Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe

by S. Baring-Gould

There was a curious statement made in a work by E. Bosc and L. Bonnemère in 1882, [Footnote: Hist. des Gaulois sous Vercingetorix. Paris, 1882.] reproduced by M. Louis Bousrez in 1894, [Footnote: Les monu- ments Mégalithiques de la Touraine. Tours, 1894.] which, if true, would show that a lingering paganism is to be found among these people. It is to this effect: "What is unknown to most is that at the present day there exist adepts of the worship (of the Celts) as practised before the Roman invasion, with the sole exception of human sacrifices, which they have been forcibly obliged to renounce. They are to be found on the two banks of the Loire, on the confines of the departments of Allier and Saone-et-Loire, where they are still tolerably numerous, especially in the latter department. They are designated in the country as Les Blancs, because that in their ceremonies they cover their heads with a white hood, and their priests are vested like the Druids in a long robe of the same colour.

"They surround their proceedings with profound mystery; their gatherings take place at night in the heart of large forests, about an old oak, and as they are dispersed through the country over a great extent of land, they have to start for the assembly from different points at close of day so as to be able to reach home again before daybreak. They have four meetings in the year, but one, the most solemn, is held near the town of La Clayette under the presidence of the high priest. Those who come from the greatest distance do not reach their homes till the second night, and their absence during the intervening day alone reveals to the neighbours that they have attended an assembly of the Whites. Their priests are known, and are vulgarly designated as the bishops or archbishops of the Whites; they are actually druids and archdruids…. We have been able to verify these interesting facts brought to our notice by M. Parent, and our personal investigations into the matter enable us to affirm the exactitude of what has been advanced."

If there be any truth in this strange story, we are much more disposed to consider the Whites as relics of a Manichæan or Albigensian sect than as a survival of Druidism. More probable still is it that they are or were a political confederation. But I suspect that the account is due to a heated imagination.

At Bourré (Loir et Cher) are extensive quarries in the face of the hill. Here the chalk is hard and of beautiful texture. The stone has been derived hence for the erection of several of the castles in the Touraine, as also for buildings in the towns of Tours, Blois, Montrichard, &c. Most of the habitations of the villagers, who are nearly all quarrymen, are excavated in the rock, occupy old disused workings, or have been specially dug out to suit the convenience and dispositions of the occupants. In some of these old underground quarries, that are not open to the light of day, dances and revelries take place, when they are brilliantly illuminated. At Sainte Maure, on the road from Tours to Chatelherault, in a deep cleft of the Cande that is covered with the falun, an extensive deposit of marine and freshwater shells, marking the beach of an old estuary of the sea, is the village of Courtineau, wholly made up of Troglodyte habita- tions, and with its chapel also excavated in the rock.

[ILLUSTRATION: SAULIAC. A village in the valley of the Célé Lot, built partly into the rocks, with chambers excavated out of the cliff.]

At Villaines (Indre et Loire) the cliffs are pierced with caves that are inhabited by basket-makers, and the watercourses below are planted with willow, or else have cut osiers lying in them soaking to preserve their suppleness. In the caves, on the roads, in every house, one sees little else but baskets in process of making or cut osiers lying handy for use. The women split and peel the green rods, men and children with nimble fingers plait the white canes. All the basket-makers are themselves plaited into one co-operative association. From time immemorial Villaines had made baskets, the osier of the valley being of excellent quality. But the products could not be disposed of satisfactorily; they were bought by regraders, who beat down the prices of the wares, and the workmen had no means of seeking out the markets, in which to sell with full advantage to themselves. In 1845 an old curé, whose name is remembered with affection, the Abbé Chicogne, conceived the idea of creating a co-operative society; and aided by the Count de Villemois, he grouped the workers, and drew up the statutes of the Association, that remain in force to the present day. All the products are brought together into a common store, and sold for the benefit of the associates. No member is permitted to dispose of a single piece of his workmanship to a purchaser; he may not sell in gross any more than he may in detail. The cave-houses are comfortably and neatly furnished, and their appearance and that of their inhabitants proclaims well-being, content and cheerfulness.

On the Beune, a tributary of the Vézère, is the hamlet of Grioteaux, planted on a terrace in a cave, the rock overhangs the houses. Above the cluster, inaccessible without a ladder, in the face of the cliff, is a chamber hewn out of the rock, and joist holes proclaiming that at one time a wooden gallery preceded it. This cavern, that is wholly artificial, served in times of trouble as a place in which the community concealed their valuables.

The river Célé that flows into the Lot passes under noble cliffs of fawn and orange-tinted limestone, and the road here is called Le Défilé des Anglais, as the whole valley during the Hundred Years' War was in the possession of the Companies that pretended to fight for the Leopards. And it was down this defile that the cutthroats rode on their plundering expeditions. In this valley is the village of Sauliac, in an amphitheatre of rocks, where road and river describe a semicircle. The cliff runs up to a height of 300 feet. Houses are perched on every available ledge, grappling the rock, where not simply consisting of faced caverns. In the midst of this cirque stands the castle, buried in stately oaks. It was not built till 1460, when the long agony of the war was over, and nothing remained of the English save their empty nests in the rock, and their hated name.

A modern chapel, very white and not congruous with its surroundings, is perched above the road on a terrace under Le Roc Percé, so named from a natural cavern, very round, drilled through it, as though wrought by a giant's boring tool.

At Cuzorn, on the line from Perigueux to Agen, are very fine rocks in a meander of the Lemance, starting out of woods, and these contain caverns that have been, and some still are, inhabited. In this region are many quarries, not open to the sky, but forming halls and galleries under the hill, and some of these have been taken possession of and turned into habitations.