEEDALE
-  48 =THE STOLEN EMPEROR=             MRS. HUGH FRASER
-  49 =A BEAUTIFUL REBEL=              ERNEST GLANVILLE
-  51 =THE WORLD MASTERS=              GEORGE GRIFFITH
-  52 =IN SUMMER SHADE=                MARY E. MANN
-  53 =LE SELVE=                       OUIDA
-  54 =SWEET "DOLL" OF HADDON HALL=    J. E. MUDDOCK
-  55 =GEORGE AND SON=                 EDWARD H. COOPER
-  56 =THE SCARLET SEAL=               DICK DONOVAN
-  57 =THE THREE DAYS' TERROR=         J. S. FLETCHER
-
-JOHN LONG, 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket, London
-
-
-BILLING AND SONS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
-
-
-
-
-┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
-│ Transcriber's Note:                                               │
-│                                                                   │
-│ Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without note.        │
-│                                                                   │
-│ Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant  │
-│ form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.     │
-│                                                                   │
-│ Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.             │
-│                                                                   │
-│ An inverted asterism appears on pages 15 and 18 of the            │
-│ advertisements. They are shown as [***].                          │
-│                                                                   │
-│ Footnotes were moved to the end of chapters and numbered in one   │
-│ continuous sequence.                                              │
-│                                                                   │
-│ Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs    │
-│ and some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that    │
-│ references them. The list of Illustrations paginations were       │
-│ changed accordingly.                                              │
-│                                                                   │
-│ Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters,  _like   │
-│ this_. Words in bold characters are surrounded by equal signs,    │
-│ =like this=.                                                      │
-│                                                                   │
-│ Other corrections:                                                │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 14: Footnote 2: 'Nos' de Lavène replaced by 'Mos' de Lavène.   │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 63: 'beseiged' replaced by 'besieged' (In 1590 he besieged     │
-│ Espaly again).                                                    │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 69: 'protusion' replaced by 'protrusion' (upon their           │
-│ protrusion from the volcanic vent).                               │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 76: 'irresitible' replaced by 'irrestistible' (proved an       │
-│ irresistible attraction).                                         │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 79: 'pronouned replaced by 'pronounced.' (pronounced           │
-│ absolution).                                                      │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 94: 'aleep' replaced by 'asleep' (thinking that I was asleep). │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 100: 'Payrabeille' replaced by 'Peyrebeille' (on his way to    │
-│ Peyrebeille).                                                     │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 121: 'clientelle' replaced by 'clientele' (they have also      │
-│ their clientele).                                                 │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 128: 'wonful' replaced by 'wonderful' (it is really wonderful  │
-│ what changes).                                                    │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 83 Footnote 5: 'Vivavais' replaced by 'Vivarais' (Pays         │
-│ Volcaniques du Vivarais).                                         │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 139: 'abrubtly' replaced by 'abruptly' (the crag that falls    │
-│ abruptly).                                                        │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 156: 'Grott' replaced by 'Grotte' (reach the Grotte of the     │
-│ Chouans).                                                         │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 197: 'insurgeuts' replaced by 'insurgents' (when the           │
-│ insurgents saw).                                                  │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 225: 'Christian' replaced by 'Christina' (Queen Christina      │
-│ of Sweden).                                                       │
-│                                                                   │
-│ Pp. 248, 306: 'Valerauge' replaced by 'Vallerauge.'               │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 264: 'Courbeson' replaced by 'Courbezon' (He produced Les      │
-│ Courbezon in 1862).                                               │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 264: 'Orbe' replaced by 'Orb' (Bédarieux is on the Orb).       │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 305: 'Belzunce' replaced by 'Belsunce' (Belsunce, Mgr.         │
-│ de, 174).                                                         │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 305: 'Chassizac' replaced by 'Chassezac' (Chassezac, River,    │
-│ 139, 154).                                                        │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 308: 'Rouve' replaced by 'Roure' (Roure, Baron de, 198).       │
-│                                                                   │
-│ p. 308: 'Hippolite-du-Fort' replaced by 'Hippolyte-le-Fort'       │
-│(S. Hippolite-le-Fort, 223-4).                                     │
-│                                                                   │
-│ Advertisements, p. 24: Number 21 in the list is missing. Also,    │
-│ the sequence starting with no. 1 on p. 24 is continued on p. 23   │
-│ with no. 58. These were not corrected.                            │
-└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
-
-
-
-
-
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-
-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book of The Cevennes, by S. Baring-Gould
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: A Book of The Cevennes
-
-Author: S. Baring-Gould
-
-Release Date: January 11, 2017 [EBook #53945]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF THE CEVENNES ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Edwards, Christian Boissonnas and the
-Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-(This file was produced from images generously made
-available by The Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-
-<div class="transnote nonvis">
-  <p class="center">In certain versions of this etext, in certain browsers,
-    clicking on this symbol
-	<img class="enlargeimage" src="images/enlarge-image.jpg" alt="Larger Image Button"
-	title="" height="14" width="18" />
-    will bring up a larger version of the map on page 4.</p>
-</div>
-<p class="p4 ac noindent">A BOOK OF<br /><br />
-<span class="x-larger">THE CEVENNES</span>
-</p>
-
-<p class="p4 ac noindent">
-BY THE SAME AUTHOR</p>
-
-<ul class="list">
-  <li class="list">MEHALAH</li>
-  <li class="list">THE TRAGEDY OF THE CÆSARS</li>
-  <li class="list">THE DESERTS OF SOUTHERN FRANCE</li>
-  <li class="list">STRANGE SURVIVALS</li>
-  <li class="list">SONGS OF THE WEST</li>
-  <li class="list">A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG</li>
-  <li class="list">OLD COUNTRY LIFE</li>
-  <li class="list">AN OLD ENGLISH HOME</li>
-  <li class="list">YORKSHIRE ODDITIES</li>
-  <li class="list">HISTORIC ODDITIES</li>
-  <li class="list">OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES</li>
-  <li class="list">THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW</li>
-  <li class="list">FREAKS OF FANATICISM</li>
-  <li class="list">A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES</li>
-</ul>
-
-<p class="p2 ac noindent">UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME</p>
-<ul class="list">
-  <li class="list">A BOOK OF BRITTANY</li>
-  <li class="list">A BOOK OF DARTMOOR</li>
-  <li class="list">A BOOK OF THE WEST</li>
-  <li class="list"><span style="margin-left: 2em; font-size:70%;">I. DEVON</span></li>
-  <li class="list"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em; font-size:70%;">II. CORNWALL</span></li>
-  <li class="list">A BOOK OF NORTH WALES</li>
-  <li class="list">A BOOK OF SOUTH WALES</li>
-  <li class="list">A BOOK OF THE RHINE</li>
-  <li class="list">A BOOK OF THE RIVIERA</li>
-  <li class="list">A BOOK OF THE PYRENEES</li>
-</ul>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="frontis.jpg" id="frontis.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="372" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">THE TAMARGUE FROM LA SOUCHE</span></div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-<h1>A BOOK OF<br />
-<span class="x-larger">THE CEVENNES</span></h1>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">BY S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.</p>
-
-<p class="noindent p2"><span style="margin-left:30%; font-size:70%;">"ILLE TERRARUM
-  MIHI PRÆTER OMNES</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left:30%; font-size:70%;">ANGULUS RIDET, UBI NON HYMETTO</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left:30%; font-size:70%;">MELLA DECEDUNT, VIRIDIQUE CERTAT</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left:30%; font-size:70%;"><span style="margin-left: 6em;">BACCA
-  VENAFRO;</span></span><br />
-<span style="margin-left:30%; font-size:70%;">VER UBI LONGUM, TEPIDASQUE PRÆBET</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left:30%; font-size:70%;">JUPITER BRUMAS."</span><br />
-<span style="margin-left:60%; font-size:70%;"><i>Hor.</i> Od. ii. 6.</span></p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter"><a name="logo.jpg" id="logo.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/logo.jpg" width="69" height="100"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"></div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="p2 ac noindent x-smaller">WITH FORTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS<br />
-EIGHT OF WHICH ARE IN COLOUR, AND A MAP</p>
-
-<p class="p4 ac">London<br />
-<span class="larger">John Long</span><br />
-Norris Street, Haymarket<br />
-<br />
-<span class="x-smaller">[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</span>
-</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-
-<p class="ac noindent x-smaller">
-<i>First Published in 1907</i></p>
-
-<p class="p4 ac noindent x-smaller">Illustrations reproduced by the Hentschel-Colourtype
-  Process</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<table id="TOC" summary="CONTENTS">
-  <tbody>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1"><span class="x-smaller">CHAPTER</span></td>
-	  <td></td>
-	  <td class="c2"><span class="smaller sc">Page</span></td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">I.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><span class="sc">The Crescent</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">1</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">II.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><span class="sc">Le Velay</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">15</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">III.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><span class="sc">Le Puy</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">34</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">IV.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><span class="sc">Round about Le Puy</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2"></td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">V.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><span class="sc">L'Auberge de
-	    Peyrabeille</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">84</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">VI.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><span class="sc">Les Boutières</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">103</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">VII.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><span class="sc">The Volcanoes of the
-	    Vivarais</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">114</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">VIII.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="sc">The Canon of the
-	    Ardèche</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">137</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">IX.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><span class="sc">The Wood of
-	    Païolive</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">153</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">X.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><span class="sc">The Ravine of the
-	    Allier</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">161</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">XI.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><span class="sc">The Camisards</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">177</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">XII.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><span class="sc">Alais</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">203</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">XIII.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><span class="sc">Ganges</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">221</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">XIV.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><span class="sc">Le Vigan</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">237</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">XV.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><span class="sc">L'Aigoual</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">248</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">XVI.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><span class="sc">The Land of Ferdinand
-	    Fabre</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">262</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1">XVII.</td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><span class="sc">The Hérault</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">282</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c2-1"></td>
-	  <td class="c1"><a href="#INDEX"><span class="sc">Index</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2">282</td>
-    </tr>
-  </tbody>
-</table>
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">IN COLOURS</p>
-
-<table id="ILLOS_1" summary="ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR">
-  <tbody>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#frontis.jpg"><span class="sc">The Tamargue from
-	    La Souche</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères.</span></td>
-	  <td class="c2-1"><i>Frontispiece</i></td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p024.jpg"><span class="sc">Lacemaker, Le Puis</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">25</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p103.jpg"><span class="sc">Lacemakers</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">103</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p129.jpg"><span class="sc">Castle of Ventadour</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Bigot-Croze</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">128</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p177.jpg"><span class="sc">Peasants of
-	    the Causses</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">176</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p241.jpg"><span class="sc">The Goat's Leap,
-	    Le Vigan</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">241</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p249.jpg"><span class="sc">Peasant Girls of
-	    the Causses</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">248</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p292.jpg"><span class="sc">Dolmen of Grandmont</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by L. Froment</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">293</td>
-    </tr>
-  </tbody>
-</table>
-
-<p class="p2 ac noindent">IN MONOTONE</p>
-
-<table id="ILLOS_2" summary="ILLUSTRATIONS IN MONOTONE">
-  <tbody>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p002.jpg"><span class="sc">The Cyclopses at
-	    Mourèze</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by L. Froment</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">2</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p015.jpg"><span class="sc">Le Suc de Sara</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">14</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p022.jpg"><span class="sc">La Voute-sur-Loire</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">23</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p023.jpg"><span class="sc">Cascade des Estreys</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">23</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p027.jpg"><span class="sc">La Béate</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">27</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p029.jpg"><span class="sc">Cevenol Peasant</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">29</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p034.jpg"><span class="sc">Cathedral, West Front,
-	    Le Puy</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">34</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p040.jpg"><span class="sc">Porch, Cathedral,
-	    Le Puy</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">40</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p043.jpg"><span class="sc">L'Aiguilhe</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">42
-	    <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p060.jpg"><span class="sc">Basalt, Espaly</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Vazelle</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">61</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p064.jpg"><span class="sc">La Roche Lambert</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">64</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p069.jpg"><span class="sc">Mézenc</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">69</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p072.jpg"><span class="sc">Gerbier de Jonc</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">72</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p084.jpg"><span class="sc">The Tavern of
-	    Peyrabeille</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Margerite-Brémont</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">84</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p096.jpg"><span class="sc">Mayres</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">97</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p114.jpg"><span class="sc">The Vivarais Chain</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">114</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p120.jpg"><span class="sc">The Volane Valley</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">121</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p122.jpg"><span class="sc">Le Fauteuil du
-	    Diable</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">123</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p125.jpg"><span class="sc">Fall at Antraigues</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Bigot-Croze</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">125</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p128.jpg"><span class="sc">In the Ardèche</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">129</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p130.jpg"><span class="sc">Crater of
-	    La Gravenne</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Bigot-Croze</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">130</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p132.jpg"><span class="sc">Falls of Ruy Pic</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">132</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p137.jpg"><span class="sc">Gorges of
-	    the Ardèche</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">137</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p144.jpg"><span class="sc">Pont de L'Arc</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">144</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p147.jpg"><span class="sc">"The Cathedral"</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">147</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p153.jpg"><span class="sc">Païolive</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by Artige frères</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">155</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p221.jpg"><span class="sc">Castle of Ganges</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by J. Bernard</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">225</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p253.jpg"><span class="sc">Bramabiau</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by C. Bernheim</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">253
-
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p275.jpg"><span class="sc">Cheesemakers,
-	    Roquefort</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by E. Carrère</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">275</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p282.jpg"><span class="sc">S. Guilhem-le-Désert</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by L. Froment</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">283</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p284.jpg"><span class="sc">In the Cirque,
-	    Mourèze</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by L. Froment</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">284</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p287.jpg"><span class="sc">Group at Mourèze</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by L. Froment</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">287</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p288.jpg"><span class="sc">The Sentinel at
-	    Mourèze</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by L. Froment</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">288</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p296.jpg"><span class="sc">On the Hérault</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by L. Froment</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">296</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p297.jpg"><span class="sc">S. Guilhem-le-Désert</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by L. Froment</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">298</td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p298.jpg"><span class="sc">Mills on the Hérault</span></a><br />
-		<span class="smaller">From a photograph by L. Froment</span>.</td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">298</td>
-    </tr>
-  </tbody>
-</table>
-
-<p class="p2 ac noindent">IN THE TEXT</p>
-
-<table id="ILLOS_3" summary="ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT">
-  <tbody>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"></td>
-	  <td class="c2-1"><span class="sc smaller">Page</span></td>
-    </tr>
-    <tr>
-      <td class="c1"><a href="#p005.jpg"><span class="sc">Sketch Map of the
-	    Cévennes</span></a></td>
-	  <td class="c2-1">4</td>
-    </tr>
-  </tbody>
-</table>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
-</div>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-t.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">THE Cévennes are a mountain fringe to the uplifted
-plateau of Central France, and are less
-visited by English tourists than any other mountainous
-district in la belle France. They have been most unjustly
-neglected. The scenery is singularly varied. The
-historical associations are rich, but mainly tragic.</p>
-
-<p>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 Cévennes should be visited from March to June,
-afterwards the heat is too great for travelling to be comfortable.
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The "Touring-Club de France," Avenue de la Grande
-Armée 65, Paris, is doing excellent work in refusing
-to recommend a hotel unless the sanitary arrangements
-be up-to-date.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2>THE CEVENNES</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">THE CRESCENT</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">The great central plateau—The true Cévennes—The character of the
-range—The watershed—The Garrigues—The Boutières—Mézenc—The
-Coiron—The mountains of the Vivarais—The Ardèche—Volcanoes—The
-Camisard country—Larzac—The Hérault—The
-Espinouse—The Montagne Noire—Neglect of the Cévennes—Their
-great interest.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-t.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">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.</p>
-
-<p>The plateau under consideration stretches over an
-area of 3,000 square miles. It dies down towards the
-
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
-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 Gévaudan. 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 upheaval,
-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 constitutes
-the Cévennes. These describe a half-moon,
-with its convexity towards the basin of the Rhône.
-Locally, indeed, the name Cévennes is limited to a
-tangle of schist ridges and deep-cleft ravines, constituting
-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 undoubtedly,
-looking from the basin of the Rhône on
-the long purple chain, behind which set the sun in a
-glow of amber, as they passed up and down between
-Arles and Vienne—designated that range Cebennæ,
-and geographers still are disposed to so name the
-entire series, as constituting an orological entity,
-although the several portions have received distinguishing
-appellations.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p002.jpg" id="p002.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p002.jpg" width="389" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">The Cyclopses, Mourèze</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>It seems therefore reasonable to take the entire
-curve as forming the Cévennes from the depression of
-the Jarrêt, 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.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"The Cévennes," says Onésime 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 Hérault at Ganges, between
-the Tarn at Pont-de-Montvert and the embattled gorges of
-the Gardons, between the Allier at La Bastide and the ravines
-down which rushes the Cèze, between the young Loire and
-the terrible rapids of the Ardèche ... 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."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p></div>
-
-<p>The chain of the Cévennes, of which Mézenc may be
-regarded as the hinge, forms a ridge on the right bank
-of the Rhône, running for a while parallel to the French
-Alps upon the left bank. But whereas these latter
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
-turn and curve to the east, forming the Maritime Alps,
-the Cévennes have bent in exactly the opposite direction.</p>
-
-<p>Geographically and historically the Cévennes divide
-into two great sections—the Cévennes Méridionales and
-the Cévennes Septentrionales. This continuous mountain
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Cévennes 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.</p>
-
-<p>The eastern face of the Cévennes towards the Rhône
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The Garrigues above mentioned form a barren,
-waterless bastion, with little growing on them but
-the dwarf Kirmes oak (<i>Quercus coccifera</i>) evergreen,
-with spiky leaves, locally called <i>garrus</i>, giving the
-name to the range. They are full of pot-holes (<i>avens</i>),
-down which the rain that falls sinks to travel underground
-and reappear often at great distances in
-copious springs.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-  <a href="images/p005-large.jpg">
-  <img class="enlargeimage" src="images/enlarge-image.jpg"
-    alt="Larger Image Button" width="18" height="14" /></a>
-  <br /><a name="p005.jpg" id="p005.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p005.jpg" width="346" height="600" alt="" />
-  <div class="caption">Sketch Map of the Cevennes</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>The northernmost portion of the Cévennes is the
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
-chain of the Boutières, composed of granite and gneiss,
-and they are the least interesting portion of the series.
-Few of the summits surpass 3,600 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 Boutières
-attach themselves at their southern extremity to
-Mézenc, the loftiest peak of the Cévennes, 5,750 feet.
-So also does the chain of the Mégal, separated from the
-Boutières by the valley of the Lignon. Seen from Le
-Puy, this ridge is fine, broken into peaks. The Mégal
-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.</p>
-
-<p>From the volcanic nucleus of Mézenc branches south-east
-the chain of the Coiron, volcanic as well, stretching
-to the Rhône, 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 Rhône has
-lowered its bed a thousand feet since the liquid stone
-flowed, and torrents have cut through lava and limestone,
-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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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 excavations.
-A troglodyte family lived in one of these
-caves at the end of the eighteenth century.</p>
-
-<p>The mountains of the Vivarais are the finest portion
-of the Cévennes, 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 interesting
-on account of the volcanic vents that remain
-in good preservation, and the wondrous walls of prismatic
-basalt that line the rivers.</p>
-
-<p>The Ardèche is certainly the most extraordinary river
-in Europe; after leaping, and burrowing, and sawing its
-way through basalt, it passes down a cleft of lias disposed
-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.</p>
-
-<p>It is not necessary to do more than indicate the
-general aspect of this portion of the Cévennes, to give
-an outline that may be filled in with details later on.</p>
-
-<p>But before quitting this department, I must quote
-some words of Mr. Hammerton, no mean judge of
-landscape:—</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p><div class="bq">
-
-<p>"The department of Ardèche on the right bank of the
-Rhône 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 Ardèche 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."</p></div>
-
-<p>The volcanic region of Mézenc and the Coiron to the
-east of the granitic plateau separates the southern
-from the northern Cévennes. 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 comparison
-with those of the principal range, which forms
-the watershed between the Loire and the Rhône, in the
-centre of which range is the three-toothed Mézenc,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The department of Gard takes it name from several
-Gardons, a name as common in this part of the
-Cévennes as Gave is in the Pyrenees.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The Cévennes are drifting westward. In Hérault
-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 <i>avens</i> or pot-holes.
-M. Martel says:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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."</p></div>
-
-<p>The river Hérault, that gives its name to the department,
-flows through a ravine, up which runs no
-road, save to S. Guilhem-le-Désert. Another river not
-easy to be explored is its tributary, the Vis. One
-can look down into the cañon from above, but not
-thread it.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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 Cévennes
-150 miles distant.</p>
-
-<p>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 portion
-of the Cévennes well deserving of a visit.</p>
-
-<p>The Monts de Lacaune, almost wholly sterile, link
-the Cévennes of Hérault 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.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
-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 <i>montagnards</i> 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 <i>bourées</i>, 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."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p></div>
-
-<p>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 Cévennes are less interesting
-than that which intervenes, and, also, lest I should
-unduly extend the book.</p>
-
-<p>It is strange that the region of the Cévennes should
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
-have been neglected by tourists to such an extent as it
-has; but it is explicable.</p>
-
-<p>Those who seek sunshine during the winter in the
-Riviera leave the Cévennes far away as a bank of cloud
-silver-fringed on their right hand beyond the Rhône.
-On their way back to England in spring they are disinclined
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>In 1894 I published a book, <i>The Deserts of Central
-France</i>, 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 Lozère, dealt with in the former work, but confine
-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. However
-fine they may be, there are others in the departments
-of Ardèche, Gard, and Hérault, that fall but little,
-if at all, short of them in savagery and strangeness.</p>
-
-<p>There are no great towns in the Cévennes. Such as
-there are are sleepy and stationary; but from Béziers,
-Montpellier, Nîmes, Le Puy, where every comfort may
-be found, it is easy to run into the mountains, and
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
-return from them to recruit. Hotels are vastly improved
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Enough has been said to show that the Cévennes
-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 vegetation,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>For the geology of the volcanic district of Haute
-Loire and Ardèche, an excellent guide is Mr. Paulett
-Scrope's <i>Geology and Extinct Volcanoes in Central
-France</i>, London, second edition, 1858.</p>
-
-<p>Lovers of the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson
-know his <i>Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes</i>—a
-delightful book, but dealing very little with the Cévennes
-proper, mainly with the Upper Gévaudan, and with that
-portion of Lozère threaded by the Tarn, and with
-neither of these do I deal in this volume.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter"><a name="p015.jpg" id="p015.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p015.jpg" width="600" height="377"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Le Suc de Sara</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a>
-  <a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>
-  <i>France: Algérie et Colonies</i>, Paris, Hachette et C<sup>ie</sup>.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a>
-  <a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>
-  <span class="sc">Figuier (L).</span> <i>Mos de Lavène</i>, Paris, Marpon.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">LE VELAY</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">Haute Loire—Geological structure
-of the plateau—Trap dykes—Volcanoes—Crater
-of Bar—The Lac de Bouchet—Legends—Offerings made to
-lakes—Mézenc—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
-Béate—The peasantry—Costume—History of Le Velay—The
-Polignacs—The Mint—The Revolution.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-t.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">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'Oïl. 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. Originally
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
-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 surrounding
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>There are few crags of basalt or tufa in the Velay
-that are not crowned by a ruined castle, and to enumerate
-these would be a tedious and unprofitable task.</p>
-
-<p>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 overtaken
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
-bodies. The relics of plants and animals in the same
-bed belong to species still existing in the neighbourhood.</p>
-
-<p>Of the craters the most perfect is that of Bar, thus
-described by Georges Sand:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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 Cévennes. 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."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p></div>
-
-<p>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 Baiæ.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-      <div class="verse">"Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis prælucet amœnis,</div>
-      <div class="verse">Si dixit dives—lacus et mare sentit amorem</div>
-      <div class="verse">Festinantis heri."</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>This originated a tale told by the peasantry to the
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>That these lakes were held sacred admits of no
-dispute.</p>
-
-<p>Gregory of Tours, in the sixth century, says that in
-the land of the Gabali (the adjoining Gévaudan) 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 instead
-of throwing them into the tarn. This lake is now
-called Lac S. Andéol, on the mountains of Aubrac, and
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The loftiest of the Cévennes is Mézenc, on the
-frontier of Haute Loire. It is 5,750 feet high, and was
-at one time the central point of violent Plutonic eruptions.
