the Cévennes ridge

34 points of interest

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  One spring, five fountains

  This fountain is one of Saint-André’s five public fountains, all of which are supplied by the same spring (its water is thus the same as in the Fontaine du Griffon). Before houses were connected to mains water, there were many more fountains on this side of the quay.

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  The village of St André de Valborgne

  As you stroll along the quay above the river, you can still see the handsome bourgeois houses dating from the silk boom. If you look around, former spinning mills and industrial buildings dedicated to silk farming can still be seen in the landscape. A little lower down, opposite the 16th century château, you can listen to
  Bernadette Lafont on the Camisard saga in and after 1702. As you reach the square again, quench your thirst at the fountain and have a look inside the Romanesque church (12th century).

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  The gardonnades

  The village benefits from the water that the Gardon brings – but it also has to put up with the river’s sporadic bad moods. Abundant rain can rapidly raise river levels. It is often in autumn that the torrent overflows its banks. The worst floods can have dramatic consequences in both material and human terms. Many can still remember the floods of September 1958 and 2002, which caused much damage.

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  Water!

  The Griffon fountain is known for its pure water, which will quench any walker’s thirst. In the old days, the whole neighbourhood used it not only for drinking but also for cooking, washing, washing clothes, watering plants, etc. The fountain was not only a supply point but also an important meeting-point in village life.

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  Well-supplied

  Cévenol gardens are supplied by béals (little canals), which bring water from rivers or springs to cultivated land. The latter is usually laid out in bancels (terraces). By retaining the soil, the low walls make it possible to have level plots and deeper soils. Water can seep into the ground slowly and remain there for longer.

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  Two in one

  This cobbled path going uphill is a calade. It is not only a path but also a brook, allowing rainwater to be evacuated. Caution: slippery when wet! 

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  Fauna

  Fish and other animals...

  On the river banks, a pretty white, grey and black bird paces up and down looking for insects, bopping its long tail up and down: the white wagtail. The more colourful grey wagtail is often seen alongside it. The white-throated dipper resembles a blackbird with a big white stain on its breast. It often disappears underwater to hunt insect larvae. Trout, which like the same prey, also live in the Gardon, where they keep anglers happy.

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  Electrified…

  The village’s inhabitants had access to electricity as early as 1919. The inconspicuous little hut on the opposite bank sheltered a little turbine supplied with water by a béal (irrigation channel). It was built by a villager, Mr Teston, and produced enough electricity for one lightbulb per household.

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  Cévenol housing

  Houses normally occupied the centre of the cultivated area. Built from schist, they were tall and narrow to save the level ground for crops. When houses needed expanding, people either added another storey to existing buildings or built a new wing parallel to the contour lines. Hamlets were always constructed near water sources and often at mid-slope because the valley floors are susceptible to brutal flooding as well as difficult to access. Good exposure to sunlight was not a decisive factor in choosing sites.

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  Saumane

  Centrally located in the Vallée Borgne, Saumane suffered heavily during the conflicts between Camisards and the King’s troops in 1703. The village and its outlying hamlets were pillaged and burnt, the villagers deported. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Golden Age of silkworm farming, Saumane was resplendent again. It had two silk spinning mills and about 500 inhabitants. 
  During World War II, Saumane was a support centre for the Cevenol Resistance.
  Today, its inhabitants focus their energy on nature discovery and sustainable tourism.

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  Cabrigoule

  The land register of 1663 has toponymic traces of cabri in the Occitan expression cabrigoule, which could be translated as “goat ravine”.

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  Cévenol episodes and gardonnades

    Flooding is a recurrent phenomenon in the Cévennes, including in the Borgne valley. Catastrophic inundations have been recorded since 1295, especially in 1790, 1826, 1848, 1890/1891, 1900, 1907, 1958 and 2002. In the most recent flood to date, on 19 September 2020, the villages of the Borgne and Valleraugue valleys were hit hard.

