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Rh English freebooters. It was always zealous on the national side. In the reign of Louis XV. a grandson of a barber of Le Vigan became Minister of Marine, and fitted out the fleets in the struggle against England for the supremacy of the seas and the maintenance of French dominions in North America. An epigram was written on this man, Jean Peyrenc:— The most woeful time of all for the place was that of persecution of the Huguenots. The odious Edict of 1685 brought perturbation into the town and neighbourhood, which had become Calvinist. Companies of dragoons were quartered on the Protestants, and made them suffer such vexations that the townsfolk passed bodily over to the Church in less than a twelvemonth; but thirty families, rather than submit to forcible conversion, expatriated themselves. Others were arrested and condemned to deportation. Among these was a Seigneur du Fouquet, who died on the voyage. His daughter, Madeleine, was sent to be educated in a convent, and left it only when she had abjured heresy, and she became the grandmother of the Chevalier d'Assas, a son of the soil, the hero of Clostercamp, whose statue adorns a square in Le Vigan, and of whom more presently.

On the night of October 6th, 1686, two thousand of the Reformed assembled on a little plateau near the height of l'Oiselette, visible from Le Vigan, to hear one of the pastors preach, when a body of dragoons, guided


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240 by a traitor, Moreau, rushed upon them after having shot down the sentinels. The Protestants were armed, and seeing the military approach fired on them, and shot the captain in command; the lieutenant was stabbed by a bayonet in the belly, and died two days later. The assembly dispersed in all directions, but twenty-two persons were arrested, and eight of them, among them three women, were hung in the marketplace of Le Vigan.

On June 5th, 1704, the delegate of Bâville at Le Vigan, named Daudé, was murdered by the Camisards. He was walking home from a little property he had at La Valette when he was assailed by shots from the insurgents, who had concealed themselves in a cornfield. They blew out his brains, but they did no harm to Claude d'Assas, who was accompanying him, other than depriving him of his sword and his embroidered cap. They were caught, and convicted on the evidence of that cap found on them. At the same time were taken two farmers, who had given them asylum. One of these was proved not to be a Camisard, and knew nothing of the plot. Nevertheless, at the instance of Judith, the widow of the murdered man, he was condemned and hung.

Two days after, the implacable widow was found dead; she had died of uterine hemorrhage.

The last of the assemblies of the Calvinists in the desert was on Sunday, January 3Oth, 1752. It was presided over by the pastor, Marazel, and a candidate for the ministry named Bénézet, who in his prayer invoked God "for the King, the Queen, and the Royal Family." That same evening the two preachers were in a house at Le Vigan, when it was surrounded by

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 and colonel of the 7th horse, now the 6th dragoon guards or carabineers. He died in 1749. He was member of parliament for Bewdley in February 1734-5.

 BOWLES, WILLIAM (1705–1780), naturalist, was born near Cork. He gave up the legal profession, for which he was destined, and in 1740 went to Paris, where he studied natural history, chemistry, and metallurgy. He subsequently travelled through France, investigating its natural history and mineral and other productions. In 1752, having become acquainted with Don Antonio de Ulloa, afterwards admiral of the Spanish fleet, Bowles was induced to enter the Spanish service, being appointed to superintend the state mines and to form a collection of natural history and fit up a chemical laboratory. He first visited the quicksilver mines of Almaden, which had been seriously damaged by fire, and the plans he suggested were successfully adopted for their resuscitation. He afterwards travelled through Spain, investigating its minerals and natural history, living chiefly at Madrid and Bilbao. He married a German lady, Anna Rustein, who was pensioned by the king of Spain after her husband's death. Bowles is described as tall and fine-looking, generous, honourable, active, ingenious, and well informed. His society was much valued in the best Spanish circles. He died at Madrid 25 Aug. 1780.