-Several craters poured forth trachyte, phonolith,
-and basalt, which overflowed the granite, gneiss, clay
-deposits, and limestone to a great distance.</p>
-
-<p>One of the craters, La Croix-des-Boutières, remains
-very distinct.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"The phonolith of which Mézenc is composed," says Elisée
-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
-Mézenc, 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."</p></div>
-
-<p>If the map be studied, it will be seen that there are
-two features in the water system of this region that
-merit notice.</p>
-
-<p>In the first place, we have the Allier on the west, and
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
-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 Rhône, running in a precisely opposite
-direction, due south, to discharge into the Mediterranean.</p>
-
-<p>Then, again, going west, we have the Lot, the Tarn,
-the Jonte, the Truyère, 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.</p>
-
-<p>The rivers, rising in the granite of the Margeride, the
-Mont d'Aubrac, the Aigoual, the Monts de Lozère, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 cañons were originally subterranean
-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 Causses. They rise outside
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
-the limestone area, and cut right through it, separating
-one Causse from another.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>How this was done demands some explanation. The
-Rhône 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
-Ardèche, but flows in it for a short course only. It is
-still a feeble stream when it enters the department of
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Sumène has entered it, under
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
-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 superincumbent
-beds, from Peyredeyre to La Voute. The
-rock at this latter place sustains a restored castle belonging
-to the Duke of Polignac.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p022.jpg" id="p022.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p022.jpg" width="415" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Castle of La Voute-sur-Loire</span></div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="p2">
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p023.jpg" id="p023.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p023.jpg" width="379" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Cascade des Estreys</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Below this point the gorge ceases for a while, till
-another barricade was reached below Vorey, where the
-Arzon enters the Loire.</p>
-
-<p>There the river struggles between the Miaune and
-the Gerbizon, in the defiles of Chambon and Chamalières.
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 l'Aiguilhe. Perhaps as interesting an example
-as any of the way in which an insignificant stream has
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
-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 considerable
-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 Polignacs
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
-high tableland is swept by the winds, of which the most
-dreaded is that of the south, <i>le vent blanc</i>, bringing with
-it tempest that devastates the harvest.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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 mountaineers,
-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 impossible
-and sometimes perilous."</p></div>
-
-<p>To this fact is due the creation of the great industry
-of the land—lacemaking.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p024.jpg" id="p024.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p024.jpg" width="364" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">A LACEMAKER, LE PUY</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>So soon as the first snows appeared, the men abandoned
-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, Nîmes,
-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 patronage
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Lacemaking was a flourishing business till the year
-1547, 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 lacemaker.</p>
-
-<p>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 discontent,
-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 production
-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
-<i>commis voyageurs</i> 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p027.jpg" id="p027.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p027.jpg" width="405" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">La Béate</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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 communication
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>la béate</i>. 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 Béate.
-This woman, whose official title is <i>Dame de l'Instruction</i>,
-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 communications
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
-are difficult and are often impossible. It is then
-that they flock to the house of the Béate, 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 crêche, 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 curé, 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 evenings
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 movements,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>A writer in 1829 says:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
-He makes no distinction in his address to any one to whatever
-rank he may belong, and however wealthy he may be. Communicative
-when on terms of familiarity with him, an expression
-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."</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p029.jpg" id="p029.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p029.jpg" width="429" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Cevenol Peasant</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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 unmistakable.</p>
-
-<p>Robert Louis Stevenson's account of the people of Le
-Velay is peculiarly unpleasant. He speaks of their discourtesy,
-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:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"At the bridge of Langogne a lassie of some seven or
-eight addressed me in the sacramental phrase, 'D'où '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."</p></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>But I will quote again, and this time from Georges
-Sand:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"I find here a race very marked in its characteristics,
-altogether 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 cleanliness
-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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
-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 congeries
-of feathers and cheap sham flowers.</p>
-
-<p>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 fighting
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Taillefer,
-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.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
-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 fulfilled
-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.</p>
-
-<p>It is remarkable how sensitive Rome was to simony
-when practised anywhere else save in Rome itself.</p>
-
-<p>At a council held at Clermont in 1077, Stephen was
-deposed by order of Gregory. Nevertheless, he managed
-to retain the see till 1078.</p>
-
-<p>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
-Chalençon, has left a memory that was even savoury.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Jean de la Roche</i>,
-  Paris, Calmann-Lévy.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> See "The Cañons of
-  Southern France," by A. T. Jukes-Browne, in
-  <i>Natural Science</i>, vol. vi., 1895.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">LE PUY</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">The basin of Le Puy—Situation
-of the city—Mont Anis and l'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 façade—Cloister—Vaulting of nave—Tower—Lay
-canonry—Paintings—Walls—Old houses—S. Michel de l'Aiguilhe—How
-did the builders work?—S. Laurent—Du Guesclin—The Bible of
-Theodulf—Wealth of the see—Bad bishops—Bertrand de Chalençon—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'Allègre—The Huguenots retire—The Revolution.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-a.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">ASSUREDLY no city in Europe occupies a site so
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p034.jpg" id="p034.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p034.jpg" width="410" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">West Front of Cathedral, Le Puy</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>In this basin the climate is mild compared with that
-of the uplands, and the soil is fertile. The train from
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
-Arvant curves round the town before it settles into the
-station, much as a dog turns about before he lies down
-to snooze.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The town is composed of houses grappling to every
-ledge; the streets are stone stairs, and the <i>place</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 moreover
-omnibus trains that loiter for six hours and a half
-over seventy-four miles.</p>
-
-<p>Nor can we reach Le Puy by the main line from
-Paris to Nîmes in a day, for at the junction, S. George's
-d'Aubrac, the trains do not communicate, and there is
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
-no tolerable inn at this junction where one can spend
-the night.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The people anciently occupying Le Velay were the
-Velauni, and they had their capital at Rheusio, so called
-from <i>rhew</i>, 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 capstone.
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 monogram
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
-not allowed to remain where placed; when the present
-cathedral was built, this stone was employed as lintel to
-one of the north doorways.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<i>la pauperad</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
-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 returning
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Isis 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 approached
-from the west by the Rue des Tables, so
-named on account of the stalls set out there at the
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 façade is enriched
-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.</p>
-
-<p>This western façade 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.</p>
-
-<p>On two of the steps of the ascent is inscribed in
-Latin, "Ni caveas crimen, caveas contingere limen,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
-Nam Regina poli vult sine sorde coli." "Unless free
-from guilt shun this threshold, for the Queen of Heaven
-will be worshipped only by a guiltless soul."</p>
-
-<p>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>i.e.</i> 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 intricate
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 intersection.
-Later on the church was carried further westward,
-and the singular western portion, a nave over
-a porch, was raised in the twelfth century.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p040.jpg" id="p040.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p040.jpg" width="426" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Porch, Cathedral, Le Puy</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
-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 personages
-into the transept.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Until this year, 1906, the head of the French State,
-King, Emperor or President was <i>ex officio</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The finest of all represents the liberal arts, and was
-discovered by Mérimée 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 Perréal, painter to Kings Charles IX.
-and Francis I. In the Museum may be seen reproductions
-of some paintings from Langeac, in which the
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
-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 allegorically
-by the Blessed Virgin alluring to her the
-Lamb of God.</p>
-
-<p>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 turbulence
-of these latter, the ecclesiastics drew an inner
-ring of walls about themselves on the height above the
-town.</p>
-
-<p>In the tortuous streets may be seen many specimens
-of medieval domestic architecture, angle-turrets, doorways
-richly carved, and if one can look into the courtyards,
-some dainty subjects for the pencil may be
-obtained.</p>
-
-<p>But after having seen the cathedral and the old town,
-the feet are attracted to S. Michel l'Aiguilhe.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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 conglomerate
-of which it is composed must have been originally enveloped
-and supported by surrounding beds of softer materials,
-since worn away by aqueous erosion."</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p043.jpg" id="p043.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p043.jpg" width="438" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">L'Aiguilhe, Le Puy</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 exercise
-to circulate his blood, save by running up and down
-the stair in the face of the rock.</p>
-
-<p>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 VII.'s Chapel
-at Westminster. The Huguenots destroyed all these
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
-figures in the niches. They were restored and again
-broken up at the Revolution, but have not been reinstated.</p>
-
-<p>In the same hamlet of l'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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Orléans, 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.</p>
-
-<p>Guyenne, Poitou, Saintonge, Perigord, Brittany
-had been in turn the theatre of his victories; but the
-war continued in Languedoc. Bands of the Free Companies
-desolated the Gévaudan, 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 Gévaudan to lay siege to Châteauneuf Randon,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
-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 sickness,
-and he lay on his deathbed when the terms of
-capitulation were agreed upon.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The recumbent statue well answers to the description
-he gave of himself: "Les épaules larges, le col court,
-la tête monstreuse; je suis fort laid, jamais je ne serai
-bienvenu des dames, mais saurais me faire craindre des
-ennemis de mon roi."</p>
-
-<p>The cathedral library of Le Puy contains a copy of
-the Bible written by Theodulf, Bishop of Orléans
-(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 Débonaire," 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 overlaid
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
-allotted to that Church, for of their successors none
-could lay claim to much holiness, and many were a disgrace
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Some instances will suffice to show what manner of
-men they were who now and then were bishops of
-Le Puy.</p>
-
-<p>Adhelmar (1087-98), who died at Antioch as a
-Crusader, was succeeded by Ponce de Tournon, who
-was an assassin. Bertrand de Chalençon's hands were
-also stained by blood; he exasperated his flock to madness
-by his exactions, heavily fining widows who remarried,
-and levying exorbitant fees on burials. When
-Innocent III. proclaimed a holy war against the
-Albigenses, and promised pardon for all sins to such
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
-as should outrage, rob, and murder these heretics,
-Bertrand headed an army of Crusaders, composed of
-the riff-raff of Velay, Auvergne, and the Gévaudan,
-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 resentment
-of his followers. But they had full scope for
-their brutal instincts at Béziers 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 looking
-on, is reported to have said, smiling, "Kill all; God
-will know His own!"</p>
-
-<p>Bernard de Montaigu (1237-48), to enforce recognition
-of his seigneurial rights, subjected the city to an
-interdict, and excommunicated the flock he was set to
-feed.</p>
-
-<p>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 fortifications,
-and outraged her. The guild of the butchers
-complained to the prelate, who scoffed at the deputation,
-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 harrying
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 impregnated
-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 1321, 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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Le Puy saw the formation of a remarkable confederacy
-that promised at first to achieve the liberation
-of the country from the scourge of the routiers.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Such was the condition of affairs when, in 1182, 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 carpenter
-was a tool in the hands of one of the canons,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
-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 representation
-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 exhorted
-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 freebooters
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
-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 disappearance
-gave free scope for the great Companies to
-reorganise and resume their depredations.</p>
-
-<p>When the massacre of S. Bartholomew was determined
-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 bodyguard.
-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 encounters,
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
-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 of
-Navarre, "if I were not king, I would desire to be
-Madelaine de Saint Nectaire!" This by the way.</p>
-
-<p>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."</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Churchman
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
-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, pleading
-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."</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The story of the last siege is sufficiently curious to be
-told.</p>
-
-<p>In 1574, Vidal Guyard, a hatmaker of Le Puy, placed
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
-himself at the head of a hundred and twenty Calvinists,
-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 Calvinists
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>In 1562 the terrible Baron des Adrets, who was in
-Dauphiné 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'Allègre,
-with 20,000 livres to treat with Blacons, and offer this
-sum if he would divert his column on some other town.
-Christopher d'Allègre, 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 inhabitants
-of the place, and hastily repaired the fortifications.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
-to the Viscount Polignac 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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 contemporary
-historian, "did so well that he killed more
-men than did all the arquebusiers together."</p>
-
-<p>The Huguenots lost heart and demanded a parley.
-They sent Christopher d'Allègre as their envoy into
-the city. This man must have been endowed with considerable
-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."</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Next day the consuls and the bishop hoisted flags on
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
-every tower, and minstrels paraded the walls playing
-lively tunes on hautboys, fifes, and clarions.</p>
-
-<p>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 imprudent
-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.</p>
-
-<p>So the city can boast proudly, "Civitus non vincitur,
-nec vincetur," or in the words of Odo de Gissey, "Ne
-fut oncq' surmontée, ni le sera."</p>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">ROUND ABOUT LE PUY</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">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 remains—Julien,
-the sculptor—Barrier of the Loire—Vorey—La
-Lepreuse—Chamalières—Mézenc—Les Estables—Ascent—La Foire
-aux Violettes—The violet harvest—Flora of Mézenc—Gerbier de
-Jonc—View—Lake of Issarlès—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.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-t.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">THERE exist but a limited number of terms wherewith
-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, cañon 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
-with basaltic columns is another, yet the same term
-must be employed for both.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p060.jpg" id="p060.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p060.jpg" width="398" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Basalt, Espaly</span></div>
-</div>
-
-<p>If it fell to me to describe all the most remarkable
-sites in Le Velay, I should have to use these expressions
-<i>ad nauseam</i>, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
-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 <i>De profundis</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>By far the finest view of the rocks is to be had from
-the bridge over the Borne.</p>
-
-<p>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 surmounted
-by what looks like a gigantic gasholder, but
-which is intended to serve as a pedestal for a colossal
-statue of S. Joseph.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Beaudiné in
-Velay, held by the Huguenot captain, La Vacheresse,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Two months later he was wounded at Espaly, as
-related. In the same year he was successful in dispossessing
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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. Agrève, 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 Bédoués in the
-Gévaudan, that was besieged by the redoubted Captain
-Merle, but was unsuccessful.</p>
-
-<p>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. Agrève 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 besieged 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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Still further up this picturesque stream is the Castle
-de La Roche Lambert, the theatre of Georges Sand's
-novel <i>Jean de la Roche</i>.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"I may say without exaggeration that I was reared in a
-rock. The castle of my fathers is strangely incrusted into an excavation
-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.</p>
-
-<p>"This Château 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.</p>
-
-<p>"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."</p></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p064.jpg" id="p064.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p064.jpg" width="404" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Castle of la Roche Lambert</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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 museum
-of medieval antiquities, armour, old cabinets, and
-tapestry.</p>
-
-<p>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 Mézenc, and
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
-Mégal with its group of <i>sucs</i>. M. Paulett Scrope's
-panorama should be taken so as to identify the peaks.</p>
-
-<p>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 encircling
-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 conjectured
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>Lou Peyrou dou tresvirs</i>, the
-stone of the Triumviri, on which are carved three heads;
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
-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,
-built into modern 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 Etruscilla, wife of the Emperor Decius. The chapel of
-the Sisters of S. Joseph possesses a Romanesque doorway
-with bold zigzag ornament, removed from the
-ruined commandery of Montredon.</p>
-
-<p>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 uncle in the Jesuit
-Order. One day this priest, walking on a bit of wild moor
-scantily covered with coarse grass and juniper bushes,
-lit on his nephew, 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—</p>
-
-<p>"Sorry, mon père, that the figure is so bad."</p>
-
-<p>"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 surrendering
-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 artist." So
-the uncle carried off young Julien and committed him
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
-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 occupation
-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.</p>
-
-<p>After traversing the basin of Emblavès 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 Mézenc, 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.</p>
-
-<p>Where, further up, the Arzon flows into the Loire is
-Vorey, lapped in a fold of the mountains, facing Gerbison,
-which is striated with rills descending in small
-cascades.</p>
-
-<p>On June 16th, 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The Loire receives a goodly addition of water through
-the Arzon, and below Vorey descends through profound
-gorges to Chamalières, 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 clerestory.
-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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p069.jpg" id="p069.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p069.jpg" width="600" height="383"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Mézenc</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The Mézenc, the highest of the Cévennes, rises out of
-a dreary plateau. It is, says M. Paulett Scrope:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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 therefore
-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 directions,
-they appear to have flowed to great distances immediately
-upon their protrusion from the volcanic vent.</p>
-
-<p>"We shall be fully justified, by the universal declination of
-these volcanic beds from the Mont Mézenc, 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
-Boutières, there still exists a semicircular basin whose steep
-sides are entirely formed of scoriæ and loose masses of very
-cellular and reddish-coloured clinkstones."</p></div>
-
-<p>The desolate tableland over which one travels to
-reach Mézenc is well described by Georges Sand in her
-novel <i>Le Marquis de Villemer</i>, and the backward and
-unprogressive character of the inhabitants has not
-altered since her time.</p>
-
-<p>The carriage is left at the village of Les Estables, a
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
-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 (<i>phonolith</i>). 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-Mézenc, 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
-Mézenc are so numerous and so large that in spring the
-mountain is arrayed in royal purple. The Mézenc
-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 Nîmes. 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.</p>
-
-<p>The flowers are gathered at the end of May by
-women and children. Then they are dried in the hayloft,
-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 Mézenc, and putting a few
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
-<i>petits sous</i> into the pockets of those leading a hard life
-in this southern Siberia.</p>
-
-<p>The flora of Mézenc is subalpine, with many gaps.
-One rare plant alone is found on it, the <i>Senecio leucophyllus</i>,
-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 <i>Senecio maritimus</i>
-that grows on the Mediterranean littoral, which is
-cultivated in our gardens as an ornamental plant on
-account of its imbricated and silvery foliage.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>It is quite easy to "do" Mézenc from Le Puy in a
-day. That admirable institution, the Syndicat d'Initiative,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The Gerbier de Jonc is a conical clinkstone mountain,
-not so high as the Mézenc, 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
-the dislocation of the rock and the steepness make the
-climb somewhat laborious.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter"><a name="p072.jpg" id="p072.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p072.jpg" width="600" height="397"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Gerbier de Jonc</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"Yet—how one is repaid for the labour! The view over
-the Vivarais is one of inexpressible beauty. No other belvedere
-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 Cévennes; 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
-<i>sucs</i>. 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."—<i>Ardouin Dumazet.</i></p></div>
-
-<p>The lake of Issarlès is indisputably the most beautiful
-of the sheets of water in the Cévennes. It is circular,
-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 Issarlès.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>But if no stream issues visibly from the lake, numerous
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 1156 by a Seigneur of Mézenc. The
-Carthusians used the lake not only as a fishpond to
-furnish their table, but also as a reservoir for the irrigation
-of their meadows by means of canals.</p>
-
-<p>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 16th Frimaire (4th to 6th
-December), and at the beginning of 1794 the Citizen
-Auzillon was deputed to inspect and report on Issarlès.
-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 concealment
-in the neighbourhood. Auzillon declared in his
-report that the draining of the lake would cause an unwarrantable
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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
-Issarlès.</p>
-
-<p>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 Nîmes 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 Abbé du Chayla at the Pont
-de Montvert. Noirot père had inherited from his
-ancestors nothing but an implacable hatred of Catholicism.
-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 Nîmes 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 implacable
-dislike to his son. He sent him into the
-mountains to be fostered by peasants in the village of
-Issarlès, and thenceforth cared no further for him than to
-send grudgingly the meagre sum necessary for his keep.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Pierre grew up in rough surroundings. His foster-parents,
-Antoine and Véronique Vidil, had three children,
-two boys and a girl, but lost their sons in one day by
-typhoid fever. Only the little Geneviève 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 himself
-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 reverse
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Pierre's sensitive soul was wounded by the injustice
-wherewith he was treated, and he found his only happiness
-in the society of Geneviève.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>lou mou</i>, 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 père 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;
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
-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 Issarlès. 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 Issarlès for the Vidils to see
-him. He tasted of happiness only in the holidays, when
-he returned to Geneviève. Study was his great consolation.
-Philosophy and mathematics proved an irresistible
-attraction to his eager mind. Always first in his class,
-he surprised the professors, and sometimes alarmed them
-by his precocity.</p>
-
-<p>At the age of seventeen he entered the Polytechnic
-School, and was the first to pass in his examination.
-The régimen of this institution suited him. He spent
-all his spare hours in the library. Pierre read voraciously
-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: "Nîmes,
-31st October, 1856. Captain Noirot is dead. Apoplexy.
-Come at once. Doctor Moulon."</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
-months, and accordingly returned to the Vidils, who
-received him with a warm welcome. These good people
-had planned to marry him to Geneviève, 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:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-<p class="ar">
-<span class="sc">"Issarlès</span>, <i>May 1st, 1859</i>.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>"<span class="sc">My Little One</span>,</p>
-
-<p>"I am obliged to apply to the béate, 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
-Geneviève has died of a languor. I am growing old, and
-am alone. Come and comfort maman Véronique, who loves
-you, and has none but you left to her in the world.</p>
-
-<p class="ar">
-"<span class="sc">V. Vidil.</span><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>"P.S.—You will find in a fold of this letter a thousand
-francs wherewith to buy a substitute."</p></div>
-
-<p>Geneviève 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 Issarlès. The Vidils had done well, and
-had amassed a little money.</p>
-
-<p>Twenty years passed. In 1879 M. Firmin Boissin,
-who had been at college at Aubenas with Noirot, went
-to Issarlès to visit his friend there, the Curé Téraube;
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
-wrapped in philosophic pursuits. He had brought
-away with him from Nîmes some of the doctrinal
-books that had belonged to his ancestors, but which
-père Noirot had not read. All his spare cash was
-expended in the purchase of others.</p>
-
-<p>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?"</p>
-
-<p>The iron of Calvinism had entered into his soul, and
-was festering it.</p>
-
-<p>M. Boissin and he had many disputes on this perplexing
-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."</p>
-
-<p>A few days later Pierre disappeared. Mme. Vidil
-came in alarm to the presbytère to inform the Curé
-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 Curé managed to drag
-him out by the hair of his head. Pierre Noirot was
-conveyed to his bed. Life was not quite extinct. The
-Abbé Téraube, 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?"</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>At these words the eyes of Noirot opened; he looked
-up and said in a whisper: "Je vois—je sais—je crois—je
-suis désabusé."</p>
-
-<p>The Abbé, laying his hand on the unfortunate man's
-head, pronounced 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.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
-
-<p>Le Monastier is the place whence Robert Louis
-Stevenson started with his donkey after having spent
-there a month.</p>
-
-<p>He says:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"Monastier is notable for the making of lace, for drunkenness,
-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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
-They go up needy attorneys and return flush with
-money.</p>
-
-<p>A peasant said to me one day: "Have you been at a
-chase and seen the poor brute down, all the hounds tearing
-at it and fighting each other for scraps of the
-carcass? That prey is France, and the hounds are the
-parties."</p>
-
-<p>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 characterless.