  The sea is about a hundred kilometres away, and the south wind (the marin), pushes clouds full of water towards the Cévenol massifs where, depending on circumstances, they can cause violent storms. The Cévennes mountains are steep, making the rain run off into the torrents. The Gardon river below swells impetuously in a few hours, displacing a lot of matter and ripping out vegetation.

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  Château de L’Hom

  Originally, the name of L'Hom indicates that an elm tree – the tree of justice – was planted outside the building. The massive square building is first mentioned in 1405. It has had a long painful history, emblematic of the Wars of Religion. The château was home to a garrison until 1767, when it was bought a family of industrialists, the Teissonnières. In the summer of 1944, it was the HQ of the general staff of the French Forces of the Interior (united Resistance units) of the Gard and lower Lozère, under the authority of Commandant Audibert.

  The association L’Enfance Ouvrière subsequently bought it to turn it into a holiday colony. It is now a campsite. 

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  Cobbled paths and retaining walls

  Under your feet, you will see traces of all this old built road heritage on the paths. Cobblestones make roads more comfortable and suitable for vehicles.
  The retaining walls are regular and, in places, built on very steep areas or carved into the rock. The traces left by humanity are impressive.
  After the Château de Bussas, you will see piled-up tyres by the side of the path. There is also a thick cable. The taut-cable system made it possible to transport materials and wood all the way to the road. When the load arrived, it had sometimes picked up too much speed because of its weight. The pile of tyres was there to stop it.

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  Draille

  The rocky path becomes wider and has stone reinforcements on the downhill side, which shows that it was once used by large herds. This draille led from Saint-Jean-du-Gard to the summer pastures on Mont Aigoual. At the Col de Mercou pass (570 m), there are panoramic views northwards over the Corniche des Cevennes. The pass was once a site for trade and commerce, with its own market. Its name is derived from Mercury, the god of travellers and commerce. There are also references to Melkart, a Phoenician deity: Semitic traders left traces of their passage here in the architecture of the old proto-historic bridges. Melkart or Melqart was the tutelary god of the city of Tyre - whose name means “strong king” in Phoenician – and was the god of riches, industry and navigation. He was worshipped in the tenth century BC.

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  The King’s dragoons and the dragonnade

  Three-quarters of local Huguenots (Protestants) renounced their faith due to the “missionaries in boots”, meaning the dragoons. The dragonnade was the name given to Huguenots being forced to house these soldiers of the King, who then pillaged and mistreated them into renouncing their faith. The dragoons met with a unique resistance in the Camisard War (1702 to 1705), during which 3,000 Protestants in white shirts defied 30,000 red dragoons. The dragoons were on horseback, booted and armed with sabres a metre-and-a-half long, which was not very practical on small paths, during this guerilla war.

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  Les caches des prédicants

  From 1685, the so-called “wilderness period” began for Protestants, who were forced to follow their faith with clandestine preaching in isolated spots. In the Soudorgues area, these included Villeméjeanne (called Campan), Les Bousquets, Espaze, La Faux and Grevault du Bedos (a mas or farm near the pass of the same name). They took refuge in caves or with locals. The Mas du Moina had several hiding-places. One, in the stables of the residential building, had an arrowslit to be able to see the Dragoons arrive. Near Soudorgues, hiding-places have been identified at Mas Novis, Euzière and Viala (in the hamlet of Horts). Their good-hearted inhabitants risked having their farms destroyed and being sent to the galleys for life. A little further, beyond Mas Guiraud, there is still a flat-topped rock known as Le Templas, which has a very narrow entrance. About 20 people could fit into it for religious gatherings.

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  Les Horts hamlet

  The hamlet got its name from the Latin hortus, meaning garden. The presence of many springs and waterways contributed to the expansion of dry-stone terraces for growing crops (bancels or faïsses). Les Horts had a watermill.