Bowles's principal work was 'An Introduction to the Natural History and Physical Geography of Spain,' published in Spanish at Madrid 1775. It is not systematically arranged, but has very considerable value as being the first work of its kind. The second edition (1782) was edited by Don J. N. de Azara, who rendered considerable assistance to the author in preparing the first edition. It was translated into French by Vicomte de Flavigny (Paris, 1776). An Italian edition, much enlarged by Azara, then Spanish ambassador at Rome, was published at Parma in 1784. Bowles was also the author of 'A Brief Account of the Spanish and German Mines' (Phil. Trans. lvi.); of 'A Letter on the Merino Sheep,' &c. (Gent. Mag. May and June 1764); and of 'An Account of the Spanish Locusts' (Madrid, 1781). Sir J. T. Dillon's 'Travels through Spain' (London, 1781) is very largely an adaptation of Bowles.

 BOWLES, WILLIAM LISLE (1762–1850), divine, poet, and antiquary, was born on 24 Sept. 1762 at King's Sutton, Northamptonshire, of which his father was the vicar. Both his father and mother, as he tells us in his autobiographical preface to 'Scenes and Shadows of Days Departed,' were descended from old and much-respected families. In 1776 he was placed at Winchester School, under Dr. Joseph Warton, who, discerning his taste for poetry and general literature, did his best to foster it by encouragement and training. On the death of his old master, Bowles wrote a monody which expresses his regard for his character. On leaving Winchester he was elected in 1781 a scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, of which Joseph Warton's brother, Thomas Warton—professor of poetry at Oxford and eventually poet laureate—was the senior fellow. In 1783 the young student, by his poem entitled 'Calpe Obsessa, or the Siege of Gibraltar,' carried off the chancellor's prize for Latin verse. Here, however, any signal distinctions at the university seem to have ended. It was not until 1792 that he obtained his degree. Having entered holy orders he first officiated as curate of Donhead St. Andrew in Wiltshire. In 1792 he was appointed to the rectory of Chicklade in Wiltshire, which he resigned in 1797, on being presented to the rectory of Dumbleton in Gloucestershire. In the same year he was married to Magdalene, daughter of Dr. Wake, prebendary of Westminster, whom he survived. In 1804 he became vicar of Bremhill, Wiltshire, where, greatly beloved by his parishioners, he thenceforth generally resided till near the close of his life. In 1804 he was also made prebendary of Stratford in the cathedral church of Salisbury, of which in 1828 he became canon residentiary. Ten years earlier he had been appointed chaplain to the prince regent.

About 1787, the year of his leaving college, Bowles fell in love with Miss Romilly, niece of Sir Samuel Romilly; but his suit, probably for want of sufficient means on his part, was rejected. After a while he formed a second attachment, but the hopes to which it gave rise were unhappily cut short by the lady's death. Bowles then turned for consolation to poetry. During a tour through the north of England, Scotland, and some parts of the continent, he composed the sonnets which first brought him before the public. The little volume was published at Bath in 1789, under the title of 'Fourteen Sonnets written chiefly on Picturesque Spots during a Journey.' Their success was extraordinary, the first small edition being