-They have been converted into mairie and corn
-market. Everywhere in France we see Virgil's <i>Sic vos
-non vobis</i> exemplified. Monks erect monasteries that
-serve as barracks and schools, asylums and municipal
-buildings to a future generation.</p>
-
-<p>The abbatial church remains, an edifice of the
-eleventh century, but with an apse of the fifteenth. The
-façade is Romanesque with mosaic work of lava, and
-the arcades of window and doorway are striped in the
-same manner.</p>
-
-<p>On the south side of the choir is the pretty renaissance
-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 became
-marvellously altered in the south. Theofred has
-been transformed into Chaffre, we have seen Evodius
-become Vozy, and in Hérault we come on St. Agatha
-disguised under the form of Ste. Chatte, and in Ardèche,
-Mélany 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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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 off 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. André 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Philomène aged
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
-twelve. On November 27th, 1902, three peasants were
-returning from market at Lausanne, and had reached
-the glen of the Aubépine, 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 <i>l'Avenir</i> at Le Puy went to the scene, but
-saw none of the performances. He contented himself
-with collecting evidence from eye-witnesses, and convinced
-himself that the phenomena were due to some
-supernatural cause.</p>
-
-<p>That the two girls were at the bottom of the <i>diablerie</i>
-admitted of no doubt. It was obvious to all. When
-they were removed to their uncle's elsewhere, the phenomena
-ceased at the mill and recommenced in the house
-into which they had been received.</p>
-
-<p>Nevertheless it occurred to no one, not even to the free-thinking
-editor, that all was due to clever legerdemain.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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 something
-fresh to throw. Plates and bowls were made to
-dance by horsehairs which had been attached to them
-by dabs of wax.</p>
-
-<p>In the case of the mill of Perbet, it was noticed that
-the stones flung were <i>warm</i>, in itself a significant token
-that they had been in the hands of the children or
-secreted about their persons.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Philomène, and that the only spirits responsible
-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.</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a>
-<i>Révu du Vivarais</i>, 1893.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">L'AUBERGE DE PEYRABEILLE</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">Roman road—The inn—Pierre Martin, his wife, and man—Haussmann
-at the inn—Number of murders committed never known—Claude
-Béraud—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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter"><a name="p084.jpg" id="p084.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p084.jpg" width="600" height="338"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">The Tavern of Peyrabeille</span></div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="p2">
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-t.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">THE 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>In the valley of the Ardèche, 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.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
-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 Cæsar pressed in his memorable
-winter march when he surprised the Arverni.</p>
-
-<p>The great road came down from Clermont to Le Puy,
-passed over the tableland to near the source of the
-Ardèche, and followed down that river to Aubenas and
-thence into the Rhône valley. At almost the highest
-point, 3,850 feet above the sea, in a bleak spot away
-from other human habitations, stood a hostelry, Peyrabeille,
-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 possessions
-on all sides. Not till 1833 was this murderous
-band convicted and guillotined beside the inn, the scene
-of their crimes.</p>
-
-<p>Pierre Martin, called also Blanc, with his wife Marie,
-came first of all as tenant farmer to a man named
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 staircase
-leading to the upper floor, where were the principal
-bedrooms. On the left a door gave access to the
-salle-à-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
-cupboard bed, and from which a doorway led into the
-hayloft.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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, consequently
-linked with the Rhône 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.</p>
-
-<p>Baron Haussmann, in his <i>Memoirs</i>, relates a visit
-made to this inn in 1832. He was then sous-préfet of
-Yssingeaux:—</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"It was six o'clock at night. We decided reluctantly to
-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-à-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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>It is doubtful whether the Martins would have ventured
-to assassinate two men so well known as Haussmann
-and his comrade, M. Dumoulin. Possibly, had
-they stayed the night, it would have saved the life of
-the cattle-dealer.</p>
-
-<p>The Martins were cautious to treat well and leave
-unmolested persons of some condition, whose disappearance
-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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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 information
-of intending lodgers well furnished with
-money, in advance of the arrival of the guests. Furthermore,
-André 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 270,000 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 Béraud,
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>In the month of July, 1812, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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 surprise
-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 suspended
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 opportunity
-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, observed
-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."</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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.'</p>
-
-<p>"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.</p>
-
-<p>"Bed-time arrived. The people of the house told us
-plainly enough to go to our respective chambers aloft. Then
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
-only did some suspicion cross the mind of the old man, and
-he asked to share the same room with me, but this was peremptorily
-refused.</p>
-
-<p>"They led us to our separate bedrooms at some little distance
-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 recommended
-me not to leave my door open, speaking in a tone
-that expressed an order.</p>
-
-<p>"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 asleep—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.</p>
-
-<p>"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, however,
-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 refusing 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.</p>
-
-<p>"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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
-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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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 comment
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>dot</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>In 1826, just two months after the marriage, another
-crime was attempted, that came to light later.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 sleeping
-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 unable
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
-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 Peyrabeille
-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 circulate
-relative to the tavern, but no one was willing to
-speak out and lay a definite charge against the Martins.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter"><a name="p096.jpg" id="p096.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p096.jpg" width="600" height="389"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Mayres</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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 unconscious
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
-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 expedient
-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.</p>
-
-<p>In 1831, 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 <i>dot</i> that went with her, and he
-took his wife with him to Vans.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>In October, 1831, an old man of seventy-two, named
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
-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 consented,
-and went with his kinsman to the fatal inn,
-which they reached at nightfall.</p>
-
-<p>There were in the house at the time André, the
-nephew of Pierre Martin, and a girl named Marie
-Arnaud, the betrothed of André, 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 requirements
-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!"
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Before dawn the beggar had fled the scene.</p>
-
-<p>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 Peyrebeille.</p>
-
-<p>The murder had been committed on the night of the
-12th 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, accompanied
-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 Coucouron
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>One day he sent his servant, Jean Testud, with a
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Lespéron and flung over it, so
-as to give an idea that Anjolras had fallen accidentally.</p>
-
-<p>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 1st, Martin and his wife and his nephew
-André, and after that Jean Rochette, were arrested, but
-were not brought to trial for three years, as the prosecution
-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.
-André, as already said, was acquitted, but Pierre and
-his wife and Jean Rochette were guillotined close to
-the inn on October 2nd, 1833.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 previously.
-To Peyrabeille may be applied the words of
-Jules Claretie, relative to Paris after the Terror: "Il
-y avait encore dans Paris une odeur de sang, et Paris
-cependant s'ammusait; folle de joie."</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p103.jpg" id="p103.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p103.jpg" width="600" height="370"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">A GROUP OF LACEMAKERS</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">LES BOUTIÈRES</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">Geological formation—Characteristics
-of the Boutières 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 Dunnière—La Tourette—Chalençon—Diana
-of Poitiers—Le Cheylard.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-l.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap L" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">LES BOUTIÈRES 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 Cévennes chain northwards.
-There are among them no craters, no floods of crystallised
-lava. Their heights are not extraordinary; they
-throw out long lateral spurs towards the Rhône. The
-scenery is tamer than in any other part of the Cévennes;
-that portion from Annonay to S. Etienne is given up to
-factories, which makes the country people prosperous
-but the country unattractive.</p>
-
-<p>But from Annonay south to Privas there is pleasant
-if not fine scenery, and it is very rarely visited.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
-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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>S. Peray is famous, with a limited fame, for its sparkling
-wine.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>crus</i>, 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 Rhône and Saône, were able to bring them into
-the heart of France.</p>
-
-<p>But after a while the owners of the vineyards of
-S. Peray saw their way to selling direct to the consumer.
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
-the vine becomes more and more accustomed to the
-soil.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The family of Crussol was not of much note till
-Louis de Crussol gained the favour of Louis XI., and
-was appointed governor of Dauphiné. The son married
-the heiress of Uzès, and with her the title of viscount
-passed to their son Charles, whose son Antoine was
-created Duke of Uzès. The ruined castle belongs still
-to the Uzès family.</p>
-
-<p>The castle was destroyed by Richelieu in 1623.</p>
-
-<p>In my book, <i>In Troubadour Land</i>, I have told the
-story of how the Uzès 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 Rhône at S. Peray is the castle of Beauregard,
-formerly a State prison, now a café restaurant
-with a speciality in tripe. So the whirligig of Time
-brings about its revenges.</p>
-
-<p>The most interesting excursion among the Boutières
-is up the valley of the Erieux, that takes its rise above
-S. Agrève. 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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The line up the valley is a masterpiece of engineering;
-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 Rhône
-a couple of miles above La Voute, but the junction of
-the line to Le Cheylard is at this place. La Voute sur
-Rhône 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The fortress was begun in 1319, 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.</p>
-
-<p>In the valley of Erieux, where it opens out, vineyards
-have been staged up the mountain sides, in narrow
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
-walled terraces, with infinite labour, and where there
-are not vines there are chestnuts and cherry trees. At
-S. Fortunat, the Dunière enters the Erieux, and hence
-a road leads to Vernoux, the Geneva of the Protestants
-of Upper Ardèche. It is mainly occupied by descendants
-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. Agrève and
-Vernoux. They represent the original Huguenots far
-more truly than those who call themselves Evangelicals,
-for these latter have lapsed into Freethought, Indifference,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Many of the Evangelicals never attend public worship.
-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 curés in every way
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
-oppose mixed marriages, which is a mistake, for no
-more effective missionary can be found than a God-fearing,
-consistent wife.</p>
-
-<p>Unhappily party feeling runs strong. An old curé 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.</p>
-
-<p>So when the Calvinist temple wanted rebuilding
-a rate was imposed on all the citizens, and the Catholics
-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 proportions
-had been the other way on, without a doubt the
-Catholics would have acted with precisely the same
-intolerance.</p>
-
-<p>As a curé 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."</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>This temper sometimes produces vexatious results.
-In a village in the Boutières, 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 overlooked,
-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.
-<i>Parturiunt montes nascetur ridiculus mus.</i></p>
-
-<p>In 1885, when at the election for the Legislature
-the Conservative list passed in its entirety, the
-Protestants of Les Boutières 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, <i>la pourasse</i>.</p>
-
-<p>Before the outbreak of the Revolution there were
-many little nobles and landed gentry in the country
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
-whose châteaux are now in ruins or turned into farm-houses.
-They lived sociably, giving dances, meeting
-for shooting-parties or games of tennis.</p>
-
-<p>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 courteously
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 château 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
-gained, by becoming a duke, for now I am only Belluno
-(Belle Lune)."</p>
-
-<p>The river Dunière sweeps past Vernoux, and the
-road from S. Fortunat to this town presents a succession
-of striking scenes. The gorge through which the
-Dunière 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 contracted
-throat of Pontpierre, after the bursting of storms
-in the Cévennes, 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 Roumézoux, 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 Dunière
-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 repurchased
-the eagle nest of its ancestors and has put
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>In 1671, the Marquess de La Tourette bought the
-barony of Chalençon 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
-Chalençon.</p>
-
-<p>In 1523, Jean de Poitiers, father of the famous Diana,
-Baron of Chalençon, 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 became
-Baroness Chalençon and Privas. She seems never
-to have set foot in either. This left-handed queen died
-in 1566, and bequeathed the barony to the youngest of
-her daughters, Louise, who had married in 1546 Claude
-de Lorraine, Duc d'Aumale. In the square of Chalençon
-may be seen a gigantic elm, a <i>Sully</i>, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Boutières
-to the cone of Mézenc, to which the chain hitches
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
-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 château of La Mothe
-is picturesque, but has had the tops of its towers knocked
-off and rehatted.</p>
-
-<p>Le Cheylard may be employed as quarters for a visit
-to Mézenc 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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">THE VOLCANOES OF THE VIVARAIS</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">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—Fête
-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 Pourcheirolles—The
-Flandrins—Bourzet—Good Friday there—Prismatic basalt—Montpezat—Le
-Pal—Huge crater—Suc de Bauzon—Thueyts—Pavé des Géants—The
-royal ladder—Mayres—The great eagle—What medieval men
-thought about basalt—First discovery of the Vivarais mountains being
-volcanoes.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-t.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">THE attraction of cohesion is one of the mightiest
-and most active forces in nature. It went towards
-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?</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p114.jpg" id="p114.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p114.jpg" width="600" height="385"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">The Vivarais Chain</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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 commands
-such a prospect as is worth going thither from
-England to see if that were its only attraction.</p>
-
-<p>Are there good hotels in Vals? So there are in
-Aubenas. Shops? As good in both. Electric illumination,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The river Ardèche, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Come to Aubenas from the junction at Vogué 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
-either because she is suffering from toothache or heartache
-at parting with her intended. But neither ache is
-very enduring. Before the train has gone a thousand
-mètres, 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 <i>saucisson</i>.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-      <div class="verse">"Why wear you that kerchief tied over your head?</div>
-      <div class="verse">'Tis the country girls' fashion, kind sir, then she said;</div>
-      <div class="verse">And the fashion young maidens will always be in,</div>
-      <div class="verse">So I wear a blue kerchief tied under the chin.</div>
-    </div>
-	<div class="stanza">
-      <div class="verse">Why wear a <i>blue</i> kerchief, sweet maiden? I said.</div>
-      <div class="verse">Because the blue colour is not one to fade.</div>
-      <div class="verse">As a sailor's blue jacket who fights for the king,</div>
-      <div class="verse">So's my bonny blue kerchief tied under the chin."</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
-penetrated to their hearts and shines back on you from
-their merry eyes.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Aubenas is, next to Annonay, the most important
-town in the Vivarais; neither is the seat of the préfet,
-nor of the bishop, nor of a university.</p>
-
-<p>The department of Ardèche has been treated somewhat
-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
-<i>omnibus</i>.</p>
-
-<p>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
-lycée is near the other end of the department, also at
-its eastern limit, with only a streak of water between it
-and Drôme. 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 <i>chef-lieu d'arrondissement</i>, which Largentière is,
-numbering 2,780.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 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 explosions
-that were heard. The stags, the wolves even,
-fled from the Cévennes and took refuge in the towns,
-laying aside their instinctive fear of men.</p>
-
-<p>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 Vogué, who held it
-till the Revolution. It has happily not been destroyed,
-and now serves as mairie, tribunal of commerce, etc.
-The façade is imposing, flanked by round towers and
-commanded by a square keep. The whole was roofed
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The Genoese, by making themselves masters of Corsica,
-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 Orléans, the King's brother, and governor
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 intermittent
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
-sulphuretted hydrogen, which phthisic patients inhale
-eagerly. When the water falls it is sucked back into
-the bore.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p120.jpg" id="p120.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p120.jpg" width="600" height="389"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">The Volane Valley, by Vals</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"For the inhabitants of the plains of Gard and the Bouches-du-Rhône,"
-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 Précieuse or that of Saint Jean.
-Those of the former are not only agreeable to the palate, they
-have also their <i>clientelle</i> 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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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 belonged
-to Fay-Gerlande till 1794, when it was sold. The
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
-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 15th 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 Abbé Volle,
-curé 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 magnificent
-gateway with twisted columns and the arms of
-Montlaun was erected by Claude René 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 façade is sustained on a structural
-terrace.</p>
-
-<p>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 scoriæ 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
-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 <i>Les Muscadins</i>.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter"><a name="p122.jpg" id="p122.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p122.jpg" width="399" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Valée de la Volane
-   (Le Fauteuil du Diable)</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>Emmanuel-Louis-Henri de Launez, Comte d'Antraigues,
-was born at Villeneuve de Berg, in the
-Vivarais, in 1755. In 1788 he published a <i>Mémoire
-sur les états généraux</i>, 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 following
-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 Revolution
-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 counterrevolution
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
-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 outpost
-of the French army in Italy, and was arrested with
-all his papers that contained full evidence of the conspiracy
-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 attaché 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 obtained
-a copy. He communicated these to the English
-ministry, and in return was granted a liberal pension.</p>
-
-<p>He still maintained relations with Paris, and was
-mixed up in every plot for the restoration of the
-Bourbons.</p>
-
-<p>However, it was not given to him to see the realisation
-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, 1812, the Count d'Antraigues having
-expressed his intention to visit the Prime Minister to
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 circumstances
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The name of Antraigues is taken from its position,
-Inter Aquæ, between the three streams—the Volane,
-the Bise, and the Mas.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p125.jpg" id="p125.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p125.jpg" width="408" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Fall at Antraigues</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>On August 16th, the fête of S. Roch, a great pilgrimage
-is made to Antraigues, attended by many thousand
-persons. The neighbouring villages send their processions
-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 processions
-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 constructed
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>There is nothing edifying in the story, nothing in his
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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 off 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."</p></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The valley of the Ardèche above where it falls into
-the basin of Aubenas is finer still; it leads into the
-heart of the noblest volcanic heights.</p>
-
-<p>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 (pronounced
-Two-ets) and that to Jaujac, where the Lignon
-flows into the Ardèche.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p129.jpg" id="p129.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p129.jpg" width="579" height="364"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">CASTLE OF VENTADOUR</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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 wonderful
-what changes can be rung on the name of Levi.
-It becomes in England Lewis and Levison, Lowe and
-Lyons, and Lawson.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The Levis first appear in history in the eleventh
-century, and derive their name not from Levi, but from
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
-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 strongholds,
-Richelieu, in 1626.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p128.jpg" id="p128.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p128.jpg" width="384" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">In the Ardèche</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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 Tanargue, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 smashing
-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 of <i>foie gras</i> and battered sardine-tins, that the volcanic
-vent conveys the impression of having been the
-eruption of a great establishment of grocery and preserves.</p>
-
-<p>The sides of the bowl of the crater are dotted with
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
-chestnut trees, so as somewhat to disguise its character.
-Volcanic dust and cinder seem to be peculiarly favourable
-to the vegetation of the Spanish chestnut.</p>
-
-<p>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 château, in close
-proximity to the village or town, is now converted into
-a school.</p>
-
-<p>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 Ardèche.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"A wide and massive plateau of basalt thus formed, after
-entering the valley of La Beaume, prolongs itself to some distance
-below Neigles, bordering the Ardèche 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."</p></div>
-
-<p>At Pont-de-la-Beaume a road to the right leads up
-the valley of Fontollière to the fertile basin of Champagne,
-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 150 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 Fontollière 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 Fontollière and Pourseilles.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter"><a name="p130.jpg" id="p130.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p130.jpg" width="600" height="392"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Crater of La Gravenne</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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 amorphous
-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 Ardèche. The castle,
-perched as a vultures' lair in the midst of the valley of
-Montpezat, suspended between precipices, seems calculated
-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 Mézenc in 1312. 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.</p>
-
-<p>The river Burzet flows into the Fontollière, 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 perpendicular.
-A walk of from three to four hours from
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p132.jpg" id="p132.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p132.jpg" width="386" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Falls of Ruy Pic</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>At Burzet, on Good Friday, a procession perambulates
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The river of Burzet has not, like other streams, sawn
-its way through the basalt, only through the upper uncrystallised
-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 Italy, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
-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 thereabouts,
-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 remarkable
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 ineffaceable
-characters on the slopes of the crater. Here
-was one of sand and mud, there one of lava and
-scoriæ 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.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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 Rhône and of the Loire. When winter
-came with its hurricanes of snow, deluges of water were precipitated
-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."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>From the foot of the cone issues the source of the
-Fontollière, 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 Suc de Bauzon,
-another volcanic vent, red-headed, and 4,430 feet high.
-On the summit is a large stone table, at which, according
-to tradition, every year the four Seigneurs of Montpezat,
-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 <i>suc</i>.</p>
-
-<p>We return again to the valley of the Ardèche and
-mount to Thueyts, leaving on the left the pretty little
-bathing establishment of Neyrac.</p>
-
-<p>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 Pavé des Géants, 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>In Thueyts itself there is not much to be seen of
-architectural interest.</p>
-
-<p>Still further up the valley of the Ardèche, 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 Cévennes.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>Aquila fulva</i>, which is common enough, but the
-<i>Aquila imperialis</i>. It soars so high and keeps so well
-at a distance from men that the hunters very rarely are
-able to kill one.</p>
-
-<p>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 mountains—they
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
-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 1751, when Guettard and Malesherbes arrived at
-Montélimar 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
-1751, that same year, Guettard published his <i>Mémoire
-sur quelques Montagnes de la France qui ont été des
-Volcans</i>. 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 Montélimar
-Guettard and Malesherbes had dined with an Abbé
-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 1870, placed the further existence of volcanoes
-beyond possibility of dispute.</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a>
-<i>Voyage aux Pays Volcaniques du Vivarais</i>, Privas, 1878.</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">THE CAÑON OF THE ARDÈCHE</p>
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">Ruoms—The church—Aven of Réméjadou—Sampson—Vallon—Captain
-Merle—The last Marquess—Tapestries—Clotilde de Surville—Pont
-de l'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—Aiguèze—S.
-Martin—The return journey—Two men in a boat—Grotte de
-S. Marcel—The Gours—Dolmens—The Aven of Vigneclose.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p137.jpg" id="p137.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p137.jpg" width="600" height="385"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">The Gorges of the Ardèche</span></div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="p2">
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-r.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap R" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">RUOMS is a quaint little town on the Ardèche,
-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 Argentière. Ruoms was a walled town, and a
-considerable portion of the fortifications remains enclosing
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
-lights in recesses under relieving arches. The tower
-has a zigzag ornament above the bell windows in black
-lava alternating with white limestone.</p>
-
-<p>The Ardèche is joined below the town by the river
-of La Beaume, that flows through a cañon very similar
-to that through which the Ardèche itself has run before
-it reaches the bridge of Ruoms. These cañons 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 <i>gras</i>, is the <i>aven</i> or pot-hole
-of Réméjadou, 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:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"This <i>aven</i> 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 shepherd
-of Bourbouillet asserted, that this subterranean stream
-issues at the spring of that name. According to him, the inhabitants
-of Bourbouillet were much surprised one day to see
-the water of this spring charged with sawdust, and the explanation
-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 <i>aven</i>."
-<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p></div>
-
-<p>This pot-hole was explored in 1892 by M. Gaupillat,
-and he established the curious fact that the underground
-stream enters and leaves the <i>aven</i> by natural
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
-syphons, and not through galleries, so that it is not
-possible to track the stream up or down.</p>
-
-<p>Standing high above the junction of the Chassezac
-and Ardèche are the mountain and rock of Sampson,
-supporting a little village and church with spire on a
-<i>col</i> between the mighty crest of perpendicular rock and
-the crag that falls abruptly 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
-cañon of the Ardèche. 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
-Ardèche are too small to accommodate baggage.</p>
-
-<p>Vallon is not a town in itself of much interest, but it
-contains the château of the redoubtable Huguenot
-captain, Merle de Lagorce, 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 remained
-to the Catholics. Opposite that, on the further
-side of the river, is Salavas, where a strong and extensive
-castle, now in ruins, occupied the crest of a
-precipitous rock. These two positions Merle was determined
-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 <i>Deserts of
-Central France</i>.</p>
-
-<p>His son Hérail de Merle, Baron de Lagorce, joined
-the Church, and entered into the service of the King.</p>
-
-<p>On February 6th, 1842, died in the château of Vallon
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
-the Marquess Emmanuel de Merle de Lagorce, last
-male descendant of the eldest branch of the family, and
-left the château 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 château of Montréal
-in L'Argentière, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Marguerite Eléonore 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 château of Vallon.
-Her mother, Pulchérie de Fay Collon, had lived in the
-court of Gaston Phœbus, 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 Béranger de Surville, who
-quitted her early to fight under the command of the
-Dauphin, afterwards Charles VII. It was then that
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>
-she wrote a Héroïde, opening with the words "Clotilde
-au sien amy doulce mande accolade." But the composition
-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 was 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 à Marguerite d'Hélicon."</p>
-
-<p>Clotilde lost her husband at the siege of Orléans after
-a union that had lasted but one year. About 1450
-she married her son to Héloise 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.</p>
-
-<p>That the poems are a late fabrication by the marquess,
-who was shot at Le Puy, cannot be doubted. In the
-"Verselets à mon premier né" that begin "O cher
-enfantelet, vray pourtraict de ton père," there is obvious
-imitation of a romance by Bérguin, published in 1775.
-But the whole tone and character of the poems make
-it quite certain that they were composed in the eighteenth
-century, to be palmed off as the literary achievements
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
-of a lady of the forger's ancestry in the fifteenth.
-Villemain, after showing that they are <i>fictions antiques</i>,
-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."</p>
-
-<p>A good road leads down the Ardèche to the Pont de
-l'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, 110 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.</p>
-
-<p>The descent of the cañon 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.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
-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 cañon
-of the Tarn, but the scenery in it is more varied, and it
-is of the wildest beauty.</p>
-
-<p>Opposite old Vallon, as already mentioned, is Salavas.
-Hérail de Merle, son of the great Huguenot captain,
-abjured Protestantism, and married the daughter of
-Montréal, chief of the Catholics of the Vivarais. Profiting
-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 captured
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Salavas again fell into the hands of the Catholics, and
-was held by M. de la Chadenède 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.</p>
-
-<p>The garrison at once went over to assist them in
-unloading. But scarcely had they left their boat than
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p144.jpg" id="p144.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p144.jpg" width="600" height="432"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Le Pont de l'Arc</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>Before reaching the Pont de l'Arc the cañon 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.</p>
-
-<p>A little further down is the Goule de Foussoubie, a
-stream that issues from the rocks just above the level of
-the Ardèche. 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.</p>
-
-<p>The boat shoots under the Pont de l'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 <i>oppidum</i>, a place of refuge from prehistoric
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
-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 inhabitants
-of S. Remèze 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Chames is a little hamlet on the left bank of the
-Ardèche, 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 transformed
-to a mirror, so that from the opposite side, that
-of the Castle of Ebbo, when the sun is full on the white
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
-cottages and gleaming limestone rocks, they as well as
-the fruit trees are reflected with intensity in the glassy
-surface.</p>
-
-<p>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 shooting
-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.</p>
-
-<p>As we continue our descent, the heights of the sheer
-walls full of holes are as slices of Gruyère 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
-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 portions
-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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p147.jpg" id="p147.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p147.jpg" width="436" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption">"<span class="sc">The Cathedral</span>"</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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 precipices,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-Aiguèze, 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
-rock opposite S. Martin, to disfigure the last spur of
-crag on the Ardèche. Failure has attended the attempt,
-and the factories are abandoned. Even if they fall into
-ruins, their ruins cannot possibly become picturesque.</p>
-
-<p>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 halfway
-up the church of S. Martin and filled most of the
-houses.</p>
-
-<p>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 cañon.</p>
-
-<p>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 Ardèche.</p>
-
-<p>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 garçon 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 considerable,
-and we could not wait to send back for it.
