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.