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 Bowles speedily exhausted, while Coleridge, then in his seventeenth year, expressed his delight at the restoration of a natural school of poetry, a tribute which he confirmed later by celebrating the praise of Bowles in a fine sonnet. The simplicity and earnestness of Bowles had all the charm of novelty and contrast. His pensive tenderness, delicate fancy, refined taste, and, above all, his power to harmonise the moods of nature with those of the mind, were his chief merits. He was a true though not a great poet, having neither depth of thought nor vigour of imagination. The qualities of his early sonnets are common to all his poetry, though in his longer works they frequently sink into a graceful feebleness. His 'Verses to John Howard' appeared in 1789, and were reprinted in 1790. In 1805 this collection had passed into an illustrated ninth edition. 'Coombe Ellen' and 'St. Michael's Mount' were published in 1798; 'The Battle of the Nile' appeared in 1799; 'The Sorrows of Switzerland' in 1801; 'The Picture' in 1803; 'The Spirit of Discovery,' his longest poem, in 1804; 'Bowden Hill' in 1806; 'The Missionary of the Andes' in 1815; 'The Grave of the last Saxon' in 1822; 'Ellen Gray' in 1823; 'Days Departed' in 1828; 'St. John in Patmos' in 1833; 'Scenes and Shadows of Days Departed,' with an autobiographical introduction, in 1837; and 'The Village Verse-Book,' a series of hymns composed by himself for the use of children, in the same year. In 1806, not in 1807 (as is erroneously stated by Gilfillan and others), Bowles issued in ten volumes his memorable edition of Pope, with a sketch of his life and strictures on his poetry. His comments on Pope's life are undoubtedly written in a severe, if not a hostile spirit. It has been justly urged, that while he omitted no detail that could harm Pope's memory, he either left out or mentioned coldly such facts as did him honour. These errors drew upon the biographer stinging assaults from Byron both in verse and prose. Bowles's estimate of Pope as a poet gave rise to a long controversy, in which much bitterness was displayed. Bowles's proposition that 'images drawn from what is beautiful or sublime in nature are more sublime and beautiful than images drawn from art, and that they are therefore per se more poetical, and that passions are more adapted to poetry than manners,' is by no means refuted by Campbell's assertion that 'the exquisite description of artificial objects and manners is no less characteristic of genius than the description of physical appearances.' Bowles never denied that many artificial objects are beautiful. Byron's instances, in opposition to Bowles, go chiefly to show that certain natural objects are less interesting than certain artificial ones, and that by laws of association the latter at times, especially when unfamiliar, strike us more than the former, though intrinsically superior, when custom has lessened their effect. The doctrine of Bowles is not shaken by either of his principal antagonists. If it exclude Pope from the small band of the very highest poets, his critic nevertheless declares that in the second rank none were superior to him. Besides his poetical claims, those of Bowles as an antiquary are by no means inconsiderable. Of his labours in this capacity his 'Hermes Britannicus,' published in 1828, is perhaps the most important. He wrote largely also upon ecclesiastical matters. Upon crime, education, and the condition of the poor he addressed a letter to Sir James Mackintosh. His sermons, though scarcely eloquent, have a rare union of dignity with simplicity of style. He was an active but lenient magistrate. In character he seems to have been ardent and impulsive, but genial and humane. Moore, the poet, in his journal, gives some interesting particulars of him, illustrating his keen susceptibility to impressions, his high-church principles, his love of simple language in the pulpit, together with certain eccentricities, such as his constant refusal to be measured by a tailor. His health had failed some time before his death, which took place when he was eighty-eight at the Close, Salisbury. Of his numerous productions, in addition to his poems, the following, besides those already named, may be cited as representative:
 * 1) 'The Parochial History of Bremhill,' 1828.
 * 2) 'Life of Bishop Ken,' 1830.
 * 3) 'Annals and Antiquities of Lacock Abbey,' 1835.
 * 4) 'A few Words to Lord Chancellor Brougham on the Misrepresentation concerning the Property and Character of the Cathedral Clergy of England,' Salisbury, 1831.
 * 5) 'The Cartoons of Raphael.'
 * 6) 'Sermons preached at Bowood,' 1834.


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Rh the dragoons. Marazel managed to escape; the other was conveyed a prisoner to Montpellier. Bénzét was not a full-blown pastor, and it was hoped that he would be sentenced to exile only, and his young wife made ready to accompany him. But on March 27th, by order of Louis XV., for whom he had prayed in the forest of Quinte two months before, he was sentenced to the gallows. This drama had its terrible epilogue. A few days later a woman, Marie Flavier, who was suspected of having betrayed the ministers, was found dead, with her tongue torn out of her head.

Above Le Vigan is Avèze, where is the sacred spring of Isis, the source of the Vézénobres, a torrent that flows under a natural bridge called Le Pont de Mousse. The spring is actually fed by the stream of Coudeloux, that disappears in the fissures of the calcareous rocks near Aulas. Avèze is a village built in amphitheatre above the junction of the Gleppe and the Coudeloux, which disembouch into the Arre. Avèze was founded by three Benedictine monks in the year 803. The castle commanding the village was the seat of two seigneurs, who successively occupied it, and who lived as brigands, pillaging the neighbourhood and carrying off women from the very gates of Le Vigan. In consequence of a colloquy, one of these robber nobles was induced to abandon the castle. To bring the other to reason, th$ civil authorities at Le Vigan implored the Constable Montmorency to lend them aid. This he did, and the castle was subjected to a formal siege in 1607; it was taken, and the sergeant was hung from the top of the keep. As to the two seigneurs, both came to a violent end. The first, Jean d'Ayémard, was assassinated on the high road by murderers sent