-Any one who knows what a French <i>café au lait</i> 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 <i>déjeuné</i>, having
-eaten nothing since 8 a.m.; but we had hardly felt
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
-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, thinking
-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 imbibing
-absinthe, cognac, and wine.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>"But, Jean, my cousin lent me his horse."</p>
-
-<p>"That is certain."</p>
-
-<p>"But I cannot let him return to S. Just without refreshment.
-I must assuredly give him a glass of something
-to warm him."</p>
-
-<p>"That is reasonable."</p>
-
-<p>"Then let us unhitch."</p>
-
-<p>So again the trailer was unfastened, and the cart, boat,
-and men in the boat fell away into the darkness behind.</p>
-
-<p>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, goodness
-only knows. We left Vallon next day at 11 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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>This I relate as a caution to future visitors to the
-cañon of the Ardèche. If they intend to return by
-carriage to Vallon, let them remember that they will
-have to drag back with them the boat <i>en queue</i>.</p>
-
-<p>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. Remèze. 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
-Forêt-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:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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 décimètres
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
-to several mètres—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 antennæ of polypi, all
-either white, yellow, or rose colour, forming all together a vast
-pyramid of water-basins in onyx set with diamonds."
-<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p></div>
-
-<p>Further ladders and galleries are traversed, and more
-splendid masses of stalactite and stalagmite are seen.</p>
-
-<p>Formerly there were collections of these in the outer
-galleries, but they were wantonly destroyed by the
-peasants and by visitors.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>An <i>aven</i> 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 limestone
-plateau is here called.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a>
-A. Janet, <i>Annuaire du Club Alpin</i>, 1891.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a>
-<i>Les Abîmes</i>, Paris, 1894.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">THE WOOD OF PAÏOLIVE</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">Curiosity of the wood—How the rock disintegrated—Extraordinary
-shapes—A labyrinth—La Gleyzasse—Hermitage—the King of
-Païolive—The Royalists of 1792—Jalès—The Bailli of Suffren—Taking
-the inventories.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-l.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap L" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">LE BOIS DE PAÏOLIVE 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. Païolive is <i>Pagus Olivæ</i>.
-Curious the wood is, but cannot compare with Mourèze
-or Montpellier le Vieux, which have characteristics in
-common with it. The characteristics are these. There
-is an extensive elevated platform of cretaceous limestone
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
-the rain soaking into them and then running out at
-every perforation has furrowed the white face with its
-trickling tears.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p153.jpg" id="p153.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p153.jpg" width="383" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Païolive: The Lion and the Bear</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>This is the best known of the caverns of Païolive.
-But the mysterious wood grows above a whole subterranean
-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.</p>
-
-<p>M. de Malbos describes some of these:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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.</p>
-
-<p>"On ascending the river of Chassezac, on top of the
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
-precipice one can reach the Grotte of the Chouans. One
-descends, or rather jumps, down to it, where it opens on a precipice
-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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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 fragments
-of wall are worked into the fissures and surmount
-some of the points.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>At the north-west of the wood is the hermitage of
-S. Eugène, at the fringe of the forest. It is as though
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>According to tradition, for many generations the wood
-was inhabited by a family, the head of which assumed
-the title of King of Païolive. 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. Eugène, and requiring of him
-as recognition of suzerainty annually a pair of partridges—a
-tribute, however, that was never paid. The
-succession of kings of Païolive 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.</p>
-
-<p>In 1792, the Royalist bands of the Count of Saillans
-took refuge in the wood of Païolive, confident that it
-would not be possible for the Republican troops to dislodge
-them, and their head-quarters was in the Grotto of
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
-Gleyzasse, three hundred feet above the river. The
-Directory of Ardèche, however, found means of securing
-the conspirators when they met at the Château of
-Jalès, and they were taken to Les Vans and there put
-to death, the Count among them. Jalès 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 Templars
-succeeded the Knights of Malta. The most
-celebrated commander among these, who resided at
-Jalès, was the Bailli of Suffren, whom the vassals complained
-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 "Mirèio."
-The Bailli was killed in a duel by the Marquess of Mirepoix,
-in 1788.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-      <div class="verse"><span style="padding-left:5em;">"Our Captain was Bailly
-	    Suffren;</span></div>
-      <div class="verse"><span style="padding-left:6.5em;">We had sail'd
-	    from Toulon,</span></div>
-      <div class="verse"><span style="padding-left:5.8em;">Five-hundred seafaring
-	    Provençeaux,</span></div>
-      <div class="verse"><span style="padding-left:6.5em;">Stout-hearted and
-	    strong:</span></div>
-      <div class="verse">'Twas the sweet hope of meeting the English that made
-	    our hearts burn,</div>
-	  <div class="verse">And till we had thrashed them we vowed we would never return."</div>    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>And, of course, these stout-hearted Provençeaux thrash
-the English like curs, just as our bluejackets always
-thrash the French—in ballads.</p>
-
-<p>Between the wood and Berrias on the bare plateau
-are many dolmens.</p>
-
-<p>On the lovely day in early spring upon which
-I visited the Bois de Païolive, the inventories were
-being taken in the churches of Banne and Berrias.
-As we drove to the wood the bell of Banne church
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
-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. Outside
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The hostility provoked by the Government by ordering
-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."</p>
-
-<p>The attitude assumed by the bishops and curés has
-been diverse. Here the taking of the inventory has
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
-been opposed by force, there permitted under protest.
-At Lodève, 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 curé 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.</p>
-
-<p>Actually, the curés in most places took no lead in the
-demonstrations, which were often organised by reactionaries
-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 demonstration.
-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, à tout prix—des émotions."</p>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">THE RAVINE OF THE ALLIER</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">The Allier—Difficulty of
-ascent—Remarkable engineering of the line—Summer
-visitors—Difference between the Allier and the Ardèche—Langeac—Chanteuges—Disorderly
-monks—Fête 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 Vogué—Proprietorship
-<i>versus</i> tenancy—Pradelles—Delivered from the Huguenots—Château
-of De Belsunce—S. Alban—Cave—Trappist monastery—The
-Liborne—The rule of La Trappe.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-i.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap I" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">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 Cévennes.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
-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 Dège 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 cañon.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 department
-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.</p>
-
-<p>I have described the cañon of the Ardèche; this of
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
-the Allier is also a cañon, 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 Ardèche
-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 Ardèche in every one of these particulars
-is southern. The Ardèche has cut its way through
-a level plateau; the Allier flows between ranges of
-mountains. The cañon of the Ardèche is a street; the
-defile of the Allier is a lane. We cannot seek the
-Ardèche in the height of summer; it is just then when
-we would refresh in the cool draughts and the blue
-shadows of the Allier.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 distance
-from the station in the town. The place itself is
-of no great interest. It has manufactures, favoured by
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>From Langeac Chanteuges is easily reached. It
-clusters about a basaltic hunch at the junction of the
-Dège with the Allier. 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 suppression
-and the dispersion of the fraternity.</p>
-
-<p>One Iter de Maudulf, a knight who had led a lawless
-life, felt a twinge of compunction, and resolved on quitting
-the world and embracing a life of religion. Accordingly
-he assumed the cowl in Chanteuges. But the old
-Adam was not dead in him. <i>Cucullus non facit monachum.</i>
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
-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 abandoned
-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 plundered
-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 <i>en croupe</i>
-to their stronghold at Chanteuges.</p>
-
-<p>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 converted
-into a fortress, no one serving God, the holy
-habitation transformed into a den of thieves and
-murderers."</p>
-
-<p>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 cavalcade
-issues from the gate, with cowls drawn over grinning
-skulls, and with serge habits flapping in the wind,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
-that it sweeps over the plateau till cock-crow, when it
-returns through the portal and vanishes.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The fête at Chanteuges is on Whitsun Day, and has
-a peculiar observance. It begins in the Pré 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 <i>fou</i> has been discovered,
-he is grasped by the legs, thrown on his back, and spun
-round once by each of the youths forming the procession.
-Then a pistol is discharged, the procession reforms,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Opposite Chanteuges is S. Arcons, where the Fioule
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
-flows into the Allier. 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.</p>
-
-<p>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, 1777-1785. The Marquess was born at
-Chavagnac, 1757, on the tableland about the junction of
-lines at S. Georges d'Aurac. The castle was built in 1701.</p>
-
-<p>From Langeac one can explore the granitic Margeride,
-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 mountains.
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Ceffyl-y-Dwyr, the water-horse of
-Marchlyn. Can this myth have originated and been
-told by the Celtic race before its separation into several
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
-branches? I can see no other explanation of the
-puzzle.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Général 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.</p>
-
-<p>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:—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="verse">"Hic tibi rex regum hoc condidit Odilo templum</div>
-    <div class="verse">Agminibus superis quem miscuit arbiter orbis."</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p>
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The course of the Allier above Langeac presents
-many faces like organ fronts of basalt; in places the
-pillars form a <i>pavé de géants</i>. The prisms are employed
-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 superincumbent
-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 laminæ.
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 excavated
-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 discarded.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
-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 employed
-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 instruments
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 upwards
-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
-Gévaudan, of some commercial importance. A monastery
-was founded here in 998 by Stephen Count of the
-Gévaudan, and Silvester II. 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 1562 for nearly a century and
-a half the Gévaudan was devastated turn and turn
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Agelmodis,
-the widow of the founder of church and monastery.
-It was accorded a crown in 1900 by the Pope, and
-the anniversary of this ceremony, July 29th, is kept as
-a fête at Langogne. But the great festival in the town
-is on the Sunday following June 19th, when is the
-<i>vogue</i>, 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.</p>
-
-<p>Langogne is becoming annually more and more a
-summer resort. The Languiron here flows into the
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
-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 otherwise
-pure mountain air.</p>
-
-<p>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 householders
-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 contaminated,
-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 <i>patron</i>
-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 propriétaire says to himself, "<i>I</i> never
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
-drink water, only wine. If some of my children get
-diphtheria, it will leave more money for those who
-survive."</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 (<i>pratellæ</i>). The many Prades that occur in the
-south are all so called from the pratæ 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 gagnée!" 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.</p>
-
-<p>At Naussac, in the opposite direction, on a granite
-tableland that goes by the name of the Kidney of
-Lozère, is an ancient house with a tower that formed a
-portion of the château of Mgr. de Belsunce, the brave
-Bishop of Marseilles, who was so devoted in his attentions
-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 Ardèche. It lies high—3,565 feet.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
-On the face of an enormous basaltic rock is a remarkable
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Cévennes.</p>
-
-<p>The breaking out of this complaint caused consternation
-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 <i>fibrine</i> if they exist. Should these be
-detected, the eggs of that particular moth are destroyed
-by fire.</p>
-
-<p>In addition to this service rendered by the Trappists,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
-they have shown the peasantry of the High Cévennes
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>In Quarles' <i>Hieroglyphics of the Life of Man</i>, published
-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:—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-      <div class="verse">"Was it for this, the breath of Heav'n was blown</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Into the nostrils of this heavenly creature?</div>
-      <div class="verse">Was it for this, that the sacred Three in One</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Conspired to make this quintessence of Nature?</div>
-      <div class="verse indent1_5">Did heav'nly Providence intend</div>
-      <div class="verse indent1_5">So rare a fabric for so poor an end?</div>
-    </div>
-    <div class="stanza">
-      <div class="verse">"Tell me, recluse monastre, can it be</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">A disadvantage to thy beams to shine?</div>
-      <div class="verse">A thousand tapers may gain light from thee:</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Is thy light less or worse for light'ning mine?</div>
-      <div class="verse indent1_5">If wanting light I stumble, shall</div>
-      <div class="verse indent1_5">Thy darkness not be guilty of my fall?"</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p177.jpg" id="p177.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p177.jpg" width="581" height="351"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption">PEASANTS OF THE CAUS</div>
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">THE CAMISARDS</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">The country of the
-Camisards—Revocation of the Edict of Nantes—Shepherdess
-and angel—Corbière—Gabriel Astier—Excitement in the
-Boutières—Expectations of help from England—Prophecies—Murder
-of Tirbon—Prophetic gifts at Porchères—Attack of Cheilaret—What
-the prophetic gift really was—Isabeau Charras—Vivens—Battle of
-Florac—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 Abbé du Chayla—Séguier—Pont
-de Montvert—Fresh murders—Séguier taken and burnt—Catinat—Murder
-of Saint Cômes—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.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-w.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap W" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">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 prophetesses,
-its culmination in revolt, and its suppression.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
-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 everywhere,
-and crowds went to see the girl and hear her
-narrative from her own lips. This was the first manifestation,
-but it was not till twenty years had elapsed
-that such became common. A preacher, Corbière, 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. Corbière 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.</p>
-
-<p>Now appeared in Dauphiné 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 remembered
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile a pastor, Jurieu, from the place of his
-exile, Rotterdam, had proclaimed himself to be inspired.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
-He had a medal struck with "Jurius Propheta"
-on it, and largely circulated in the Cévennes. Moreover,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Rhône into the Vivarais, and, followed
-by a troup of prophets and prophetesses, he went
-through the Boutières. 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.</p>
-
-<p>Vast multitudes attended his assemblies in the mountains,
-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 multitude
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The theme of the preacher was always the same:
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
-"Repent; do penance for having attended Mass." And
-the thrilled congregation fell on the ground, screaming
-out, "Pardon, Lord, O pardon!"</p>
-
-<p>At this very time it was that the Revolution occurred
-in England, when James II. fled and the nation summoned
-William of Orange to the throne. William, it
-must be remembered, drew his title from the Principality
-of Orange, which he held, and this adjoined
-Dauphiné, 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 replaced
-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.</p>
-
-<p>This event alarmed Colonel Folleville, in command of
-the troops in the province.</p>
-
-<p>M. de Broglie, brother-in-law of Bâville, intendant of
-Languedoc, went to Porchères where he heard that a
-religious assembly was to be held. In this hamlet lived
-a poor old man named Paul Béraut, who had for long
-resisted the Spirit; but one day he heard his children
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
-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. Béraut 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.</p>
-
-<p>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."</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Fléchier, 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.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"Ils furent surpris du spectacle qui s'offrit à leurs yeux. La
-prophétesse était couchée à la renverse dans une cuisine, les
-jambes nues et l'estomac tout à fait découvert. Tous les
-assistants, à genoux autour d'elle, étaient attentifs à ces pieuses
-nudités. Le prêtre voulut faire quelque remontrance à la fille,
-mais la mère indignée lui dit: 'Quoi! malheureux que tu
-êtes, vous ne respectez pas ma fille qui a le Saint Esprit dans
-l'estomac!'"</p></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Gabriel Astier was finally taken and broken on the
-wheel in 1690.</p>
-
-<p>François 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 Cévennes 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 Bâville and de Broglie near Florac 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.</p>
-
-<p>Bâville executed several persons charged with having
-given him shelter. To revenge this Vivens, with his
-own hand, killed the curé of Conguérac, 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 <i>Histoire des
-Pasteurs du Desert</i>, "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."</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>-Mortes,
-march across the plain, and join hands with the
-Cevenols. The correspondence was intercepted, and
-Bâville, seeing he had to do with a dangerous man, put
-a price on his head.</p>
-
-<p>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 surmounted,
-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 himself
-shot by a man who had succeeded in creeping down
-in his rear. All but one of the pastors in the Cévennes,
-Pierre Roman, had been captured and hung. The death
-of Vivens and the peace of Ryswick deprived the Calvinists
-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.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"In 1700," says Court, the historian of the Camisards,
-"the country groaned with the crowds languishing in prison
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
-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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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 Ardèche
-brought the prophetic gift into the Cévennes. 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 Cévennes preached
-and prophesied. The Governor of Languedoc had a
-number of them arrested and put in prison, and required
-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 were <i>fanatics</i>. That was the sum of
-what they had to say.</p>
-
-<p>Bâville released the youngest of the children, but
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
-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."</p>
-
-<p>But the spirit of prophecy did not remain with the
-children, it communicated itself to their elders. Bâville
-had such arrested as he could lay hold on and hung or
-sent them to the galleys.</p>
-
-<p>But in spite of these cruelties, or rather in consequence
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The number and importance of the assemblies increased,
-and the Governor of Languedoc began to deal
-with hearers as he had with prophets. In October,
-1701, he sent a company to disperse one of these meetings
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
-down. Thus, in one day, the wife was deprived of
-husband, children, home, and substance.</p>
-
-<p>Throughout the Cévennes 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Séguier, received similar revelations.</p>
-
-<p>The Abbé du Chayla, arch-priest and inspector of
-missions in the Cévennes, had a house in which he
-sometimes dwelt at Pont-de-Montvert. He had been
-a missionary in China, and had there suffered martyrdom,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>On the Sunday following the capture of the convoy
-there was a gathering of the Protestants in the woods
-of Altefage, on Mount Bougès, when Séguier fell into
-ecstasy and prophesied. He was a wool-carder, tall,
-black-faced, and toothless, but a man full of energy
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Séguier, the
-terrible prophet, who was on his way with fifty-three
-of his men, and as they marched they sang Marot's
-psalm—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-      <div class="verse">"Nous as-tu rejeté, Seigneur, sans espérance</div>
-       <div class="verse indent-1">De ton sein paternel?</div>
-      <div class="verse">N'apaiseras-tu pas, après tant de soufferances,</div>
-       <div class="verse indent-1">Ton courroux éternel?</div>
-      <div class="verse">Sion, qui dut avoir l'éclat et la durée</div>
-       <div class="verse indent-1">Du céleste flambeau,</div>
-      <div class="verse">Regarde, hélas! Seigneur, ta Sion adorée</div>
-       <div class="verse indent-1">N'est qu'un vaste tombeau!"</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Du Chayla heard the chant, and did not trouble himself
-much about it. He went to the window and saw
-the assembled crowd. "Get away with you!" he
-shouted; "dogs of Huguenots!"</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
-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?" Séguier gave the order, and
-he was despatched, in the <i>place</i> of the little town to
-which they dragged him. According to Brueys, Séguier
-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 Abbé
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Séguier 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 Frugères. When
-the last notes of their psalmody died away, two Capuchins
-who had managed to conceal themselves in a
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>But during the funeral a cry was heard outside, "The
-insurgents are coming! Frugères, S. Maurice, S. André
-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.</p>
-
-<p>However, the storm that threatened to break over
-S. Germain rolled away to the west.</p>
-
-<p>Séguier, 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, command."</p>
-
-<p>Whilst the funeral of Du Chayla was in progress,
-actually Séguier, followed by a band of thirty men singing
-psalms, had entered Frugères and shot the parish
-priest. They went on to S. Marcel, but thence the vicaire
-had escaped. At S. André the curé, hearing of the
-approach of the band, rang the alarm bell. Séguier's
-men pursued him, flung him out of a belfry window,
-and then hacked him to death. The school-master was
-also murdered and his body mutilated. Wherever he
-went Séguier destroyed the crosses and every emblem
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
-of Catholicism. On the night of the 29th July the
-band surrounded the Castle of Ladevèse, where was a
-store of arms taken from the Protestants. When summoned
-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 château, not sparing even a mother aged
-eighty, or a young girl who on her knees prayed for
-her life.</p>
-
-<p>The authorities, in serious alarm, took immediate
-measures to repress the insurrection, and gave the command
-of the troops to a Captain Poul, who managed to
-capture Esprit Séguier, and The Mower was tried at
-Florac and sentenced to have his hand cut off and then
-to be burnt alive. On August 12th, 1702, Séguier
-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."</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The execution of Séguier was avenged on the following
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
-day. The band, knowing that the Baron de Saint-Cômes,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The insurrection spread rapidly. Laporte declared:
-"The God of Hosts is with us! We will thunder forth
-the psalm of battle, and from the Lozère 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 recruits.
-Circumstances favoured his project. Executions
-had multiplied of persons merely suspected of
-having attended the religious assemblies, so that the
-Calvinists alarmed fled their homes and in great numbers
-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 curés had fled.</p>
-
-<p>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 impetuosity.
-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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Roland, nephew of Laporte, now assumed the command.
-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 constitution;
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Announcement,
-or Call; the second was the Breathing. Those
-who had received the <i>breath</i> were highly regarded, but
-not considered capable of becoming leaders. The third
-degree was Prophecy, and such as had this were regarded
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 magazines,
-powder mills, arsenals, and even hospitals in the
-caverns that abound in the Cévennes, notably in the
-limestone mountains. He also required all his co-religionists
-to pay a tax in money or goods for the
-maintenance of the army. He formed wind and water
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 murmured
-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 "Théâtre sacré des Cévennes," describes what
-follows:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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, <i>A sac! à sac!</i> 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 movements
-of the breast and great sobs. M. Cavalier made prayer.
-I was one of the first to embrace Clary and examine his
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
-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."</p></div>
-
-<p>This seems precise and conclusive, but Court, in his
-account, gives another colour to the story. He says:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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:</p>
-
-<p>"1. Clary did not remain in the midst of the fire.</p>
-
-<p>"2. He dashed through it twice.</p>
-
-<p>"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."</p></div>
-
-<p>The condition of wild excitement in which the
-Calvinists were rendered them incapable of calm observation,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
-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 persecution
-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 Cévennes, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The area of insurrection extended through six dioceses,
-those of Mende, Alais, Viviers, Uzès, Nîmes and Montpellier—in
-fact, over the present departments of Lozère,
-Ardèche, Gard and Hérault.</p>
-
-<p>In January, 1703, the Marshal de Broglie, with a
-considerable force of dragoons and militia, went to
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
-Vaunage in quest of Cavalier, but could not find him,
-for he, in fact, was then in Nîmes, 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 insurgents saw the royal troops
-approach they drew up, prepared for battle, in a situation
-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 "Voilà
-votre Poul (cock)! We have plucked his feathers; stay
-to eat him."</p>
-
-<p>Immediately after this success the Camisards marched
-to Roquecourbe, near Nîmes, 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 commanded
-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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>But this victory was a preliminary to a disaster.
-Cavalier was drawn into an ambuscade by S. Julien, 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 Cévennes as best he
-might.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-curé 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."</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>In February, 1703, at Robiac, the insurgents murdered
-seven persons, among these a woman whom they dismembered
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
-alive because she refused to abjure her
-religion.</p>
-
-<p>On the 17th of the same month, in the same year,
-the band under Joany entered Chamborigaud and committed
-atrocious acts. They tied three children up in
-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 dismembered;
-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.</p>
-
-<p>At S. Génies 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
-curé and vicaire.</p>
-
-<p>At Ambais Sommière, on September 27th, 1703, the
-band of Cavalier roasted a girl of three years old over
-a slow fire.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
-who had been actively engaged in hostilities, but inoffensive
-peasants.</p>
-
-<p>Thirty-one parishes in the Cévennes, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The last and final victory gained by Cavalier was at
-Ste. Chatte at the end of 1704, against the royal troops
-commanded by La Jonquière, who was himself wounded.
-A whole regiment of six hundred soldiers and twenty-five
-officers was swept away by the Camisards.</p>
-
-<p>Montrevel, the governor after Bâville, 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
-retired, first to Holland and then to England. The
-revolt lingered on, the most fanatical refusing all compromise;
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 pertained
-to Catholic faith and worship. They recognised
-but one sin—attendance at Mass.</p>
-
-<p>Their fanaticism was the natural and irresistible outcome
-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, inspiration,
-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 prophecy
-had left him.</p>
-
-<p>And finally, what was gained to the Church of Rome
-by these forcible conversions and these butcheries?
