A Book of the Cevennes

by S. Baring-Gould

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.