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Daub, Karl

title: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Daub, Karl


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242 after him by his enemy, Jean de Vabres, who contested with him the ownership of the castle. Three years later this second seigneur was shot on his way to Arre. The castle of Avèze was a matter of a lawsuit that lasted over a century and a half. Sentence was pronounced against De Beaufort, its legitimate owner, but he refused submission to the judgment. He armed his vassals, defended himself, and killed some of the constables sent to demand the surrender of the castle. He had, however, finally to yield; and the château became later, by a judgment of the Parliament of Toulouse in 1788, the property of the family of Montcalm, descended from the Sire de Beaufort. Next year the marquess, son of the heroic defender of Quebec, came to inhabit Avèze, and it is a satisfaction to know that during the turmoil of the Revolution the venerated name of Montcalm preserved the château from being destroyed. It still belongs to the family, and is surrounded by a handsome park—as parks go in France.

Aulas, now a small village, was in the thirteenth century the chief town of the barony of Hierle; and in 1621 it was one of the five most important places in the district devoted to the principles of the Reformation, that was fortified by De Châtillon, grandson of the Admiral Coligny. Castle and walls have fallen; they were levelled after the peace of Alais. Just beyond Aulas is the Château de Clapisse, in which was born, in 1740, Henri de Celadon, Chevalier de Lanuéjols, noted for his periodic duels. M. de Celadon left home every year on a fixed day and took his way to the Isle of Basthellasse in the Rhone, near Avignon. At the same time, annually, another gentleman left Lyons, and made his way to the same spot, from which one or the other


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Rh returned wounded. This continued for twelve years; but on the last De Celadon must have inflicted a more than ordinary wound, for on the thirteenth visit to the isle, in the following year, his adversary was not there. He withdrew, but in the fourteenth year returned, and again he with whom he had crossed swords twelve successive times was not there. Then he instituted inquiries, and ascertained that his foe had died two years previously. What the cause of the long-protracted quarrel was never came to light; De Celadon, who died in 1810, carried the secret with him to the grave.

The source of the ravine of that strange river, half subterranean, the Vis, is best visited from Le Vigan. The Vis, a river as large as the Hérault, where it effects its junction with the latter, rises at S. Guiral, near the frontier of Aveyron. It passes Alzon, flows below the sheer limestone escarpments of the Larzac, and receives the immense spring of the Foux, after which only does it become a river; passing between the rocks of Tude and d'Aujean it traverses a fine ravine. Montdardier (mons arduus} is five miles from Le Vigan, and to reach it the Causse has to be passed under from Avèse. Here the limestone is so compact that it can be exploited as lithographic stones. Much of the way is shaded by chestnuts below the white escarpments of the rocks of La Tude and of the Pic d'Anjeau, forming the edge of the Causse de Blandas, an islet of limestone separated from Larzac by the Vis, as is also the much smaller islet of Campestre, that lies between the Vis and the Virenque. These causses are strewn with dolmens and bristle with menhirs.

The Castle of Montdardier, that has been restored by Violet le Duc, occupies a well-timbered height above the


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 Bowring part on the committee of inquiry into the distress of the hand-loom weavers, on that in connection with Irish education, and on that on the state of the arts as applied to commerce and manufactures, and he was an eloquent advocate for the abolition of flogging in the army. Bowring received services of silver plate from the electors of Blackburn, Kirkcaldy, and Kilmarnock respectively; from the Manxmen for his valuable aid in obtaining an act of parliament for their emancipation from feudal tyranny; and from the Maltese in recognition of the success of his advocacy as their unofficial representative in the House of Commons. Supported by the prince consort, Bowring obtained, after a discussion in the House of Commons, the issue of the florin, intended as the first step towards the introduction of the decimal system into the English currency. He subsequently published a volume on ‘The Decimal System in Numbers, Coins, and Accounts, especially with reference to the Decimalization of the Currency and Accountancy of the United Kingdom’ (1854).

