A Book of the Cevennes

by S. Baring-Gould

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.