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  Rocher de la Lune

  The Rocher de la Lune (“moon rock”) is a granite block that is typical of the blockfields which are scattered throughout the vale, from the riverbed to the top of the ridges. This granite block is split in two and used to reflect the moon’s silvery rays before it was covered by vegetation.
  Oral memory reports that the rock was once painted but that might be a local joke...

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  Solier Castle

  The downhill section to Lasalle goes past Solier Castle, built in the late 19th century. It has a large machicolated keep with an embrasure for a cannon, mullioned windows and gemel bays. The castles at Algues, Calviac, Cornély, Prades and Soulages are older, having been built from the 15th to the 18th centuries.

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  Albin Mercoiret

  Today, he would be over 100 years old. All the inhabitants of St Jean remember this self-taught man, a fervent Protestant, town counsellor, founder of the tourist office, and a butcher by profession. Always smiling in his blue overalls, as solid as the vine stock that he regularly went up the hill to look after, pushing his wheelbarrow and followed by his few sheep. When he wanted to take the train, he sent his children ahead to let the stationmaster know that he would be arriving. Then he walked through the small town greeting his acquaintances while in the distance the locomotive’s whistle sounded impatiently – but the train never left without him.

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  The village of St-Roman de Tousque

  "Tousque" is believed to mean "a tuft of trees, thicket, bush". This charming village overlooks the Vallée Borgne to the south and Mont Lozère to the north. It lies on what was once a strategic crossroads of two King’s roads: from Montpellier to Mende, and the connection between the Vallée Française and the Vallée Borgne. Like Le Pompidou, St-Roman was a stopover village for horses and travellers.
  As you contemplate the magnificent surrounding scenery or stroll through the lanes, you can imagine the much busier life in the old days… Today St-Roman is a peaceful village where life is good.

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  Saint-Roman de Tousque

  The village of St-Roman de Tousque, which is part of the municipality of Moissac Vallée Française, owes its development to its location on the Corniche des Cévennes road, which facilitated the expansion of trade. In the 17th and 18th century, the village had a large number of artisans and shopkeepers. During the Camisard War, a company of the King’s troops was stationed here. The Camisard Lafleur came to sing psalms in front of the Catholic church, accompanied by six men. Believing themselves to be under attack, the soldiers barricaded themselves in, leaving the Camisards free to torch the church. The 19th century saw several Protestant commemorations.
  
  It was in St-Roman de Tousque that the hymn of the Cevenol protestants, La Cévenole, was sung for the first time, during the bicentenary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1885.

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  Serre des Potences (Gallows’ Ridge)

  Almost at the summit of the ridge, where the schist bedrock is relatively flat, are three holes 35 cm in diameter and 45 cm deep. They form an isosceles triangles with sides 2.4 m long. The holes were for chestnut poles linked by horizontal beams, from which the condemned would be hung.
  
  The gallows belonged to the Lord of Moissac, who meted out justice in these parts. In the Middle Ages, each château had its gallows. They were located close to the château (here, about 2 km away) and visible to the valley’s peasants and to travellers on the ridge track. You have to imagine the ridges without trees, as they would have been in those days.

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  Fauna

  The sweet chestnut orchard

  This chestnut orchard consists of ungrafted shoots (bouscas). A herd of goats from the hamlet of Fobies grazes here regularly, keeping the undergrowth down. This well-maintained orchard has more species diversity than a chestnut orchard that is not grazed. In the latter, you will find thorny and low woody plants – brambles, ferns, broom, heather – while a grazed chestnut orchard has a wide range of small plants: grasses, herbaceous plants, legumes, orchids, etc. This diversity shelters and feeds many insects, birds, snakes and mammals.