-Ferdinand Fabre well says:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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 nowhere
-has it succeeded worse. It is the chastisement of all
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
-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."</p></div>
-
-<p>Cavalier in England was made a great deal of; he
-was fêted as a hero, received into the best society, and
-died Governor of Jersey in receipt of a handsome income;
-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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">ALAIS</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">Descent from La Bastide—Viaduct of the Luech—Coal-beds—The town
-of Alais—Rochebelle—Ancient oppidum—Hermitage—The last hermit—Sidonius
-Apollinaris—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.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-w.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap W" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">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 varnished
-leaves covering the slopes.</p>
-
-<p>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. Génolhac is passed, that
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
-suffered cruelly from Catholic and Camisard alike,
-whence Pont-de-Montvert may be visited, and the
-house seen where lived the Abbé du Chayla.</p>
-
-<p>A magnificent curved viaduct crosses the basin of the
-Luech, carried on two stages of arcades 180 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 1721, a Carmelite, Esprit Boyer, worked indefatigably
-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 nicknamed
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Brégis, 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 commanded
-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."</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Jacques de Cambis, lord of Alais, was engaged in
-Catalonia under the great Condé. His war-cry was
-"Allez comme Alès!" and on his son's sword was inscribed:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-      <div class="verse">"Je suis Cambis pour ma foi,</div>
-      <div class="verse">Ma maitresse et mon roi,</div>
-      <div class="verse">Si tu m'attends, confesse toi!"</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Both Jacques and his son died on the same day,
-August 21st, 1653, of wounds received at the taking of
-Tortosa. With them died out the male branch of the
-barons of Alais.</p>
-
-<p>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 convent
-to say that her husband walked and made unpleasant
-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 question
-the ghost. She asked, "Are you a good or a bad
-spirit?" <i>Answer</i>: "Good."—"Where are you now?"
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
-<i>Ans.</i>: "In purgatory."—"Why do you trouble the
-house?" <i>Ans.</i>: "A sin was committed in it by my
-mother."—"What did she commit?" <i>Ans.</i>: "That is
-a delicate question, which I decline to answer."—"Can
-you make the sign of the cross?" <i>Ans.</i>: "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 moment
-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 acrimonious
-that Pope John XXII. 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 XXII. had
-issued his homily, in which he asserted that the dead
-did enjoy the beatific vision. Jean Gobi saw his opportunity.
-He published at once an account of his interview
-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 contended,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
-and which the Pope had ratified. What better
-evidence could be desired:</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>In 1567 the Huguenots occupied Alais, and massacred
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The last bishop, De Bausset, escaped into Switzerland
-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 1801, 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
-République, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The Chinese assert that the discovery of the use of
-silk and how to weave it took place in the year
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
-<span class="sc">B.C.</span> 2,697, and great secrecy was observed as to how
-the silkworm was reared and how the cocoon was unwound;
-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.</p>
-
-<p>However, about three thousand years later, in the
-year <span class="sc">A.D.</span> 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 mulberry
-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.</p>
-
-<p>From Khotan the industry slowly spread to Persia
-and India.</p>
-
-<p>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 quantities, and
-which were so costly that they sold for their weight
-in gold.</p>
-
-<p>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, forbidden
-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 mulberries,
-crushed them in water, and obtaining thus the
-seed alone, dried it and enclosed it in their hollow
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
-bamboo canes. Then they departed on their return
-journey. On reaching Greece they related their adventures
-and sowed the seed.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile the young mulberries had grown vigorously,
-and when the worms issued from their shells
-they found abundant nourishment. They passed through
-their several stages of development and gave vigorous
-descendants.</p>
-
-<p>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 Ægean the
-culture spread to Sicily, to Italy, and to Spain. The
-Arabs, who had already in the East acquired a knowledge
-of how to produce silk, spread the industry
-through all the countries that they conquered.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
-had attended Charles VIII. brought back with them
-the seed of the white mulberry and the eggs of the silkworm
-into Languedoc and Provence. The first mulberries
-planted there were at Alban, near Montélimar,
-by Guy Pape, Sieur de Saint-Alban.</p>
-
-<p>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 stockings,
-1550. The religious troubles and the rivalries
-between the great seigneurs did much to impede the
-progress of agriculture and of sericulture. The cultivators
-of the soil were crushed by taxation and exactions
-of every sort, as well as by the ravages of rival political
-and religious factions.</p>
-
-<p>But when Henry IV. was well settled on his throne,
-and the League was at an end, it was possible for agriculture
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The Béarnais, 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 encouraging
-the production of silk in France, and he
-confided to a gentleman of the Vivarais, Olivier de
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
-Serres, the mission of developing sericulture by writing
-a treatise advocating it. De Serres published his
-"La cueillette de la soie" in 1599. Two years later
-he brought to Paris twenty thousand young mulberry
-trees, which were planted in the gardens of the Tuileries.
-At the same time Traucat, a gardener at
-Nîmes, with royal assistance, erected vast nurseries,
-which in forty years supplied over five millions of mulberry
-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 commemoration
-of the great minister of Henry.</p>
-
-<p>Sériculture made no progress during the reign of
-Louis XIII. It lost ground, and it was Colbert, the celebrated
-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 indifference
-among nobles and peasants alike. Colbert, following
-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.</p>
-
-<p>To attain this result, exemptions from taxation were
-accorded to plantations of mulberry trees and to magnanaries
-of silk. In the Langue d'Oc, the silkworm is
-called <i>magnan</i>, derived from the Latin <i>magnus</i>, as giving
-the greatest profit to the farmer, and the sheds in which
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
-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 silkworms.
-In 1650 De Comprieu, Consul of Le Vigan, introduced
-the new industry into the Cévennes from the
-Vivarais where it had taken root, due to the initiation
-of Olivier de Serres.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The production of the cocoon and of silk was prospering
-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 restrictions.
-In 1692 they obtained a patent, giving them the
-exclusive right to manufacture lute-strings and à-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 importation
-of all European manufactured goods, but also
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
-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 £500,000 per
-annum.</p>
-
-<p>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 silkworms,
-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, favourable
-to the industry. But an event that had considerable
-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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"The silkworm is the caterpillar of the mulberry-tree moth
-(<i>Bombyx mori</i>) belonging to the tribe of mealy-winged nocturnal
-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 (<i>Morus nigra</i>), so well known in Great
-Britain, is not the best species for the nourishment of the
-silkworm. The white-fruited mulberry (<i>M. alba</i>), a native of
-China, is the best, and is greatly preferred by the insect."
-<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p></div>
-
-<p>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 sluggish,
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-antennæ 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
-<i>imago</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 husbandry
-is completed within six weeks from the end of
-April.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
-
-<p>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 provision
-that she should be coquette.</p>
-
-<p>Even the severe Quakeress, objecting on principle to
-all adornment, must don a pearl-grey silk bonnet.</p>
-
-<p>On the Place de la République is a bronze statue to
-Florian (Jean Pierre Claris), born in the château of
-Florian, near Sauve, in 1755, and who died in 1794.
-He wrote plays, stories, verses, and fables. Not knowing
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
-much about his works, I went to a bookseller at
-Alais to ask if he had them.</p>
-
-<p>"The works of Florian!" he exclaimed. "We have
-his statue in the place."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes; but that is the work of the sculptor Gaudez,
-not of Florian himself."</p>
-
-<p>"Les œuvres de Florian—mais—" The man looked
-puzzled. "He lived a very long time ago. What did
-he write?"</p>
-
-<p>"I fancy, fables."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, monsieur! you mistake. That was La Fontaine."</p>
-
-<p>"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.</p>
-
-<p>"I think his works have never been reprinted," said
-the bookseller. "I will tell my child to ask the school-master
-about him."</p>
-
-<p>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—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-      <div class="verse">"Vhen the shepare in the fauld, and the kyeat hame</div>
-      <div class="verse">And all the weary warld asleop is gane,</div>
-      <div class="verse">Thewaes o my heart fall in shovers fra my eye"—</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>and so on.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>We have a fault, Florian is kind enough to inform
-us:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"Ils dédaignent d'ouvrir les yeux sur le mérite, sur les
-qualités qui sont propres à chaque peuple; cette insouciance
-donne à leurs vertus un air d'orgueil qui en diminue l'attrait;
-enfin, ils comptent pour fort peu de chose l'approbation, le
-suffrage des autres; et le seul moyen d'être aimable, c'est de
-les compter pour beaucoup."</p></div>
-
-<p>I suspect that this criticism is more just than his
-rendering of English surnames and his spelling of
-Scottish words.</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">
-[9]</span></a> Tomlinson's <i>Cyclopedia of the Useful Arts</i>, <i>sub voce</i>.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">
-[10]</span></a> De l'Arbousset, <i>Les Cévennes Séricoles</i>, and <i>Cours de Sériculture
-Pratique</i>, Alais, n.d. Maillot (E.), <i>Leçons sur le Ver à Soie</i>, Paris,
-1885.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">GANGES</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">Quissac—A tree gallows—The micocoulier—Sauve—Massacre by the
-Camisards—The abbot's summer-house—Manufacture of essences on
-the <i>garigue</i>—S. Hippolyte-du-Fort—Cruelties of Roland—Ganges—The
-murder of the marchioness—Grotto des Demoiselles—Manufactures
-of Ganges—Season for excursions.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-f.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap F" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">FROM Alais the train that runs on to Nîmes drops
-one at Quissac, whence diverges a branch to Le
-Vigan and Tournemire on the main line from Paris to
-Bézier, 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 <i>temple</i>, a feeble imitation of the Maison
-Carée at Nîmes. 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 <i>place</i> in front
-of it is a plane tree, serving, I presume, as a gallows
-for all the vermin caught in the place and neighbourhood.
-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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The micocoulier, or nettle tree (<i>Celtis Australis</i>), is
-much grown around Quissac. This tree flourishes
-along the south of Europe bordering on the Mediterranean,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Sauve bears for its arms argent a mountain, on top
-of which grows a plant of sage (<i>sauve</i>), and in chief
-the words <i>Sal-Sal</i>, that stand for <i>Salvia Salvatrix</i>.
-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 curé, aged seventy. They swept
-together forty of the parish priests of the neighbourhood
-and mutilated them in the most horrible manner.</p>
-
-<p>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.)</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>But even this desolate <i>garigue</i> 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 <i>garigue</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>The great centre of the industry is Sommières to the
-south of Quissac, where the <i>garigues</i> are more extensive
-than near Sauve.</p>
-
-<p>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 produce
-sweet odours as it is to yield bright dyes.</p>
-
-<p>These deserts of limestone apparently grow nothing
-but what is fragrant. Their vegetation expires in sweet
-odours.</p>
-
-<p>At S. Hippolyte-du-Fort the mountains draw near,
-terraced up for olives. The town with its three churches,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Ganges lies in a valley at the junction of the Sumène
-with the Hérault, and near where the Vis emerges from
-its gorge to shed its waters into the Hérault. 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.</p>
-
-<p>The town contains little of interest except the
-château 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,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
-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 explain
-the motive of the murderers, and we shall be
-obliged to distinguish between these and the facts that
-were proved.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p221.jpg" id="p221.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p221.jpg" width="600" height="432"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Castle Court, Ganges</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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 Christina 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-Nochères, 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 Mediterranean.
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Abbé de Ganges, did his utmost to estrange the
-married couple.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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 Abbé.
-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 <i>in commendam</i>, 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 Abbé. 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 dissipation
-of a capital. He left his two younger brothers
-at the château, and placed the management of his
-estates in the hands of the Abbé.</p>
-
-<p>According to Pitaval, both brothers fell in love with
-the far older Marquise, and the Abbé ventured to
-declare his sentiments towards her, and was repulsed
-with disdain so cutting as to fill him with resentment.
-Soon after M. de Nochères 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Abbé and the Chevalier were circumspect.</p>
-
-<p>But before long the dowager marquise left for Montpellier,
-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 Abbé 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.</p>
-
-<p>The Marquise was a woman. She allowed herself
-to be persuaded, and under the dictation of the Abbé
-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 Abbé,
-knowing nothing of her final declaration made there to
-vitiate any second disposition of her property, was
-satisfied.</p>
-
-<p>It is wholly unnecessary to accept the romance of
-the passion of the Abbé 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
-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 Abbé now was to get rid of the Marquise.</p>
-
-<p>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 Abbé 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Abbé roused and attempted
-to talk, but manifestly with an effort. Nor would either
-of them eat. Presently the party broke up. The Abbé
-undertook the duties of host, and accompanied the ladies
-to the door of the château. 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 Abbé entered, and the solution to the
-puzzle was given.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The Abbé entered the bedroom, a pistol in one hand
-and a tumbler with some dark turbid liquid in the other.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
-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 Abbé
-broke the silence. He stepped up to the bed and said:
-"Madame, you must die. Choose steel, lead, or poison."</p>
-
-<p>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."</p>
-
-<p>The miserable woman took the glass out of the hand
-of the Abbé. 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 dissolved
-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 convulsive
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
-soul as well as my body; send for a confessor." Both
-brothers left the room. They had no reason for refusing
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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, nevertheless
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The vicar laid hold of a silver water-jar and hurled it
-after her, but missed his aim. The jug, instead of braining
-her, struck a stone and broke.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The Marquise continued her flight. Already the
-brothers-in-law were in pursuit, shouting, "Hold her
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Abbé coming up, pistol in
-hand, stood on the threshold and threatened to shoot
-any one who interfered. His sister-in-law in her madness
-was not to be made a spectacle of to every one.</p>
-
-<p>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 unfortunate
-sister-in-law was out of her mind, and begged them
-to excuse such an unseemly irruption into their midst.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
-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 Abbé, 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 Abbé
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
-Avignon he had got wind of what she had done to protect
-it from being revoked.</p>
-
-<p>The case was tried at Montpellier. The Marquess
-was decreed to have forfeited his title and estates, which
-reverted to the Crown. The Abbé 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.</p>
-
-<p>The Abbé escaped into Lippe, where, under the
-assumed name of Montellière, 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 Montellière well enough,
-but objected that he was not noble.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh! as to that, do not concern yourself," said the
-Abbé, "I am the Abbé de Ganges, of whom you may
-possibly have heard."</p>
-
-<p>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 Abbé 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
-of Amsterdam. "You are the Abbé de Ganges," he
-said. "I avenge the Marquise," and he blew out the
-miscreant's brains. Who the avenger was, was never
-discovered.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>There is another at Ganges, L'Aven Laurien, as
-picturesque as it is interesting from an archæological
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
-cross, but at the extremity opposite the entrance it
-opens abruptly on the verdant well of the aven.</p>
-
-<p>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 residing
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Another aven again is that of Rabanel, down which
-M. Martel has descended. Nothing disguises the opening
-of this horrible well, that sinks precipitously 390
-feet. The explorers found a heap of debris at the
-bottom.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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.</p>
-
-<p>"But what a spectacle when I reached the bottom! A
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
-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 <i>lucarne</i> 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."</p></div>
-
-<p>Ganges is a manufacturing town, its speciality being
-the most delicate silk fabrics. Marvels 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 remarkably
-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 embroidresses
-work with their needle adorning the tissues,
-and are remarkably dexterous and tasteful.</p>
-
-<p>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 château of the Marquesses of Ganges,
-in another part of the town.</p>
-
-<p>Excursions may be made from Ganges to explore
-the gorges of the Vis and the Hérault, 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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">LE VIGAN</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">Schist ravines—Valley of the Arre—Wolves—Vindomagus—Fountain of
-Isis—Saracens—Priory—Jean Peyrenc—Persecution of Huguenots—Murder
-of Daudé—Execution of Bénézet—Reprisals—Avèze—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 Chevalier
-d'Assas—Triaire.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-w.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap W" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">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 presently
-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 Mediterranean.
-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,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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. <i>Magh</i>
-signifies meadow or plain, and <i>vindo</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>The town gathered a little way below the great
-sacred spring that now supplies its fountains and runnels
-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'Is,
-and the bath and remains of her temple are under the
-present corn market.</p>
-
-<p>The Saracens penetrated the defiles of the Cévennes,
-and attacked and destroyed Vindomagus. They have
-left their traces in the terminology of certain localities
-about the town, as Le Champ de Mâoureses and Le
-Camp Sarrasin.</p>
-
-<p>In the Middle Ages Le Vigan was a walled town, about
-a priory; the prior exercised rights of high justice alternately
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
-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:—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-      <div class="verse">"Pour raser l'Angleterre,</div>
-      <div class="verse">On met au ministère</div>
-      <div class="verse">Peyrenc dont le grand-père,</div>
-      <div class="verse">Faisait fort proprement,</div>
-      <div class="verse">Des barbes au Vigan."</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>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 neighbourhood,
-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 conversion,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>On the night of October 6th, 1686, two thousand of
-the Reformed assembled on a little plateau near the
-height of l'Oiselette, visible from Le Vigan, to hear one
-of the pastors preach, when a body of dragoons, guided
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
-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 marketplace
-of Le Vigan.</p>
-
-<p>On June 5th, 1704, the delegate of Bâville at Le
-Vigan, named Daudé, 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 cornfield.
-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 condemned
-and hung.</p>
-
-<p>Two days after, the implacable widow was found
-dead; she had died of uterine hemorrhage.</p>
-
-<p>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 Bénézet, 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
-the dragoons. Marazel managed to escape; the other
-was conveyed a prisoner to Montpellier. Bénézet 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 suspected
-of having betrayed the ministers, was found
-dead, with her tongue torn out of her head.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p241.jpg" id="p241.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p241.jpg" width="407" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption">THE GOAT'S LEAP, LE VIGAN</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>Above Le Vigan is Avèze, where is the sacred
-spring of Isis, the source of the Vézénobres, 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 calcareous
-rocks near Aulas. Avèze is a village built in
-amphitheatre above the junction of the Gleppe and
-the Coudeloux, which disembouch into the Arre.
-Avèze 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, the civil authorities at Le Vigan implored
-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 d'Ayémard,
-was assassinated on the high road by murderers sent
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
-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 Avèze was a matter of a lawsuit that
-lasted over a century and a half. Sentence was pronounced
-against De Beaufort, its legitimate owner, but
-he refused submission to the judgment. He armed his
-vassals, defended himself, and killed some of the constables
-sent to demand the surrender of the castle.
-He had, however, finally to yield; and the château
-became later, by a judgment of the Parliament of
-Toulouse in 1788, the property of the family of Montcalm,
-descended from the Sire de Beaufort. Next year
-the marquess, son of the heroic defender of Quebec,
-came to inhabit Avèze, and it is a satisfaction to know
-that during the turmoil of the Revolution the venerated
-name of Montcalm preserved the château from being
-destroyed. It still belongs to the family, and is surrounded
-by a handsome park—as parks go in France.</p>
-
-<p>Aulas, now a small village, was in the thirteenth
-century the chief town of the barony of Hierle; and in
-1621 it was one of the five most important places in the
-district devoted to the principles of the Reformation,
-that was fortified by De Châtillon, grandson of the
-Admiral Coligny. Castle and walls have fallen; they
-were levelled after the peace of Alais. Just beyond
-Aulas is the Château de Clapisse, in which was born, in
-1740, Henri de Celadon, Chevalier de Lanuéjols, 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 Rhône, 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
-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 successive
-times was not there. Then he instituted inquiries,
-and ascertained that his foe had died two years previously.
-What the cause of the long-protracted quarrel
-was never came to light; De Celadon, who died in
-1810, carried the secret with him to the grave.</p>
-
-<p>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 Hérault, 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
-(<i>mons arduus</i>) is five miles from Le Vigan, and to reach it
-the Causse has to be passed under from Avèse. 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.</p>
-
-<p>The Castle of Montdardier, that has been restored by
-Violet le Duc, occupies a well-timbered height above the
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
-little stream that joins the Arre at Avèze. The village
-clusters about the hill, the extremity of which sustains
-the castle and the park.</p>
-
-<p>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 François 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 Montpellier.
-In the village are the remains of a hospital of
-the Templars.</p>
-
-<p>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 limestone,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
-beneath the escarpments of white Jura limestone, a
-silver line appears winding among green meadows, and
-flowing from a cascade.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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 nakedness
-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 position
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The source of this strange river is not less interesting than
-its cañon. 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."
-<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p></div>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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 Cévennes, 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 recommend
-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.</p>
-
-<p>And now, finally, for the Chevalier d'Assas, whose
-statue adorns one of the squares.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The action that made the name of Assas one dear to
-the hearts of the men of Le Vigan took place during
-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 Clostercamp
-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 threatened
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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, 3,000 Turks were destroyed by the explosion.</p>
-
-<p>This was on December 30th, 1799, when Triaire was
-aged twenty-nine.</p>
-
-<p>The statue in bronze of Triaire was inaugurated in
-1891.</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">
-[11]</span></a> Chante: <i>Un Coin des Cévennes</i>. Paris, Berger-Levrault.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">L'AIGOUAL</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">Meteorological station—Battle
-of the winds—Warnings of floods—Different
-aspects of the Aigoual—The Garden of God—Meyrueis—Bramabiau—Exploration
-of—Valleraugue—Roman road—Barre—Limestone
-cirques—Causse de l'Hospitalet—Florac—Dirty streets—Mimente—Cassagnas—Fontaine
-du Pêcher—The Dourbie—Trèves—Baume
-de S. Firmin—Prehistoric man—Nant—Source of the Durzon—Cantobre—S.
-Veran—Roquesaltes.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-t.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">THE Aigoual is the hinge or knot of the inner
-range of the Cévennes, as Mézenc is that of the
-outer range. On one of its summits sits a meteorological
-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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p249.jpg" id="p249.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p249.jpg" width="367" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption">PEASANT GIRLS OF THE CAUSSES</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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 interesting
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
-Cévennes. 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.</p>
-
-<p>The north wind gathering strength, as though mustering
-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 explosions
-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, carrying
-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 diminutive
-size, swell to the brim and overflow, carrying
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The inmates of the Observatory have become very
-weatherwise, and note many indications of an approaching
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The Mont Lozère, 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:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-      <div class="verse">"Se lo nibou bén de l'Oual prén tons bioous et baï o l'oustal.</div>
-      <div class="verse">Se lo nibou bén de Louzero, prén tons bioous et baï o lo rego";</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>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 Lozère, take your oxen and go
-to the furrow."</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The Aigoual is a granitic mass, reaching to 5,140
-feet, whereas the Roc de Malpertus, in the Mont
-Lozère 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 antediluvian
-monster in a crouching posture with fore paws
-extended.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The Aigoual has two heads, one of these, La Fayède,
-looking towards the sun-bathed basin of the Rhône;
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
-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 Florac, below which it enters the Tarn.
-A little to the north-east is the Signal de l'Hospitalet,
-and beyond Barre des Cévennes. The old Roman road
-ran over this latter col to penetrate into the heart of
-the Cévennes; it kept to the crest, commanding glorious
-views.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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. Bramabiau
-may also be visited from Le Vigan. The rivulet
-of the Bonheur, that descends from the Col de Séyrerède
-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 onomatopœic, and signifies
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
-the bellowing of a bull, as the water in time of flood
-gives forth angry sounds.</p>
-
-<p>Nothing surprises one more than the apparent inadequacy
-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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p253.jpg" id="p253.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p253.jpg" width="600" height="357"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Bramabiau</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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 distance,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>In January, 1888, a man of Camprieu disappeared,
-and there was reason to suspect he had committed
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
-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 subterranean
-course. It goes through these vagaries twice, and
-perpetrates seven cascades.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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.</p>
-
-<p>"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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The descent of the Aigoual on the side of Valleraugue
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Valleraugue lies at the bottom of a cirque of mountains
-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 Hérault. The descent
-from the Aigoual to Valleraugue occupies two hours,
-the ascent by the carriage road takes seven. Valleraugue
-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 Hérault
-as far as Ganges is one of the most active in silk industry
-in the Cévennes. 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 l'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 Florac. 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
-d'Aire de Côte ensues a series of frightful cirques, whose
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
-vertical walls crumble away by degrees under the action
-of the weather. The flanks of the mountain are profoundly
-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 l'Hospitalet.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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 l'Hospitalet is both picturesque and
-of scientific interest."<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p></div>
-
-<p>Florac 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
-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:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-      <div class="verse">"What though the spicy breezes</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Blow sweet o'er Ceylon's isle,</div>
-      <div class="verse">And every prospect pleases,</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Yet only man is vile."</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>But it is not man who is vile, <i>that</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>Florac 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.</p>
-
-<p>Florac 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 Mimente
-rises in the mountain of Bougès, whose summit
-is crowned by the forest of Altefage, where under three
-huge beech trees met the murderers of the Abbé du
-Chayla. At Cassagnas, a village near the source of
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Florac possesses its natural curiosity, the Fontaine du
-Pêcher, that discharges the water infiltrated from the
-plateau of Méjan. 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Trévesel. The Pas de
-l'Ase is a profound gorge, 1,200 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 Trèves, where are coal mines, is the cave called the
-Baume de S. Firmin, and near by the ruins of a castle.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
-the town was then called, and in it he died in the year
-470. Firminus was educated by his uncle Noricus,
-Bishop of Uzès, 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
-Trèves, 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; notwithstanding
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
-districts of Dordogne and Lot, and in the sandstone
-regions of Maine-et-Loire and Vienne, troglodite habitations
-abound.</p>
-
-<p>After crossing the Col de la Pierre-Plantée, 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 Saudières,
-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 Saudières and a carriage
-thence to Milau.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<i>dour</i> signifies water in Welsh.</p>
-
-<p>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 2,400 feet
-high. But the great attraction is the source of the
-Durzon, as Reclus describes it:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"A little river issuing from a deep <i>foux</i> 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, <i>un dormant qui ne dort pas toujours</i>. 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
-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."</p></div>
-
-<p>Still descending the valley, we see perched high up on
-the right the curious village of Cantobre, on a point of
-the Causse Bégon, shaded by gigantic dolomitic mushrooms,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Montcalm,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE</h3>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12">
-</a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a>
-Martel: <i>Les Cévennes</i>. Paris, 1891.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">THE LAND OF FERDINAND FABRE</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">Ferdinand Fabre—His novels—Biography—The uncle—Discouragement—Les
-Courbezon—Bédarieux—Ruined by a strike—Hérault—The
-Population—Iberians—Ligurians—Umbranici—The Gauls—Chestnuts—The
-Beaters—Ballad of the Chestnut-tree—The Séchoire—Fêtes in
-Hérault—Carotat at Béziers—Pepezuc—The Ass of Gignac—Roquefort
-Cheese—Le Bousquet d'Orbe—Lamalou—N. Dame de Capimont—Extinction
-of the hermits—Villemagne—Gorge of the Héric—S.
