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.
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.