After his election for Bolton, Bowring embarked all his fortune in ironworks in Glamorganshire. In 1847 a period of severe depression set in, and as there was no prospect of the cloud lifting, Bowring became seriously alarmed at the aspect of his affairs. He consequently applied for the appointment of consul at Canton, and, obtaining it through the friendship of Lord Palmerston, resigned his seat in parliament. The general relations between England and China were even then in a somewhat critical condition. It was understood that the gates of Canton, hitherto closed against foreigners, were now to be opened, and Bowring hoped that the mandarins would at least receive him officially within the walls of the city, thus paving the way for the entrance eventually of all Europeans. But the Chinese treated him with the same contumely as they had done his predecessors, and the governor-general wrote him offensive letters. Yet the Cantonese, with whom Bowring mixed a great deal, received him with good feeling, thus proving that the mandarins were the sole ground of opposition.

From April 1852 to February 1853 Bowring had charge of the office of plenipotentiary in the absence of Sir George Bonham; but on the return of the latter Bowring applied for leave of absence for a year, visiting the island of Java on his way home. In 1854 he was appointed plenipotentiary to China, and subsequently held the appointment of governor, commander-in-chief, and vice-admiral of Hong Kong and its dependencies, as well as chief superintendent of trade in China. He was also accredited to the courts of Japan, Siam, Cochin-China, and the Corea. On receiving these appointments he was knighted by the queen. The Taiping insurrection shortly afterwards broke out in China, trade was paralysed, smuggling was largely carried on at Shanghai, and the imperial dues could not be collected. Sir John Bowring resolutely endeavoured to put an end to the disorder.

Bowring has stated (Autobiographical Recollections) that one of the most interesting parts of his public life was his visit to Siam in 1855. He went upon a special mission, being authorised to conclude a treaty of commerce with the two kings of that country. There had already been many unsuccessful attempts on the part of the United States, of the governor-general of British India, and of the English government, to establish diplomatic and commercial relations with Siam. Sir John Bowring succeeded in concluding a treaty, which was carried out with promptitude and sagacity. In 1857 Bowring published an account of his travels and experiences in Siam under the title of ‘The Kingdom and People of Siam.’

In October 1856 the outrage on the lorcha Arrow by the Canton authorities involved Sir John Bowring in hostilities with the Chinese government. It was admitted that the vessel had no right to carry the British flag, the term of registry having expired; but the English representative maintained that the expiry of the license did not warrant the violence perpetrated by the Canton authorities. He affirmed that the authorities did not know of its expiry; that it was their specific object to violate the privileges of the British flag; that the case of the Arrow was only one of a succession of outrages for which no redress had been given; and that the expiry of the license and the failure to renew it placed the ship under colonial jurisdiction. Votes of censure on the conduct of Sir John Bowring, and the British government in supporting him, were moved in both houses of parliament, and some of the former friends and colleagues of the British plenipotentiary took a strong part against him. The Earl of Derby moved the hostile resolution in the House of Lords, but after a long debate it was negatived by a majority of thirty-six. In the House of Commons Cobden proposed the vote of censure, and contended that Sir John Bowring had not only violated the principles of international law, but had acted contrary to his instructions, and even to express directions from his government. Lord Palmerston warmly defended Sir John Bowring and his action. Cobden's motion was carried against the government by a majority


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244 little stream that joins the Arre at Avèze. The village clusters about the hill, the extremity of which sustains the castle and the park.

In 1684, the last male heir of the Ginestous, lords of Montdardier, was a Protestant pastor. He had an only child, a daughter, whom he married to François d'Assas on condition that her descendants should assume the name and bear the arms of Ginestous. The castle is now the property of the Viscount de Ginestous at Montpellier. In the village are the remains of a hospital of the Templars.

On leaving Montdardier the causse appears before one in all its nudity, and the eye that has been gratified by the green woods and pastures of the valley is now smitten and half blinded by the glare of the bald limestone, with here and there only a little field of corn where some snuff-coloured earth has accumulated. Not a stream, not a spring, all the water that falls is absorbed and disappears in the fissures to fill the mysterious reservoirs that feed the rivers. Flocks of lean sheep wander about the waste and eat the herbs and bushes that attempt to grow, as well as the burnt and scanty grass. Even the droppings of the sheep are not suffered to remain and enrich the meagre soil. They are carefully collected and sold to the vinedressers of the plain.