-Gervais—The church spire—The inhabitants of the Highland and of
-the Lowland—The Pillard.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-t.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap T" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">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 Cévennes about Bédarieux, 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 curés, acting
-as spies for Rome on the bishops and the parochial
-clergy.</p>
-
-<p>To the first class belong—I mention only the best—<i>Les
-Courbezon</i>, <i>Julien Savignac</i>, <i>Mon Oncle Célestin</i>,
-<i>Barnabé</i>, <i>Monsieur Jean</i>, and <i>Xavière</i>. To the latter
-a series—<i>La Paroisse du Jugement Dernier</i>, <i>Le Calvaire
-de Mme. Fuster</i>, <i>Le Couvent de la Falosque Bergonnier</i>,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
-<i>L'Hospice des Enfants Assistés</i>; and the purely clerical
-romances, <i>Lucifer</i> and <i>l'Abbé Tigranne</i>.</p>
-
-<p>The delicacy of touch, the exquisite delineation of
-character among the peasantry of the Cévennes, and
-the beautiful descriptions of scenery and bird life in the
-first category make these stories essential to a knowledge
-of the country I am describing in this chapter,
-and no one should visit it without having read at least
-some of them. Ferdinand Fabre was born in 1830 at
-Bédarieux, 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 curé 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 Abbé Courbezon, the Curé Fulcran, or
-Mon Oncle Célestin.</p>
-
-<p>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, <i>l'Abbé Tigranne</i>,
-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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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, <i>Feuilles de Lierre</i>, 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 <i>Les Courbezon</i>
-in 1862, and this "caught on" at once. The charm of
-style, the sweetness of mind it displayed, the keenness
-of insight into character, and the daintiness of description
-caused the literary world to realise that a writer
-of extraordinary merit had risen as a star on the
-horizon. <i>Les Courbezon</i> was crowned by the Académie.
-Next year, 1863, appeared <i>Julien Savignac</i>, a study of
-a mind affected with incipient insanity. The tale is
-powerful and painful. <i>Le Chevrier</i> 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. <i>Barnabé</i>, an excellent study of a
-class of men now completely passed away, appeared
-in 1875. Fabre died in Paris on 11 February, 1898.</p>
-
-<p>Bédarieux 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.</p>
-
-<p>Bédarieux is on the Orb at the confluence into it
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
-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
-Bédarieux must be tarried at for a few nights if Rochefort,
-Lunas, and Boussagues are to be visited, or much
-time will be lost in the trains. Bédarieux is the station
-of bifurcation of three lines from the main trunk from
-Clermont to Béziers, and any one who has had experience
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The nature of the mountains through and by which
-flows the Orb differs greatly from that of the schisty
-Cévennes—the Cévennes 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.</p>
-
-<p>In the Languedoc plain, in Roussillon, even to
-Perpignan, the icy blasts from the Cévennes 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 Béziers and Montpellier as with a cat-o'-nine-tails
-dipped in water that has been frozen. But these
-winds pass over Bédarieux 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
-pomegranate, the almond, the nettle-tree luxuriate,
-untortured, unnipped.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>And it is precisely here, where least wanted, that a
-prodigal nature lavishes heating material in beds of
-anthracite and other coal.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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
-men 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."</p></div>
-
-<p>This is what Fabre says of the natives. There are
-two types not due to difference of blood, but of surroundings
-and of occupations. We are now in the department
-of Hérault, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
-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 extermination,
-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 filling Lower
-Languedoc with very heterogeneous inhabitants, the
-complexity of which explains the apparent contradictions
-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?"</p>
-
-<p>The most ancient inhabitants recorded were the
-Iberians, who extended their domination over the
-Spanish peninsula and to the Rhône 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 Ambrussum,
-now Pont-Ambroise, on the Vidourle. Twenty-three
-inscriptions remain, mostly in Gard, in an unknown
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>
-tongue, but written in Greek characters, that bears an
-affinity alike to the Ossian and Umbrian language in Italy.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Rhône and the Garonne, and extended their
-authority over the Ibero-Ligurians. These new arrivals
-seem to have treated the conquered much as the
-Ligurians had the Iberians. They established themselves
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Their dominion was not for long—not for more than
-two centuries—for in <span class="sc">B.C.</span> 121 their country was conquered
-by the Romans.</p>
-
-<p>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 derivation,
-given perhaps by the Umbrian colony.</p>
-
-<p>The staple of life in the Cévennes, 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 certainty,
-nor has any remedy been found efficacious. In
-some years the leaves fall in September, and the fruit
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
-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 <i>clèdes</i> that may be seen
-as a part of the outbuildings of every farmhouse and of
-many cottages.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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."</p></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"Our old men and women, very attached to the Fête 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.</p>
-
-<p>"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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
-the Chestnut Tree?' 'To be sure, the Complaint of the
-Chestnut Tree,' cried all.</p>
-
-<p>"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 <i>Complainte</i> (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.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-    <div class="stanza">
-      <div class="verse">"Quand le châtaignier est planté</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Il monte, monte, monte!</div>
-      <div class="verse">Quand le châtaignier est planté</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Nous buvons largement à sa santé.</div>
-    </div>
-	<div class="stanza">
-      <div class="verse">Quand le châtaignier est en fleur,</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Belle, belle, belle!</div>
-      <div class="verse">Quand le châtaignier est en fleur,</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Le pays prend son odeur.</div>
-    </div>
-	<div class="stanza">
-      <div class="verse">Quand le châtaignier a grainé,</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Il graine, graine, graine!</div>
-      <div class="verse">Quand le châtaignier a grainé,</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Chacun danse dans son pré.</div>
-    </div>
-	<div class="stanza">
-      <div class="verse">Quand les châtaignes nous avons,</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Bonnes, bonnes, bonnes!</div>
-      <div class="verse">Quand les châtaignes nous avons,</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Nous les mangeons, puis nous mourons.</div>
-    </div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>"After the fourth couplet the ballad was interrupted.
-Our Cevenols raised their boughs, brandished the leaves, and
-made therewith the sign of the cross.</p>
-
-<p>'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 Châtaignier. It was as grand, as
-beautiful, as sublime as any psalm, any hymn I have heard in
-any church.</p></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-  <div class="poetry">
-      <div class="verse">"Cévennes pleins de rochers,</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Hautes, hautes, hautes!</div>
-      <div class="verse">Cévennes pleins de rochers,</div>
-      <div class="verse indent-1_5">Faites nous forts et religieux."</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<p>When the chestnuts have been gathered, then in
-November they are dried in <i>séchoirs</i>. 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 <i>carézéïros</i>, 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 <i>séchoirs</i>, it is hard to
-endure the smoke, and one stands the risk of being
-asphyxiated. Nevertheless the peasants spend two
-months in the year 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 <i>séchoir</i>. 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
-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 <i>séchoir</i>. And he himself,
-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
-<i>séchoir</i> is the village centre; to it flock the poorest
-members of the commune, who have no drying-houses
-of their own.</p>
-
-<p>The fêtes in Hérault are often very curious, and
-evidently date from an early period, and are reminiscences
-of paganism.</p>
-
-<p>For instance, the Carotat at Béziers 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 received
-were put into the mouth of the beast.</p>
-
-<p>Next day, to the sound of cannon and bells, the Corporation
-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 fête is dead. But
-what does survive at Béziers and at Montpellier and
-elsewhere is the Danse des Treilles at the fête called
-Roumarin. The young people, in their gala dresses
-and adorned with bunches of rosemary, carry hoops
-similarly decorated, with which they perform the evolutions
-of a graceful ballet in which there are seven
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
-figures; and the bystanders pelt them with violets. At
-Montpellier the dance is considered to be a commemoration
-of the marriage of Peter II. of Aragon
-to Marie de Montpellier, June 15th, 1204.
-<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a>
-<a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
-
-<p>At Béziers 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 Augustus.
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The Ass of Gignac continues to be fêted. 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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
-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 <i>garrigou</i>,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 maintains
-enormous flocks of sheep, and indeed from throughout
-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 <i>cabanières</i>, 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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p275.jpg" id="p275.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p275.jpg" width="600" height="384"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Cheesemakers, Roquefort</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>I have described the making of the cheese in my
-<i>Deserts of Central France</i>. The natural caves in Roquefort
-number twenty-three, and there are thirty-four in
-all. The rocks in part of the town overhang the
-houses.</p>
-
-<p>At Lunas, commanded by the escarpments of the
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The train from Bédarieux 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-Cévennes 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
-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 successors
-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 <i>Barnabé</i>, and also in
-<i>Mon Oncle Célestin</i>.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"I am in despair," says he. "Letters from the South inform
-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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"Mon Dieu!" says Fabre; "I know well enough that the
-Free Brothers of S. Francis, as they loved to entitle themselves,
-had allowed themselves a good deal of freedom, more
-than was decorous. For instance, it was not particularly
-edifying at Bédarieux 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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"But as these monastically habited gentry in no way scandalised
-the population of the South, who never confounded
-the occupants of the hermitages with the curés 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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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 <i>à la lanterne</i>. 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 curés 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Bédarieux. This is Villemagne, with a ruined abbey
-and mint. The abbey was founded by Charlemagne in
-780. The church of the parish is dedicated to S. Majan,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
-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 bénitier. 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.</p>
-
-<p>But the finest excursion of all is that to the gorge of
-Héric. For this it is advisable to take the train to
-Colombières 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 900 feet. By the path one can reach the village
-of Héric, 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 Héric
-dies in his bed. What I have said before I repeat here.
-None of the gorges in the Cévennes 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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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 l'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 abandoned,
-that was built on a jagged rock, its ruins mingling
-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 dilapidated.
-The still more modern town lies below the hill.
-There is an intermittent spring in the side of the Hôtel
-Soulié. 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 Espinouse
-or Larzac is grave, reserved, uncommunicative,
-clothed in a garment of coarse cloth called <i>grisaoud</i>,
-followed by interminable flocks of sheep, goats, and
-oxen.</p>
-
-<p>At Bédarieux—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>
-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?"</p></div>
-
-<p>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 <i>pillards</i>,
-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.</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a>
-<a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a>
-Ferd. Troubat: <i>Danse des Treilles</i>. Toulouse, 1900.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-  <h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">THE HÉRAULT</p>
-
-
-<p class="chapsum noindent">Clermont l'Hérault—Church and castle—Aimar Guilhem—Deserts the
-cause of his Count—Peyrolles the Potter—N.D. du Peyrou—Villeneuvette—Military
-cloth factory—Its semi-feudal organisation—Valley
-of the Dourbie—Mourèze—The quarries—Decomposition of the rock—Church—Lodève—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 Couvertoirade—Aniane—Gorges
-of the Hérault—Mills—S. Guilhem-le-Désert—Guillaume
-de Courtenez—His parting from his wife—His
-visit to Paris—Church—Monuments—Cloister—Saracen inscriptions—Farewell
-to the Cévennes.</p>
-
-<div>
-  <img class="drop-cap" src="images/initial-a.jpg"
-    alt="Drop Cap A" />
-</div>
-
-<p class="drop-cap noindent">AN admirable centre for several expeditions of no
-little interest is Clermont l'Hérault, where is a
-good hotel.</p>
-
-<p>Clermont, though called l'Hérault, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
-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 Clermont.
-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 Hérault and the Lergue, that begins at the feet
-of the Lodève Mountains and extends to the low range
-of the Taillades de Gignac. From thirty to forty towns,
-villages, and hamlets dot this plain.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p282.jpg" id="p282.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p282.jpg" width="429" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">S. Guilhem-le-Désert</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>In 1209 Aimar Guilhem, seigneur of Clermont, was
-the ally of the unfortunate Raymond, Count of Toulouse,
-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 sentence.
-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 Béziers 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
-Lodève, he would have menaced the rear of Simon de
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>On the <i>Place</i> under trees is a monument, surmounted
-by a bust of Peyrolles, a potter of Clermont, who composed
-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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p284.jpg" id="p284.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p284.jpg" width="379" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">In the Cirque, Mourèze</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>A delightful walk or drive is to Mourèze, 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 composed
-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 contain
-nuptial crowns. A largely attended pilgrimage
-visits this chapel on Monday in Easter week. This
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
-shrine is at the entrance to the beautiful basin of Villeneuvette,
-rich with cork trees, micocouliers (<i>Celtis Australis</i>),
-mulberries, chestnuts, tall ancient cypresses,
-pines, caper bushes, and the kermes-oak.</p>
-
-<p>Here in the bottom, by the little river, is the industrial
-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 existing
-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 competition.
-Colbert founded this among other colonies of
-workmen to ensure that the cloth exported was of good
-quality, and agents in Constantinople and in Pondicherry
-received and sold it. In order to protect the
-establishment during the religious wars that desolated
-the Cévennes, the settlement was surrounded by a rampart,
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>For more than two centuries Villeneuvette has been
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
-in private hands. It had failed to be a success financially
-in 1703, and was disposed of to M. Castamé-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.</p>
-
-<p>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. Villeneuvette 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?</p>
-
-<p>The road ascends the valley of the Dourbie, but to reach
-Mourèze 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 Mourèze, but which can
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>
-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 <i>Quercus coccifera</i>, never
-grows higher than five feet, the <i>garus</i> it is that gives
-its name to the <i>garigues</i>, the desolate regions of limestone
-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 Mourèze, 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 Doré of rock scenery interspersed with ruined
-towers as in his series, <i>Le Juif errant</i>, 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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p287.jpg" id="p287.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p287.jpg" width="600" height="332"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Group at Mourèze</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>The approach to Mourèze 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 Mourèze 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 persecuted
-men. At its back start up sheer cliffs of limestone,
-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.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
-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 1,610 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, 1,450 feet. To the west is the
-mountain of S. Scholastica, 1,500 feet, and wooded
-ranges to the east of less elevation complete the enclosure
-and the screen that hides Mourèze from the
-world without.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p288.jpg" id="p288.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p288.jpg" width="375" height="600"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">The Sentinel, Mourèze</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>The dolomite formation of Mourèze forms an almost
-continuous belt from Bédarieux 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 Lodève, above Pégairolles,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
-where they constitute the picturesque passage of
-l'Escalette.</p>
-
-<p>The castle is mentioned in records from 790; it is
-called Castrum Morelinum, or Morazios Villa; Mourezés
-in 1625, and Mourèze in 1659.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The train will take one to Lodève, an ancient
-cathedral city, and before that a Roman Castrum
-Luteva. Paris was also a Luteva.</p>
-
-<p>When Charlemagne completed the expulsion of the
-Arabs out of Septimania, he made of Lodève a county
-under his empire, and granted considerable privileges
-to the bishops.</p>
-
-<p>There arose by degrees three powers to dispute possession
-of the land, the Municipality, the Count, and
-the Bishop, representing the people, the aristocracy,
-and the clergy. The history of Lodève 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Montbrun,
-ordered him to pull it down. Fulcran refused.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
-Meanwhile the oppressions of the people by the count
-had become intolerable. They were crushed with taxation
-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 continue
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 ecclesiastical
-hands. The ambition of Fulcran's successors
-knew no limits. After having conquered the seigneur
-they attacked the municipal liberties.</p>
-
-<p>The people of Lodève 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 unendurable
-exactions. He refused to admit them to his presence.
-Then the mob broke in on him and made him
-swear to grant concessions. He appealed to Innocent
-III., who at once relieved him of his oath. The people,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
-enraged at this bit of deceit, again rose, broke into the
-palace, and killed the perjured bishop. The punishment
-inflicted on the town for this act was severe.
-However, the citizens were determined on resistance,
-and at last the controversy was submitted to arbitration,
-and they gained most of what they had demanded.</p>
-
-<p>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 transform
-the continuation of the aisles into lengthy independent
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Ferdinand Fabre thus describes the interior of the
-cathedral:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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 monument.
-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.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>
-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 mullion
-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 arrangement—breathes
-a certain robust grace, a barbaric charm,
-making it the most interesting and most grateful of sanctuaries
-in our land."</p></div>
-
-<p>A pretty, late flamboyant, melting into early Renaissance,
-chapel is between the cathedral and the
-cloister.</p>
-
-<p>The old episcopal palace has been converted into
-municipal buildings, and the gardens into a fine promenade;
-so that the long conflict that endured for
-centuries has ended in the complete victory of the
-people. The bishopric was suppressed at the Concordat.</p>
-
-<p>Between Clermont and Lodève 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.</p>
-
-<p>At the distance of an hour and a half from Lodève
-is the well-preserved monastery of S. Michel-de-Grammont,
-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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Near the church is a little chapel, on the front of
-which is inlaid an inscription in characters of the twelfth
-century, stating that it was consecrated on the 11th of
-the Calends of June in honour of S. Michael, but without
-date of the year.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p292.jpg" id="p292.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p292.jpg" width="600" height="354"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption">DOLMEN OF GRANDMONT</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>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 Lodève 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 l'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.</p>
-
-<p>There are caves to be explored near Lodève 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 Soubès.
-Another is the Grotte de Labeil, opening out of a
-cirque of rocks above the source of the Baume-Bauède,
-that once found its issue thence, but has now burrowed
-its way to a lower level.</p>
-
-<p>Larzac (<i>Larga saxa</i>) is the most extensive and the
-most barren of all the limestone causses—a Siberian
-tundra in winter, an Arabia Petræa in summer.</p>
-
-<p>It seems to be transpierced by the Cévennes, that
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
-penetrate it at the Col de Sanctières, 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. Elisée Reclus says
-of it:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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.</p>
-
-<p>"The inhabitants have for their own use and that of their
-cattle but the rain-water collected in cisterns or <i>lavagnes</i>, carefully
-cemented inside. Where water lacks, vegetation lacks
-also, and so also inhabitants.</p>
-
-<p>"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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>A century ago the Larzac could be reached from
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
-Lodève only by ladders planted against the precipice at
-the Pas de l'Escalette.</p>
-
-<p>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?</p>
-
-<p>The flora of these plateaux is sufficiently interesting.
-A list of the plants that the Larzac produces will be
-found in Fabre (A.), <i>Histoire du Canton du Caylar</i>,
-Montpellier, 1895.</p>
-
-<p>Le Caylar was the birthplace of Abdias Maurel,
-called Catinat, the Camisard chief, of whom I have
-already related some of the achievements.</p>
-
-<p>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 Bâville and the Duke of Berwick
-by assassination. The plot was discovered whilst he
-was in Nîmes, 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
-Nîmes something suspicious in his appearance caused
-his arrest, and compromising letters were discovered
-secreted about his person. He was led to the Duke of
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
-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 condemned
-to be burnt alive along with Ravanel, his
-accomplice in the intended murder.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p296.jpg" id="p296.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p296.jpg" width="600" height="381"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">On the Hérault</span></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>S. Guilhem-le-Désert is one of the strangest and most
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The Hérault 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 underwent
-alterations in the second Pointed period. There
-is a west tower, and the chancel is bored out under
-another.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The Hérault 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 Hérault by a channel into the plain to
-Gignac and beyond that to S. André, carrying fertility
-with it.</p>
-
-<p>Springs break forth from the cliffs, forming tables of
-calcareous deposit. One of these, of a high temperature,
-has constructed a large shelf extending towards
-the river, into which it flows.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>
-wild pomegranate with its crimson flowers may be found
-here and about Aniane.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>déjeuner</i>
-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, <i>foie gras</i>, boiled beef,
-etc., made a rare lunch.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p297.jpg" id="p297.jpg"></a>
-  <img src="images/p297.jpg" width="600" height="371"
-        alt="" />
-  <div class="caption"><span class="sc">S. Guilhem-le-Désert</span></div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="p2">
-  <div class="figcenter bord"><a name="p298.jpg" id="p298.jpg"></a>
-    <img src="images/p298.jpg" width="600" height="374"
-        alt="" />
-    <div class="caption"><span class="sc">Mills on the Hérault</span></div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-
-<p>The village, or little town, grew about an abbey
-founded by Guillaume, Duke of Aquitaine, in 804. He
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>
-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 Provençal <i>Chansons de
-Gestes</i>, that of Guillaume de Courtenez—whence the
-honoured name of Courtenay in England. This is what
-Fauriel says of the romance:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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."</p></div>
-
-<p>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:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>
-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."</p></div>
-
-<p>It must be known that at this time Guillaume and
-Gibors 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:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"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."</p></div>
-
-<p>On reaching Paris, Guillaume was very badly received.
-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 character;
-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, supposed
-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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>
-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 constrained
-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 Empress.