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  Lique Ser

  Lique Ser path goes up to the famous Corniche des Cévennes, a ridge between the two departments of Gard and Lozère. This road, which is busy these days in summer because of its superb views, has not always been a holiday address.
  In the days of Louis XIII and XIV, this was the route of the dragonnades and the repression of Protestantism by the King’s army after the Revocation of the Edict (the billeting of deliberately ill-disciplined soldiers in Protestant households) of Nantes. This ridge gave the soldiers, known as the King’s dragoons, strategic viewpoints. The road was abandoned from the 19th century onwards. In 1930, after lengthy renovations, it was opened to traffic again, becoming a major tourist route

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  Le Pompidou

  Le Pompidou, like Saint-Roman de Tousque, owes its development to its location on the Corniche des Cévennes road. From the 17th century onwards, this former mule track carried substantial trade, with mule cart drivers bringing up salt, wine and dried fish from southern France to the Gévaudan, taking grains and cloth down from the uplands, and exporting the silk and chestnuts of the Cévennes. You can still see two buildings, the former inn (Le Cheval Blanc) and the Chapeau Rouge staging post, where travellers changed carriage horses.

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  Small buildings

  The small buildings you see dotted here and there are jasses (from jas: place where livestock sleeps), sheepfolds of times gone by. There used to be at least 20 between Tartabissac and Bézuc. From the first warm days to 6 December, livestock would spend the night here, and their owners would come up during the day to watch them. An old saying goes, “No livestock in the chestnut groves before the sixth of December”. 6 December was the date of the fair in Florac when the local chestnuts were sold. Today Bézuc hosts 200 sheep for 8 months of the year.

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  The mediaeval castles

  Very close to the village of St-André de Valborgne, on the edge of a cliff, stand the remains of the castrum of La Fare, a defensive castle believed to date from the 12th century. Only a wall face of the tower survives. The ruins above bear witness to the site’s importance. The archives mention a well, cistern and drawbridge – but on site nothing remains. On the next spur is the majestic and dominating castle of Le Folhaquier. Transformations throughout the centuries by various owners have shaped the hamlet as we see it today. The era of silk farming strongly influenced the landscape by welcoming the “tree of gold”, the mulberry tree. 

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  Château de la Fare

  Following on from many battles against the Château du Folhaquier, today all that is left of the large mediaeval castle of the Lord de la Fare is this expanse of wall. Built at the summit of a schist hill, the castle is surrounded by sheer drops on all sides. The former village was fortified and located just below the expanse of wall. Sources indicate that the castle had a drawbridge and a chapel.

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  The Château de Nogaret

  Built in the 11th century, the Château de Nogaret stood on the only road linking Saint-André de Valborgne with Le Pompidou. It is believed to have been constructed to serve as a stronghold and to defend the Vallée Borgne. It was set alight in 1628 during the war between the Duke of Rohan and Louis XIII, and again in 1704 by the Camisards, before being rebuilt in the 18th century. This private property still belongs to the Manoel de Nogaret family.
  “This small château is one of the finest examples of the fortified manor houses built towards the end of the Middle Ages by minor local lords wanting to free themselves, at least symbolically, from domination by their feudal overlords.” (Isabelle Darnas - Les châteaux médiévaux en Cévennes).

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  Traces of giants?

  “Giant’s cauldrons” have formed in the rock at the base of the waterfall. These regular, rounded cavities are only created in rapidly flowing waters. They are caused by the repeated friction of stones caught in a depression and moved by swirling currents.

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  The tanners’ district

  La Calquière district gets its name from that of the ditches in which the tanners soaked their animal skins with limestone, which is called cauç or calç in Occitan. All along the Gardon there were tanneries because its acidic water was good for rinsing the skins, which was indispensable for obtaining high quality products.

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  The age of silk

  From the 19th century onwards, the silk industry developed in the Cévennes: tanneries gave way to spinning mills. The mills used water not only to treat the silkworm cocoons (which were boiled to prepare the silk) but also for the steam-driven spinning machines. In the second half of the 19th century, diseases strongly reduced silk production, which was also subject to competition from foreign silks and then from artificial silk. The silk industry went under in 1965.