Blandas is four miles from Montdardier. There are eleven megalithic monuments in this commune alone. Nothing breaks the monotony of the Causse, beyond the white plateau of which is the blue chain of distant mountains, of pure cobalt. All at once, what seems to be a fold in the plain gives way, and we stand at the edge of a tremendous depression of 960 feet. Below,


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Rh beneath the escarpments of white Jura limestone, a silver line appears winding among green meadows, and flowing from a cascade.

}}

Neither pencil, camera, nor description can do justice to the remarkable scene. The road, a zigzag, descends into a veritable crater-like hollow down a shoulder less precipitous than the rest of the sides of the abyss, here barred with the horizontal beds of rock, there covered with rubble slides, scantily sprinkled over with box and juniper. At the bottom a ring of green meadow encircles a cone of rock. To live in Navacelles requires the constitution of a salamander, as the sun's rays are reflected from every side.


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246 Le Vigan is becoming annually more appreciated, and justly so, as a summer residence. The knowledge that it is abundantly supplied with pure water, that it is well drained, cleaner than most towns in the Cevennes, enjoys fresh air, and is surrounded by scenery of a high character, and that almost endless excursions may be made from it to places of great interest, have drawn to it numerous visitors. I have but touched on some of the attractions of the neighbourhood. I would recommend those who feel disposed to stay there for a few weeks to provide themselves with the little guide from which I have drawn my last quotation.

And now, finally, for the Chevalier d'Assas, whose statue adorns one of the squares.

Louis d'Assas was born at Le Vigan in 1733. He entered early on a military career, and at the age of twenty-seven was captain in the Auvergne regiment—that regiment in violet uniform which immortalised itself on the field of Parma, in the war in Italy 1733-4. The king of Sardinia, the ally of France, was in the battle. Seeing the field strewn with the violet uniforms, he turned to a French marshal at his side and asked, "Where are the rest of the violets?" "Those not cropped are still fighting," was the reply.

The action that made the name of Assas one dear to the hearts of the men of Le Vigan took place during the War of Seven Years. After the disgraceful defeats of Rossbach and Crevelt, a detachment was sent against the Prussians, and a battle was fought at Clostercamp in 1760; the corps of d'Assas lost fifty-eight officers out of eighty, and eight hundred soldiers. On the night of the 15th October, Captain Assas fell into an ambuscade. Surrounded by the enemy, who


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Category:DNB00 redirects

Category for the tiny articles from the DNB that only refer the reader to another DNB article.

title: Category:DNB00 redirects


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Rh The deed was at that time in the possession of Mrs. Garrick; but in 1796, when Malone published his "Inquiry," and had become convinced of his error, and of the fault of his engraver, in substituting: what looks like the letter a instead of re (which it ought to be), the original document was missing, and could not be consulted for the purpose of rectifying the mistake. Malone has been very severely handled by Chalmers and the facetious George Hardinge, for this apparent inconsistency; but a few words may plead Malone's excuse. Steevens and himself, in 1778, resolved to exclude the e after the k in the poet's name, and accordingly the second edition of that year appeared with the title-pages so corrected, and the third edition of 1784 so corrected throughout. It was therefore only in reference to this e that Malone laid down the rule for its exclusion, in his edition of 1790, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 192; for as to the a, its insertion at that time had not been questioned. In 1796, therefore, when Malone again touched on the subject, and declared against the a in the second syllable also, he by no means contradicts himself, but writes from the fuller evidence he had obtained on the subject.

This evidence forms the third document bearing Shakspere's signature, viz. the counterpart of the deed of bargain and sale, dated the day before the


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 14 mortgage deed. This, also was found among Mr. Featherstonehaugh's evidences, and in I796 was in the hands of Mr. Wallis, who lent it to Malone to print in his often-quoted "Inquiry." Here the signature is, beyond all cavil or suspicion, William Shakspeṝ, where the mark above is the usual abbreviation of the period for the final e. To these we have now to add the autograph before us, in Florio's volume, which so unquestionably decides in favour of Shakspere, that in this manner I shall beg leave in future to write it; since I know no reason why we should not sooner take the poet's own authority in this point, than that of his friends or printers.