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
-ladies, which they also broke. Their sarcophagus is a
-Christian tomb of the fourth century, with Christ and
-the evangelists, or apostles, carved on it; at the extremities
-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
-1138.</p>
-
-<p>Pilgrimages arrive at S. Guilhem on Monday in
-Easter week and October 1st.</p>
-
-<p>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 Camisards,
-were reconstructed, and are now occupied by a
-Baron d'Albenas.</p>
-
-<p>Some of the houses in the town are certainly
-Romanesque. There was a second church in the place,
-but it is now in ruins.</p>
-
-<p>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 inscription
-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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>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:—</p>
-
-<div class="bq">
-
-<p>"Quand mon cerveau à vidé sur le papier blanc sa mince
-provision d'idées journalières, les coudes à la barre d'appui (de
-ma fenêtre) je coule là, en une paresse délicieuse, de longues
-heurs à rêver. Mon âme alors s'envole au pays si profondément
-incrusté en elle, ce pays que je rétrouve dans le moindre
-plis de mes pensées, ce pays qui, le plus ordinairement, lorsque
-j'ose écrire, me commande, et auquel j'obéis."</p></div>
-
-
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<div class="chapter p4">
-<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2>
-</div>
-
-<ul class="index">
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Aigoual, Mt., <a href="#Page_20">20</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_248">248-58</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Aiguèze, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Aiguilhe, the, <a href="#Page_16">16-35</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_42">42-4</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Alais, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204-19</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Albigensian crusade, <a href="#Page_47">47-8</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Alleyras, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Allier, River, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_161">161-71</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Alzon, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Aniane, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Antraigues, <a href="#Page_122">122-5</a>;</li>
-  <li class="isub2">Comte d', <a href="#Page_123">123-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Arabic inscriptions, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Ardèche, River, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137-48</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Arlempdes, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Arzon, River, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Assas, Claude d., <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</li>
-  <li class="isub2">Louis, <a href="#Page_246">246-7</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Astier, Gabriel, <a href="#Page_179">179-83</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Aubenas, <a href="#Page_114">114-15</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117-20</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Auvergne violets, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Avens, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234-6</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Avèze, <a href="#Page_241">241-2</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Balmes de Montbrul, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Bar, crater of, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Barre des Cévennes, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Basalt, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_135">135-6</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Bastide, La, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Battle of the winds, <a href="#Page_248">248-50</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Bâville, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Béate, La, <a href="#Page_27">27-8</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Bédarieux, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Belsunce, Mgr. de, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Benedict XII., <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Bénézet, <a href="#Page_240">240-1</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Berrias, <a href="#Page_158">158-9</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Béziers, <a href="#Page_273">273-4</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Bible of Theodulf, <a href="#Page_45">45-6</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Blacons, <a href="#Page_56">56-9</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Blandas, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Bonaparte, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Borne, River, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Boulogne, Château de, <a href="#Page_121">121-2</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Bousquet d'Orb, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Boussagues, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Boutières Mountains, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_103">103-13</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Bramabiau, <a href="#Page_252">252-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Broglie, M. de, <a href="#Page_180">180-1</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196-7</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Burzet, <a href="#Page_131">131-2</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Cachard, M. de, <a href="#Page_110">110-11</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Cambis family, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Camisards, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177-202</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_221">221-2</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_256">256-8</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Camplong, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Camprieu, <a href="#Page_252">252-3</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Cantobre, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Carotat, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Castle of Ebbo, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Catinat, <a href="#Page_191">191-2</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Causses, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Cavalier, Jean, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_195">195-202</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Caylar, le, <a href="#Page_293">293-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Cendras, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Ceyssac, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Chacornac, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Chamalières, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Chamborigaud, massacre at, <a href="#Page_199">199-204</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Chames, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Chanteuges, <a href="#Page_164">164-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Chapeauroux, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Chassezac, River, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Chayla, Abbé du, <a href="#Page_187">187-90</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Cheese, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Chestnut, <a href="#Page_268">268-73</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Cheylard, le, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>
-  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Chilhac, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Chorister murdered, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Clary, prophet, <a href="#Page_194">194-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Climates, N. and S., <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Clotilde de Surville, <a href="#Page_140">140-2</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Coalfields, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Coiron Mountains, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Colbert, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Companions, the Free, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_50">50-2</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Costume, <a href="#Page_30">30-1</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Coupe d'Aizac, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li>
-<li class="isub2">de Jaujac, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129-30</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Couvertoirade, la, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Craters, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132-4</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Creux de Vaie, massacre, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Crussol, Castle, <a href="#Page_104">104-5</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Danse des Treilles, <a href="#Page_273">273-4</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Daudé, murder of, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Denise, la, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Diana of Poitiers, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Dolmens, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Dolomitic limestone, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_287">287-8</a>;</li>
-<li class="isub2"> <i>see also</i> Jura limestone</li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Dourbie, River, <a href="#Page_258">258-61</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Drac, <a href="#Page_168">168-9</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Duel, a strange, <a href="#Page_242">242-3</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Du Guesclin, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Dunière, River, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Durzon, source, <a href="#Page_260">260-1</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Eagle, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Echelle du Roy, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Ecstasy, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Erieux, River, <a href="#Page_105">105-7</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Espaly, <a href="#Page_54">54-6</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61-2</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Espinouse, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Essences, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Estables, Les, <a href="#Page_69">69-70</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Estreys, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Fabre, Ferdinand, <a href="#Page_262">262-4</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Factory girls, <a href="#Page_115">115-16</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Fauteuil du Diable, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Faye le Froid, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53-4</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Flandrin, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Florac, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255-7</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Florian, <a href="#Page_218">218-20</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Fontollière, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Ganges, <a href="#Page_224">224-36</a>;</li>
-<li class="isub2">Marquise de, murder of, <a href="#Page_225">225-34</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Garigues, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Gerbier de Jonc, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71-2</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Ghost story, <a href="#Page_206">206-8</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Gignac, <a href="#Page_274">274-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Gleyzasse, cave of, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Gobi, Jean, <a href="#Page_206">206-8</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Goule de Foussoubie, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Goudet, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Grassensac, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Gravenne de Montpezat, <a href="#Page_130">130-1</a>;</li>
-<li class="isub2">de Soulhiol, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Gregory VII., <a href="#Page_31">31-2</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Grotte des Demoiselles, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Guetard, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Gueule d'Enfer, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Guillaume Courtenez, <a href="#Page_298">298-301</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Haunted Mill, <a href="#Page_81">81-3</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Haute Loire, department, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Hérault, fêtes in, <a href="#Page_273">273-4</a>;</li>
-<li class="isub2">River, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_297">297-8</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Hermits, <a href="#Page_204">204-5</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276-8</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Héric, gorges of, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Hort Dieu, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Hierle, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Huguenots, <a href="#Page_52">52-9</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62-3</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_107">107-9</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143-4</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177-202</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_222">222</a>,</li>
-<li class="isub2"><a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239-41</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Iberians, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Innocent III., <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Inspiration, degrees of, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Intermittent spring, <a href="#Page_120">120-1</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Inventories, taking the, <a href="#Page_158">158-60</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Isabeau, la belle, <a href="#Page_178">178-9</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  — another prophetess, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Jalès, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Jaujac, <a href="#Page_129">129-30</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Joany, a Camisard, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  John XXII., <a href="#Page_207">207-8</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Julien, sculptor, <a href="#Page_66">66-7</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Jura limestone, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_245">245</a>; <i>see</i> Dolomitic limestone</li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Jurieu, pastor, <a href="#Page_178">178-9</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Kermes oak, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>
-  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Lac d'Anconne, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  — de S. Andéol, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  — de Bouchet, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  — d'Issarlés, <a href="#Page_72">72-3</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  — Lemagne, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Lacemaking, <a href="#Page_25">25-7</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Lafayette, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Lagorce, murder of, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Lamalou-les-Bains, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Langeac, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163-4</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Langue d'Oc, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</li>
-<li class="isub2">population of, <a href="#Page_266">266-7</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Larzac, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_293">293-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  La Voute, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Lay canons, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Lepers burnt, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li>
-<li class="isub2">hospital for, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Lepreuse, la, <a href="#Page_67">67-8</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Le Puy, <a href="#Page_31">31-3</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34-59</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Levis family, <a href="#Page_128">128-9</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Lodève, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289-92</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Loire, River, <a href="#Page_20">20-3</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67-8</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Luc, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Lunas, <a href="#Page_275">275-6</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  MacHarren, Captain, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Madelaine, Ste., chapel of, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  — de S. Nectaire, <a href="#Page_52">52-3</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Margeride, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167-8</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Mayres, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Mamertus, S., <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Mandrin, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Martin family, <a href="#Page_84">84-102</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Massacre of S. Bartholomew, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_108">108</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Mégal, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Méjan, Causse de, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Merle, Captain, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Mézenc, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69-71</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Micocoulier, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Mimente, River, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Monastier, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Monistrol d'Allier, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Montaigne Noire, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Montcalm, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Montdardier, <a href="#Page_243">243-4</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Montpellier le Vieux, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Montpezat, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Murriel, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Nant, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Noirot, Pierre, <a href="#Page_74">74-9</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Naussac, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Navacelles, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Oculist, Roman, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Oracle, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Orange, William of, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Orbe, River, <a href="#Page_264">264-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Ordeal by fire, <a href="#Page_194">194-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Ornano dukes, <a href="#Page_118">118-20</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Oustalas, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Païolive, wood of, <a href="#Page_153">153-7</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Peasants, <a href="#Page_28">28-30</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79-80</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280-1</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Pepezuc, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Perbet mill, <a href="#Page_81">81-3</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Peyrabeille, tavern of, <a href="#Page_84">84-102</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Peyrenc, Jean, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Peyrolles, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Phonolith (clinkstone), <a href="#Page_19">19</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Pilat, Mont, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Pillard, le, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Plateau, great central, <a href="#Page_1">1</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Polignac, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_31">31-3</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65-6</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Pont de l'Arc, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li>
-<li class="isub2">de la Beaume, <a href="#Page_128">128-9</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</li>
-<li class="isub2">de Montvert, <a href="#Page_187">187-9</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li>
-<li class="isub2">de Mousse, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Poul, Captain, <a href="#Page_191">191-2</a>,
-<a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Pourasse, la, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Pourceilles, River, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Pourcheirolles, Castle, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Pradelles, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Private ownership, <a href="#Page_173">173-4</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Prophetic inspiration, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Prophets, <i>see</i> Camisards</li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Quissac, <a href="#Page_221">221-2</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Rabanel, cave of, <a href="#Page_235">235-6</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Ray-Pic, cascade, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Red sandstone, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Réméjadou, aven of, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Revolution, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Rochebelle, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>
-  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Roche Lambert, Castle, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Roland, Camisard, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Roquefort, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Roquesaltes, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Roure, Baron de, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Ruoms, <a href="#Page_137">137-8</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  S. Alban, <a href="#Page_174">174-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Arcons, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Evodius, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Firmin, <a href="#Page_258">258-9</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Fulcran, <a href="#Page_289">289-90</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Gervais, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Guilhem-le-Désert, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_298">298-302</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Hippolyte-le-Fort, <a href="#Page_223">223-4</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Jean de Foss, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Marcel, cave, <a href="#Page_151">151-2</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Martin-sur-Ardèche, <a href="#Page_147">147-9</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Michel-de-Grammont, <a href="#Page_292">292-3</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Paulien, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65-6</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Peray, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Privat, <a href="#Page_170">170-1</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  S. Veran, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Salavas, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Sampson, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Sauges, <a href="#Page_168">168-9</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Sauve, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Scutarius, tomb of, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Séguier, Pierre, <a href="#Page_187">187-91</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Sidonius Apollinaris, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Silkworm culture, <a href="#Page_204">204-18</a>;</li>
-<li class="isub2">disease, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Suc de Bauzon, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Suffren, the Bailli of, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Sully, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Tanargue, Mount, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Tapestries, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Tartara, cry of, <a href="#Page_181">181-2</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Tears of blood, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Templars, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Thueyts, <a href="#Page_134">134-5</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Trappist monks, <a href="#Page_175">175-6</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Trèves, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Triaire, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Tourette, la, <a href="#Page_111">111-12</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Two men in a boat, <a href="#Page_149">149-50</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Umbranici, <a href="#Page_267">267-8</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Uzès, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  Valleraugue, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vallon, <a href="#Page_139">139-40</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vals, <a href="#Page_114">114-15</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120-2</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vans, les, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Velay, le, <a href="#Page_15">15-33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Ventadour, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vernoux, <a href="#Page_107">107-8</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vestide du Pal, <a href="#Page_132">132-4</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Viaduct, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vidal, Baron de S., <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54-6</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_62">62-3</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vidourle, River, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vigan, le, <a href="#Page_237">237-47</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Villars, Marshal, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Villemagne, <a href="#Page_278">278-9</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Villeneuvette, <a href="#Page_285">285-6</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Violets, fair of, <a href="#Page_70">70-1</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vis, River, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>,
-  <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vision, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vivarais chain, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114-36</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vivens, François, Camisard <a href="#Page_183">183-4</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Viviers, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Volane, River, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Vorey, <a href="#Page_67">67-8</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  Voute Chilhac, <a href="#Page_169">169-70</a></li>
-
-<li class="indx">  — sur Loire, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li>
-<li class="isub2">sur Rhône, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
-
-
-<li class="ifrst">  White Hoods, the, <a href="#Page_51">51-2</a></li>
-</ul>
-
-
-<p class="p4 ac noindent x-smaller">PLYMOUTH<br />
-WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LIMITED, PRINTERS</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1a" id="Page_1a">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<p class="noindent">
-Telegrams &amp; Cables "Longing, London"<br />
-Telephone No. 9313 Central</p>
-
-<p class="ar"><span class="sc">June—Sept. 1907</span></p>
-
-<p class="p2 larger ac noindent">MR. JOHN LONG'S SUMMER AND EARLY<br />
-AUTUMN BOOKS 1907</p>
-
-<hr class="small" />
-
-<p class="ac noindent larger">SIX SHILLING NOVELS</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent smaller">Crown 8vo., cloth gilt</p>
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>ITINERANT DAUGHTERS</b> By <span class="sc">Dorothea Gerard</span>
-(Mme. <span class="sc">Longard de Longgarde</span>)</p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>ONLY BETTY</b> By <span class="sc">Curtis Yorke</span>. With Coloured
-Frontispiece by <span class="sc">E. J. Sherie</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2a" id="Page_2a">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>MRS. BARRINGTON'S ATONEMENT</b> By <span class="sc">Violet
-Tweedale</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 tragedy 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.</p>
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE WHITE HAND AND THE BLACK</b> By
-<span class="sc">Bertram Mitford</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 corner 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.</p>
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>DELILAH OF THE SNOWS</b>
-By <span class="sc">Harold Bindloss</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3a" id="Page_3a">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>DR. MANTON</b> By <span class="sc">Morice Gerard</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 wonderful
-<i>dénouement</i>, 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.</p>
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>A WOMAN PERFECTED</b> By <span class="sc">Richard Marsh</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>CYNTHIA IN THE WILDERNESS</b> By <span class="sc">Hubert
-Wales</span>. Author of "Mr. and Mrs. Villiers," "The Yoke"</p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>HER FATHER'S SOUL</b> By <span class="sc">Lucas Cleeve</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4a" id="Page_4a">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE WHITE COUNTESS</b> By <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE CURSE OF THE FEVERALS</b> By <span class="sc">L. T. Meade</span>.
-With coloured Frontispiece by <span class="sc">E. J. Sherie</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 contrary,
-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 construction
-of this effective and moving story of domestic life.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE HOUSE ON THE THAMES</b> By <span class="sc">G.
-W. Appleton</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>KINDRED SPIRITS</b> By <span class="sc">L. T. Meade</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5a" id="Page_5a">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>IN HIS GRIP</b> By <span class="sc">David Christie Murray</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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, proves to 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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>A JACOBITE ADMIRAL</b> By <span class="sc">R. H. Forster</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>IN THE QUEEN'S SERVICE</b>
-By <span class="sc">Dick Donovan</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 from them
-a story of great and penetrating interest.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6a" id="Page_6a">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>PURPLE HEATHER</b> By <span class="sc">Alan St. Aubyn</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE SECRET SYNDICATE</b> By <span class="sc">Fred Whishaw</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE PLEASURE MONGER</b> By <span class="sc">C. Ranger-Gull</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7a" id="Page_7a">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE SIN OF GABRIELLE</b>
-By Mrs. <span class="sc">Coulson Kernahan</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 sympathy of the
-reader.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE SECOND BEST</b>
-By <span class="sc">Coralie Stanton</span> &amp; <span class="sc">Heath
-Hosken</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">The work of Coralie
-Stanton and Heath Hosken stands out from the fiction
-of to-day in bold outline; there is nothing commonplace or anæmic 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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>A LOVELY LITTLE RADICAL</b>
-By <span class="sc">Alice M. Diehl</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8a" id="Page_8a">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE LADY OF THE BLUE MOTOR</b> By <span class="sc">G. Sidney
-Paternoster</span>. With Coloured Frontispiece</p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 Melodé," 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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>INNOCENT MASQUERADERS</b> By <span class="sc">Sarah Tytler</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">This story is founded on an
-incident which happened at Blackheath upwards
-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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>RUBINA</b> By <span class="sc">James Blyth</span>.
-With Coloured Frontispiece</p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 poignant emotional power and truth of which
-will be acknowledged by every thoughtful reader.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9a" id="Page_9a">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE PASSING OF NIGHT</b>
-By <span class="sc">J. Fovargue Bradley</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">"The Passing of Night"
-is a political novel written with a purpose. The
-author is a Congregational 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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>A BRIAR ROSE</b> By <span class="sc">Sarah Tytler</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>LITTLE JOSEPHINE</b>
-By <span class="sc">L. T. Meade.</span> With Coloured
-Frontispiece by <span class="sc">E. J. Sherie</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10a" id="Page_10a">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>A WOMAN'S AYE OR NAY</b> By <i>Lucas Cleeve</i></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>VALDORA</b> By <span class="sc">Thomas Pinkerton</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">"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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>A WIFE FROM THE FORBIDDEN LAND</b> By
-<span class="sc">Archer Philip Crouch</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11a" id="Page_11a">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>A YANKEE NAPOLEON</b>
-By <span class="sc">John F. Macpherson</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 with the pen of a
-wizard.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>A FULL-LENGTH PORTRAIT OF EVE</b> By <span class="sc">Daniel
-Douglas Brewer</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE JEWEL HOUSE</b> By Mrs. <span class="sc">Isabel Smith</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12a" id="Page_12a">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>IN SEARCH OF JÉHANNE</b> By <span class="sc">Avis Hekking</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 Jéhanne." 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 Jéhanne" is a
-romance of first-rate quality, and it should create for the author a high position
-among writers of historical novels.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>A LIGHT-HEARTED REBELLION</b>
-By <span class="sc">John Langfield</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE WAY OF WAR</b> By <span class="sc">Hew Scot</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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
-has 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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13a" id="Page_13a">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>ONE EVENTFUL SUMMER</b>
-By <span class="sc">Ethel Grace Tapner</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">"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 tragedy 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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>A HUMAN BACILLUS</b> By <span class="sc">Robert Eustace</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 <i>dénouement</i>. 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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>INCAPABLE LOVERS, LIMITED</b>
-By <span class="sc">W. W. Ward</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14a" id="Page_14a">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE SHADE OF THE ACACIA</b>
-By <span class="sc">Jessie E. Livesay</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE SACRED HERB</b> By <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 afterwards
-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.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15a" id="Page_15a">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="p2 ac noindent">
-THE AUTHOR WITH THE LARGEST PUBLIC</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">The Sales of Nat Gould's Novels exceed <b>5,000,000</b>
-  (five million) Copies</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent larger">NAT GOULD'S NEW NOVELS</p>
-
-<p><span class="sc">Mr.</span> JOHN LONG is now the
-<span style="text-decoration:underline;">exclusive</span> Publisher of all
-Mr. Nat Gould's <span style="text-decoration:underline;">New</span> Novels,
-with cover designs in <i>four</i> colours by
-<span class="sc">Mr. Harington
-Bird</span>, the well-known horse painter.</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent smaller">The following is the List to October, 1907:</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent smaller"><i>Price</i> 2s. <i>each, illustrated boards;
-or in cloth gilt</i>, 2s. 6d. <i>each. Crown 8vo., 288 pages</i></p>
-
-
-<ul class="list">
-  <li class="list">ONE OF A MOB      <i>Ready</i></li>
-  <li class="list">THE SELLING PLATER      <i>Ready</i></li>
-  <li class="list">THE LADY TRAINER      <i>Ready</i></li>
-  <li class="list">A STRAIGHT GOER      <i>Ready</i></li>
-  <li class="list">A HUNDRED TO ONE CHANCE      <i>Ready</i></li>
-  <li class="list">A SPORTING SQUATTER      <i>Ready</i></li>
-  <li class="list">CHARGER AND CHASER      <i>Ready</i></li>
-  <li class="list">THE CHANCE OF A LIFE-TIME      <i>Ready</i></li>
-  <li class="list">THE LITTLE WONDER      <i>July</i></li>
-  <li class="list">THE TOP WEIGHT      <i>October</i></li>
- </ul>
-
-<hr class="small" />
-
-<p class="ac noindent">FIFTH YEAR OF PUBLICATION</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent"><span class="larger">NAT GOULD'S ANNUAL, 1907</span><br />
-A STROKE OF LUCK</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent smaller"><i>Price</i> <b>1s.</b>, <i>large demy 8vo., 160 pages, sewed,
-cover in colours</i><br />
-&#8258; Orders are now being taken for NAT GOULD'S ANNUAL for 1907<i> Ready in October</i></p>
-
-<hr class="small p2" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16a" id="Page_16a">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<p class="ac noindent p2">NAT GOULD'S NEW SIXPENNY NOVELS</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent"><i>In large demy 8vo., sewed. Striking cover in colours</i></p>
-
-<ul class="list">
-  <li class="list">ONE OF A MOB      <i>Ready</i></li>
-  <li class="list">THE SELLING PLATER      <i>Ready</i></li>
-  <li class="list">A BIT OF A ROGUE      <i>Ready</i></li>
-  <li class="list">THE LADY TRAINER      <i>Ready</i></li>
-  <li class="list">A STRAIGHT GOER      <i>June</i></li>
-  <li class="list">A HUNDRED TO ONE CHANCE      <i>August</i></li>
-</ul>
-
-
-<hr class="small" />
-
-<p class="ac noindent">A REPLY TO THE "NEW THEOLOGY"</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent smaller">BY THE AUTHOR OF "WHEN IT WAS LIGHT"</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent larger">THE FOOL HATH SAID ——</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent x-smaller">"The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God'"</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent smaller"><i>Crown 8vo., paper cover</i>, 1s. <i>net; or in
-cloth gilt</i>, 2s. 6d. <i>net</i></p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p class="ac noindent">"<b>A real triumph of modern publishing.</b>"—<span class="sc">Pall
-  Mall Gazette</span></p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">"<b>A marvel of cheapness.</b>"—<span class="sc">Spectator</span></p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">JOHN LONG'S LIBRARY OF MODERN CLASSICS</p>
-
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 5-1/2 in.; thickness,
-1-1/4 in. Prices: Cloth Gilt, <b>2s.</b> net each; Leather,
-gold blocked and silk marker, <b>3s.</b>
-net each; or in Classic Half-Vellum, <b>5s.</b> net each.</p>
-
-<ul class="list">
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE THREE CLERKS</b>               (480 pp.)
-    <span class="sc">Anthony Trollope</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH</b>    (672 pp.)
-    <span class="sc">Charles Reade</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE WOMAN IN WHITE</b>             (576 pp.)
-    <span class="sc">Wilkie Collins</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>ADAM BEDE</b>                      (480 pp.)
-    <span class="sc">George Eliot</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND</b>    (432 pp.)
-    <span class="sc">W. M. Thackeray</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>WESTWARD HO!</b>                   (600 pp.)
-    <span class="sc">Charles Kingsley</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS</b>         (320 pp.)
-    <span class="sc">Thomas Hughes</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>A TALE OF TWO CITIES</b>           (384 pp.)
-    <span class="sc">Charles Dickens</span></li>
-</ul>
-
-<p class="ac noindent smaller"><i>Other Volumes to follow.</i></p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17a" id="Page_17a">[Pg 17]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<p class="ac noindent p2">SHILLING NET EDITIONS OF THREE FAMOUS BOOKS</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">
-<i>Each in Crown 8vo., thread sewn, printed on superior antique wove
-paper. With beautiful cover designs in colour by</i><br />
-<span class="sc">Charles E. Dawson</span>
-</p>
-
-
-<p class="ac noindent p2">CONFESSIONS OF A PRINCESS</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">Being the astounding Revelations of Manners
-  and Morals in European Courts.</p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">The late editor of the <i>Saturday
-Review</i> 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."</p>
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>N.B.</b>—The Sales of this remarkable book
-in the more Expensive Edition exceeded <b>200,000 copies</b>.</p>
-
-
-<p class="ac noindent p2">WILHELMINA IN LONDON</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">By <span class="sc">Barry Pain</span>, Author of "Eliza," etc.</p>
-
-<p class="smaller"><i>Standard. </i>—"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."</p>
-
-<p class="smaller"><i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i>—"A light,
-charming piece of literary frivolity."</p>
-
-
-<p class="ac noindent p2">MR. AND MRS. VILLIERS</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">By <span class="sc">Hubert Wales</span>, Author of "The Yoke"</p>
-
-<p class="smaller"><i>The Times</i>: "The situations and
-the dialogue are handled with sureness and skill,
-and the two sisters present feminine character studies of singular beauty."—<i>Daily
-Telegraph</i>: "Hubert Wales is a capable writer, and has produced a story which is
-worth being read."—<i>Daily Chronicle</i>: "The story is extremely well written, the
-characterization admirable. Mr. Wales has amused us, and we have
-enjoyed his book."—<i>Morning Leader</i>:
-"There is no denying the cleverness of the book."—<i>Athenæum</i>:
-"Powerfully written."—<i>Tatler</i>: "A very notable book."</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18a" id="Page_18a">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<p class="ac noindent p2">GENERAL LITERATURE</p>
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>A BOOK OF THE CEVENNES</b>
-By <span class="sc">S. Baring-Gould</span>, M.A.</p>
-
-<p class="noindent">
-<i>With upwards of 40 Illustrations on art paper, printed in sepia, with 8 plates in
-colours and a Map. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt, price</i> 6s.</p>
-
-<p>&#8258; This work is uniform in scope and size with the author's well-known books on Devon,
-Cornwall, Dartmoor, Brittany, the Riviera, etc. <i>Prospectus post free</i></p>
-
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>PICTURES FROM NATURE'S GARDEN</b> Or, Stories
-from Life in Wood and Field. By <span class="sc">H. W. Shepheard-Walwyn</span>, 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.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="noindent"><i>With 78 Illustrations on
-art paper, printed in sepia, from the author's photographs
-direct from Nature. Crown 8vo., cloth gilt</i>, 6s.  <i>Prospectus post free</i></p>
-
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>TERRIERS: Their Points and Management</b> By <span class="sc">Frank
-Townend Barton</span>, M.R.C.V.S.</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="noindent"><i>With upwards of 40 Illustrations from photographs on art
-paper, printed in sepia.
-Crown 8vo., cloth, heavily gilt, price</i> 5s. <i>net</i>.
-[<i>Prospectus post free</i>]</p>
-
-<p class="noindent smaller">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 everybody
-who wants to know all about terriers.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="small" />
-
-<p class="ac noindent p2">THREE NEW VOLUMES OF POEMS</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">
-<i>In royal 16mo, cloth gilt and gilt top, with silk marker,
-price</i> 3s. 6d. <i>net each</i>.</p>
-
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE TESTAMENT OF OMAR KHAYYAM</b> (The
-Wasiyyat), comprising his Testament (or Last Words), A Song, Hymn of
-Prayer, The Word in the Desert, Hymn of Praise, also the Maráthi, or Odes
-of the Disciples. By <span class="sc">Louis C. Alexander</span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>THE COMING OF SPRING; and Other Poems</b> By
-<span class="sc">Rowe Lingston</span></p>
-
-
-<p class="indent-text"><b>VOCES AMORIS</b> By <span class="sc">John B. Rankin</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19a" id="Page_19a">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent smaller">"Will outbid all rivals."—<i>The Bookman.</i></p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">"Certainly wonderful."—<i>Athenæum.</i></p>
-
-<p class="noindent">"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."—<i>Daily News.</i></p>
-
-
-<p class="ac noindent">JOHN LONG'S CARLTON CLASSICS</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="smaller">Prices: Artistic Cloth, gilt, 6d. net;
-Leather, gilt top, gold-blocked back and side,
-<b>1s.</b> net; postage, 1-1/2d. per vol. Length from 160 to 320 pages,
-newly set in clear, new type,
-and printed on the best paper. Each Volume contains a Biographical Introduction by the
-Editor, Mr. <span class="sc">Hannaford Bennett</span>.
-<i>The first twelve only are bound in decorative paper covers.</i></p>
-
-<ul class="list">
-  <li class="list2">1. <b>THE FOUR GEORGES</b> <span class="sc">W. M. Thackeray</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">2. <b>CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE</b> <span class="sc">Lord Byron</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">3. <b>MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING</b>  <span class="sc">Shakespeare</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">4. <b>WARREN HASTINGS</b> <span class="sc">Lord Macaulay</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">5. <b>THE LIFE OF NELSON</b> <span class="sc">Robert Southey</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">6. <b>TALES (Selected)</b>  <span class="sc">Edgar Allan Poe</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">7. <b>CHRISTABEL, and other Poems</b>
-    <span class="sc">S. T. Coleridge</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">8. <b>A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY</b> <span class="sc">Laurence Sterne</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">9. <b>THE BLESSED DAMOZEL, and other Poems</b>
-    <span class="sc">Dante Gabriel Rossetti</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">10. <b>ON HEROES AND HERO WORSHIP</b>
-    <span class="sc">Thomas Carlyle</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">11. <b>SONNETS AND POEMS</b>  <span class="sc">Shakespeare</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">12. <b>RASSELAS</b>   <span class="sc">Samuel Johnson</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">13. <b>SONNETS AND POEMS</b> <span class="sc">Edmund Spenser</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">14. <b>ESSAYS (Selected)</b> <span class="sc">Joseph Addison</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">15. <b>HIS BOOK</b> <span class="sc">Artemus Ward</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">16. <b>THE DUNCIAD, and other Poems</b>
-    <span class="sc">Alexander Pope</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">17. <b>ENGLISH HUMORISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY</b>
-    <span class="sc">W. M. Thackeray</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">18. <b>THE JUMPING FROG, and Other Sketches</b>
-  <span class="sc">Mark Twain</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">19. <b>SONGS</b>   <span class="sc">Robert Burns</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">20. <b>ESSAYS (Selected)</b>    <span class="sc">Leigh Hunt</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">21. <b>LETTERS OF JUNIUS</b>   <span class="sc">Anonymous</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">22. <b>HUMOROUS POEMS</b>  <span class="sc">Thomas Hood</span>
-    <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20a" id="Page_20a">[Pg 20]</a></span></li>
-  <li class="list2">23. <b>CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM EATER</b>
-  <span class="sc">Thomas De Quincey</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">24. <b>A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT</b>  <span class="sc">Dean Swift</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">25. <b>GRACE ABOUNDING</b>   <span class="sc">John Bunyan</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">26. <b>ESSAYS</b> <span class="sc">Matthew Arnold</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">27. <b>POEMS</b>  <span class="sc">Percy Bysshe Shelley</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">28. <b>MR. GILFIN'S LOVE STORY</b>
-    <span class="sc">George Eliot</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">29. <b>SCENES FROM LORREQUER</b> <span class="sc">Charles Lever</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">30. <b>POEMS</b> <span class="sc">Ben Jonson</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">31. <b>COUNSELS CIVIL AND MORAL</b>
-    <span class="sc">Francis Bacon</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">32. <b>MINOR POEMS</b>  <span class="sc">John Milton</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">33. <b>SELECTIONS</b>   <span class="sc">Edmund Burke</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">34. <b>SONNETS</b> <span class="sc">William Wordsworth</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">35. <b>A VOYAGE TO LISBON</b> <span class="sc">Henry Fielding</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">36. <b>ESSAYS</b> <span class="sc">James Anthony Froude</span></li>
-</ul>
-<p class="ac noindent smaller"><i>Other Volumes in Preparation</i></p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-  <p class="ac noindent">THE HAYMARKET NOVELS</p>
-
-
-
-<p class="smaller">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 7-1/2 in. by 5-1/4 in. by
-1-1/4 in., the length from 300 to 350 pages, and the price 2s. 6d. each.</p>
-
-
-<p class="ac noindent"><i>VOLUMES NOW READY</i></p>
-
-<ul class="list">
-  <li class="list2"><b>FATHER ANTHONY (Illustrated)</b>
-    <span class="sc">Robert Buchanan</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>A CABINET SECRET (Illustrated)</b>
-    <span class="sc">Guy Boothby</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>AN OUTSIDER'S YEAR</b>    <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>FUGITIVE ANNE</b> <span class="sc">Mrs. Campbell Praed</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE FUTURE OF PHYLLIS</b> <span class="sc">Adeline Sergeant</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>BENEATH THE VEIL</b> <span class="sc">Adeline Sergeant</span>
-    <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21a" id="Page_21a">[Pg 21]</a></span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE SCARLET SEAL</b>  <span class="sc">Dick Donovan</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>AN ILL WIND</b>       <span class="sc">Mrs. Lovett Cameron</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>MIDSUMMER MADNESS</b> <span class="sc">Mrs. Lovett Cameron</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE SILENT HOUSE IN PIMLICO</b> <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE CRIMSON CRYPTOGRAM</b>  <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>A TRAITOR IN LONDON</b> <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE MACHINATIONS OF JANET</b>  <span class="sc">Sarah Tytler</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE MAGNETIC GIRL</b>  <span class="sc">Richard Marsh</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>A FLIRTATION WITH TRUTH</b> <span class="sc">Curtis Yorke</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>DELPHINE</b>   <span class="sc">Curtis Yorke</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE OTHER MRS. JACOBS</b>
-    <span class="sc">Mrs. Campbell Praed</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>A JILT'S JOURNAL</b>  <span class="sc">Rita</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE INDISCRETION OF GLADYS</b> <span class="sc">Lucas Cleeve</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>PARTNERS THREE</b>   <span class="sc">May Crommelin</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>ONCE TOO OFTEN</b>    <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE LADY OF THE ISLAND (Illustrated)</b>
-    <span class="sc">Guy Boothby</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE WORLD MASTERS</b>  <span class="sc">George Griffith</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>HIS MASTER PURPOSE</b>  <span class="sc">Harold Bindloss</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>TREWINNOT OF GUY'S</b>
-    <span class="sc">Mrs. Coulson Kernahan</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>MRS. MUSGRAVE AND HER HUSBAND</b>
-    <span class="sc">Richard Marsh</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY</b> <span class="sc">Dick Donovan</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>CURIOS: or, the Strange Adventures of Two
-    Bachelors (Illustrated)</b> <span class="sc">Richard Marsh</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>A BRIDE FROM THE SEA</b>  <span class="sc">Guy Boothby</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>ROSAMOND GRANT</b>  <span class="sc">Mrs. Lovett Cameron</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE JADE EYE</b>    <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>MISS ARNOTT'S MARRIAGE</b>  <span class="sc">Richard Marsh</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>AN IMPOSSIBLE HUSBAND</b>    <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE GIRL IN GREY CURTIS</b>    <span class="sc">Yorke</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>IN SPITE OF THE CZAR (Illustrated)</b>
-    <span class="sc">Guy Boothby</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>SAINT ELIZABETH OF LONDON</b>
-    <span class="sc">Lucas Cleeve</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE OPAL SERPENT</b>     <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE MAID OF THE RIVER</b>
-    <span class="sc">Mrs. Campbell Praed</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE FACE IN THE FLASHLIGHT</b>
-    <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>ALIX OF THE GLEN</b>   <span class="sc">Curtis Yorke</span></li>
-</ul>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22a" id="Page_22a">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent"><i>VOLUMES IN PREPARATION</i></p>
-
-<ul class="list">
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE SECRET PASSAGE</b>    <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>OLIVE KINSELLA</b>         <span class="sc">Curtis Yorke</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>ADVENTURES OF MIRANDA</b>    <span class="sc">L. T. Meade</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>WATERS OF OBLIVION</b> <span class="sc">Adeline Sergeant</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE MASK</b> <span class="sc">William Le Queux</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG LADY</b>
-    <span class="sc">Richard Marsh</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE NIGHT OF RECKONING</b>   <span class="sc">Frank Barrett</span></li>
-</ul>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p class="ac noindent">RECENT POPULAR NOVELS</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent"><i>SIX SHILLINGS EACH</i></p>
-
-
-<ul class="list">
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE WORLD AND DELIA</b>    <span class="sc">Curtis Yorke</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE PENNILESS MILLIONAIRE</b>  <span class="sc">David
-    Christie Murray</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE DUST OF CONFLICT</b>  <span class="sc">Harold Bindloss</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE HOUSE IN THE CRESCENT</b>
-    <span class="sc">Adeline Sergeant</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE DUKE'S DILEMMA</b>
-    <span class="sc">Sir Wm. Magnay, Bart.</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE MISTRESS OF AYDON</b>   <span class="sc">R. H. Forster</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE DUCHESS OF PONTIFEX SQUARE</b>
-    <span class="sc">G. W. Appleton</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>IZELLE OF THE DUNES</b>   <span class="sc">C. Guise Mitford</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE LUCK OF THE LEURA</b>
-    <span class="sc">Mrs. Campbell Praed</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE SWEETS OF OFFICE</b>   <span class="sc">Violet Tweedale</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE YOKE</b> (Author of "Mr. and Mrs. Villiers")
-    <span class="sc">Hubert Wales</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE ROMANCE OF A MAID OF HONOUR</b>
-    <span class="sc">Richard Marsh</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>SELMA</b>   <span class="sc">Lucas Cleeve</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE MAN WITH THE AMBER EYES</b>
-    <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE HOUSE OF HOWE</b>    <span class="sc">May Crommelin</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>AMAZEMENT</b>    <span class="sc">James Blyth</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE MILLIONAIRE AND THE LADY</b>
-    <span class="sc">Gertrude Warden</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>KINDRED SPIRITS</b>     <span class="sc">L. T. Meade</span>
-    <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23a" id="Page_23a">[Pg 23]</a></span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>A BUTTERFLY</b>  <span class="sc">Baroness von Goldäcker</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>DEYNCOURT OF DEYNCOURT</b> <span class="sc">Daisy Hugh Pryce</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE FOLLY OF THE WISE</b>
-    <span class="sc">G. Sidney Paternoster</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>INNOCENT MASQUERADERS</b>   <span class="sc">Sarah Tytler</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE END OF A PASSION</b>    <span class="sc">Alice M. Diehl</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE SECOND EVIL</b>    <span class="sc">Sadi Grant</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE TWO FORCES</b>    <span class="sc">E. Way Elkington</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>ALL THAT A MAN HATH</b>
-    <span class="sc">Coralie Stanton and Heath Hosken</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE DICTIONARY OF FOOLS</b> <span class="sc">G. G. Chatterton</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>TWO WOMEN AND A MAHARAJAH</b>
-    <span class="sc">Mrs. C. E. Phillimore</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>A SERPENT IN HIS WAY</b>   <span class="sc">Suzanne Somers</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>A MINISTER OF FATE</b>  <span class="sc">Charles Dawson</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>LEONE</b>   <span class="sc">Lady Dunbar of Mochrum</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE STAIN ON THE SHIELD</b>
-    <span class="sc">Mrs. Darent Harrison</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK</b>   <span class="sc">S. R. Keightley</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>FROM THE HAND OF THE HUNTER</b>  <span class="sc">L. T. Meade</span></li>
-  <li class="list2"><b>THE GIRLS OF INVERBARNS</b>  <span class="sc">Sarah Tytler</span></li>
-</ul>
-
-
-
-
-<p class="ac noindent">JOHN LONG'S SIXPENNY NOVELS</p>
-
-<p class="ac noindent smaller">In Striking Picture Covers, 9 in. by 6 in.</p>
-
-
-<p class="ac noindent"><i>NEW VOLUMES (JANUARY-SEPTEMBER, 1907)</i></p>
-
-<ul class="list">
-  <li class="list2">58 <b>A BRIDE FROM THE SEA</b>  <span class="sc">Guy Boothby</span>
-    </li>
-  <li class="list2">59 <b>WHEN IT WAS LIGHT (A Reply to "When It was Dark")</b>
-    <span class="sc">Well-known Author</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">60 <b>A BIT OF A ROGUE</b>   <span class="sc">Nat Gould</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">61 <b>THE GIRL IN GREY</b>   <span class="sc">Curtis Yorke</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">62 <b>HIS ITALIAN WIFE</b>   <span class="sc">Lucas Cleeve</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">63 <b>THE LADY TRAINER</b>     <span class="sc">Nat Gould</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">64 <b>THE SECRET PASSAGE</b>    <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">65 <b>IN SPITE OF THE CZAR</b>  <span class="sc">Guy Boothby</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">66 <b>A STRAIGHT GOER</b>    <span class="sc">Nat Gould</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">67 <b>AN INNOCENT IMPOSTOR</b>   <span class="sc">Maxwell Gray</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">68 <b>THE STORM OF LONDON</b>  <span class="sc">F. Dickberry</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">69 <b>A LOST CAUSE</b>  <span class="sc">Guy Thorne</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">70 <b>ONE HUNDRED TO ONE CHANCE</b>  <span class="sc">Nat Gould</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">71 <b>FUGITIVE ANNE</b>   <span class="sc">Mrs. Campbell Praed</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">72 <b>THE NIGHT OF RECKONING</b> <span class="sc">Frank Barrett</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">1 <b>AN OUTSIDER'S YEAR</b>  <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span>
-    <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24a" id="Page_24a">[Pg 24]</a></span></li>
-  <li class="list2">2 <b>SOMETHING IN THE CITY</b>
-    <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">3 <b>THE LOVELY MRS. PEMBERTON</b>
-    <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">4 <b>THE MYSTERY OF DUDLEY HORNE</b>
-    <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">5 <b>KITTY'S ENGAGEMENT</b>  <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">6 <b>OUR WIDOW</b>  <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">7 <b>No. 3, THE SQUARE</b>   <span class="sc">Florence Warden</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">8 <b>THE JADE EYE</b>     <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">9 <b>THE TURNPIKE HOUSE</b>  <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">10 <b>THE GOLDEN WANG-HO</b>    <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">11 <b>THE SILENT HOUSE IN PIMLICO</b>
-    <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">12 <b>THE CRIMSON CRYPTOGRAM</b>  <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">13 <b>A TRAITOR IN LONDON</b>  <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">14 <b>WOMAN—THE SPHINX</b>   <span class="sc">Fergus Hume</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">15 <b>A WOMAN'S "NO"</b>  <span class="sc">Mrs. Lovett Cameron</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">16 <b>THE CRAZE OF CHRISTINA</b>
-    <span class="sc">Mrs. Lovett Cameron</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">17 <b>A PASSING FANCY</b>  <span class="sc">Mrs. Lovett Cameron</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">18 <b>BITTER FRUIT</b>  <span class="sc">Mrs. Lovett Cameron</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">19 <b>AN ILL WIND</b>  <span class="sc">Mrs. Lovett Cameron</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">20 <b>MIDSUMMER MADNESS</b>
-    <span class="sc">Mrs. Lovett Cameron</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">22 <b>MRS. MUSGRAVE AND HER HUSBAND</b>
-    <span class="sc">Richard Marsh</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">23 <b>ADA VERNHAM, ACTRESS</b>   <span class="sc">Richard Marsh</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">24 <b>THE MAGNETIC GIRL</b>   <span class="sc">Richard Marsh</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">25 <b>MISS ARNOTT'S MARRIAGE</b> <span class="sc">Richard Marsh</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">26 <b>THE MASK</b>  <span class="sc">William Le Queux</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">27 <b>THE EYE OF ISTAR</b>  <span class="sc">William Le Queux</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">28 <b>THE VEILED MAN</b>    <span class="sc">William Le Queux</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">29 <b>A MAN OF TO-DAY</b>   <span class="sc">Helen Mathers</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">30 <b>THE SIN OF HAGAR</b>   <span class="sc">Helen Mathers</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">31 <b>THE JUGGLER AND THE SOUL</b>
-    <span class="sc">Helen Mathers</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">32 <b>FATHER ANTHONY</b>  <span class="sc">Robert Buchanan</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">33 <b>THE WOOING OF MONICA</b>  <span class="sc">L. T. Meade</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">34 <b>THE BURDEN OF HER YOUTH</b>  <span class="sc">L. T. Meade</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">35 <b>A JILT'S JOURNAL</b>  <span class="sc">Rita</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">36 <b>THE SIN OF JASPER STANDISH</b>  <span class="sc">Rita</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">37 <b>A CABINET SECRET</b> <span class="sc">Guy Boothby</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">38 <b>THE LADY OF THE ISLAND</b>   <span class="sc">Guy Boothby</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">39 <b>THE FUTURE OF PHYLLIS</b>
-    <span class="sc">Adeline Sergeant</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">40 <b>BENEATH THE VEIL</b>   <span class="sc">Adeline Sergeant</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">41 <b>DELPHINE</b>  <span class="sc">Curtis Yorke</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">42 <b>THE COUNTESS OF MOUNTENOY</b>
-    <span class="sc">John Strange Winter</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">43 <b>THE SELLING PLATER</b>   <span class="sc">Nat Gould</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">44 <b>ONE OF A MOB</b>  <span class="sc">Nat Gould</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">45 <b>THE OTHER MRS. JACOBS</b>
-    <span class="sc">Mrs. Campbell Praed</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">46 <b>THE FLUTE OF PAN</b>   <span class="sc">John Oliver Hobbes</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">47 <b>THE KINGDOM OF MAMMON</b> <span class="sc">Violet Tweedale</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">48 <b>THE STOLEN EMPEROR</b> <span class="sc">Mrs. Hugh Fraser</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">49 <b>A BEAUTIFUL REBEL</b> <span class="sc">Ernest Glanville</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">51 <b>THE WORLD MASTERS</b>  <span class="sc">George Griffith</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">52 <b>IN SUMMER SHADE</b>   <span class="sc">Mary E. Mann</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">53 <b>LE SELVE</b>    <span class="sc">Ouida</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">54 <b>SWEET "DOLL" OF HADDON HALL</b>
-    <span class="sc">J. E. Muddock</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">55 <b>GEORGE AND SON</b>  <span class="sc">Edward H. Cooper</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">56 <b>THE SCARLET SEAL</b>  <span class="sc">Dick Donovan</span></li>
-  <li class="list2">57 <b>THE THREE DAYS' TERROR</b>
-    <span class="sc">J. S. Fletcher</span></li>
-</ul>
-
-<p class="ac noindent">JOHN LONG, 12, 13 &amp; 14 Norris Street, Haymarket, London</p>
-
-
-<p class="ac p4 noindent x-smaller">BILLING AND SONS, LIMITED, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD</p>
-
-
-<div class="transnote p2">
-  <h3>Transcriber's Note:</h3>
-  <ul>
-    <li>Minor punctuation errors have been corrected without note.</li>
-    <li>Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
-      form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.</li>
-    <li>Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.</li>
-    <li>Footnotes were moved to the end of chapters and numbered in one
-      continuous sequence.</li>
-    <li>Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs
-      and some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that
-      references them. The list of Illustrations paginations were
-      changed accordingly.</li>
-    <li>Other corrections:
-      <ul>
-	    <li>p. 14: Footnote 2: 'Nos' de Lavène replaced by 'Mos' de Lavène.</li>
- 	    <li>p. 63: 'beseiged' replaced by 'besieged' (In 1590 he besieged
-          Espaly again).</li>
-	    <li>p. 69: 'protusion' replaced by 'protrusion' (upon their
-          protrusion from the volcanic vent).</li>
-	    <li>p. 76: 'irresitible' replaced by 'irrestistible' (proved an
-          irresistible attraction).</li>
-	    <li>p. 79: 'pronouned replaced by 'pronounced.' (pronounced absolution).</li>
-	    <li>p. 94: 'aleep' replaced by 'asleep' (thinking that I was asleep).</li>
-	    <li>p. 100: 'Payrabeille' replaced by 'Peyrebeille' (on his way to Peyrebeille).</li>
-	    <li> p. 121: 'clientelle' replaced by 'clientele'(they have also their clientele).</li>
-	    <li> p. 128: 'wonful' replaced by 'wonderful' (it is really wonderful
-		  what changes).</li>
-        <li>p. 83 Footnote 5: 'Vivavais' replaced by 'Vivarais'
-		  (Pays Volcaniques du Vivarais).</li>
-        <li>p. 139: 'abrubtly' replaced by 'abruptly' (the crag that falls abruptly).</li>
-		<li>p. 156: 'Grott' replaced by 'Grotte' (reach the Grotte of the Chouans).</li>
-	    <li> p. 197: 'insurgeuts' replaced by 'insurgents' (when the insurgents saw).</li>
-	    <li> p. 225: 'Christian' replaced by 'Christina' (Queen Christina of Sweden).</li>
-	    <li> Pp. 248, 306: 'Valerauge' replaced by 'Vallerauge.'</li>
-	    <li> p. 264: 'Courbeson' replaced by 'Courbezon' (He produced
-		  Les Courbezon in 1862).</li>
-	    <li> p. 264: 'Orbe' replaced by 'Orb' (Bédarieux is on the Orb).</li>
-	    <li> p. 305: 'Belzunce' replaced by 'Belsunce' (Belsunce, Mgr. de, 174).</li>
-	    <li> p. 305: 'Chassizac' replaced by 'Chassezac' (Chassezac, River, 139, 154).</li>
-	    <li> p. 308: 'Rouve' replaced by 'Roure' (Roure, Baron de, 198).</li>
-	    <li> p. 308: 'Hippolite-du-Fort' replaced by 'Hippolyte-le-Fort'
-		  (S. Hippolite-le-Fort, 223-4).</li>
- 	    <li>Advertisements, p. 24: Number 21 in the list is missing. Also, the sequence
-		  starting with no. 1 on p. 24 is continued on p. 23 with no. 58. These were
-		  not corrected.</li>
-      </ul>
-    </li>
-  </ul>
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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