At the same time it must be admitted, that if we disregard the form traced by the poet's own hand, the whole weight of printed evidence of his time (with few exceptions), is in favour of Shakespeare as still adhered to by Mr. Collier; whose recent discoveries and publications on the subject of Shakspere and his writings, entitle him to the hearty thanks of every admirer of our great dramatic writer, both in England and abroad.


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Rh to run him through with their bayonets if he uttered a cry of warning, he thought only of patriotic devotion, and shouted, "A moi, Auvergne! ce sont les ennemis!" and fell pierced through and through.

In 1777, Louis XVI. granted a pension for all time of a thousand livres to the eldest son of the race. During the Revolution this ceased to be paid, but it was restored by Napoleon I., and is still received by the representative of the family.

But he is not the only hero Le Vigan has honoured by a monument. Pierre Triaire was born there in 1771. He was sergeant of artillery in Egypt, and was in the battle of the Pyramids, was at the taking of Cairo, and was in El Arish, which according to Bonaparte was one of the two keys to Egypt. It was defended by 300 men under the command of Cazal, when it was invested by the Turks. A portion of the garrison, discouraged by the desertion of his post by the General Commander in Egypt at a critical moment, and having but one desire, to return, like Napoleon, to France, paralysed the defence. Some traitors cast cords down to the Turks, who climbed over the walls. At this moment Triaire, indignant at the cowardice of a portion of the garrison, rushed to the powder magazine, of which he had the key, and blew the fort up. According to General Desaix, 3,000 Turks were destroyed by the explosion.

This was on December 30th, 1799, when Triaire was aged twenty-nine.

The statue in bronze of Triaire was inaugurated in 1891.


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Rh


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Rh Cevennes. It gradually becomes thicker and darker, packing in the valleys and then creeping up the heights. No sooner, however, has it reached the summit of the chain, than it is caught by the north-west wind and sent back in flying streamers, like the mare's tails we are accustomed to see in our skies presaging a change of wind, but with this difference, that these streamers are viewed from above.

The north wind gathering strength, as though mustering its forces against the audacious invasion of the southern vapours, rages and blusters for several days. Meanwhile the south-east wind is still thrusting forward volumes of vapour and compacting them in the gorges and valleys, cautiously throwing up a tentacle towards the heights, up lateral ravines, as though to feel whether the north wind is still on the alert. Should Boreas slacken his efforts, then the clouds climb the mountain sides like storming parties and reach the battlements. But their success is momentary only. The north wind has been dozing, and awakes to resume the combat. The heavily charged clouds, packed beyond endurance in the valleys, can make no progress, and the volleys of ice-cold wind overhead condense the mist and bring about torrential rains, accompanied by incessant explosions of thunder and lightning. In a few minutes the granitic or limestone cliffs are seamed with cascades. The silver thread that meandered through the meadows below is transformed into a yellow raging torrent, carrying before it masses of rock torn from the mountain side, trees, the wreckage of enclosures, houses even with their inhabitants. The rivers hitherto sliding through rubbly beds, vastly out of proportion to their diminutive size, swell to the brim and overflow, carrying


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Datolite

title: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Datolite


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Habington, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hack, Maria


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hacker, Francis


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250 devastation on every side. As in the story of Puss in Boots the magician transforms himself into a mouse at one moment and into an elephant at another, so is it with these Cevenol rivers—what is a rill to-day is like the Thames to-morrow.

Those in the Observatory on the Aigoual perform a most valuable service. They can predict the coming of a flood, and they telegraph to all villages and towns that are menaced, to be on their guard, and evacuate dwellings on low ground, and remove their cattle to heights.

The inmates of the Observatory have become very weatherwise, and note many indications of an approaching tempest. One that is infallible in summer is the conduct of the bees. These shrewd insects, that have been humming and honey-gathering among the wild thyme, fly to the Observatory and cling to the panes, darkening them, and remaining motionless till the atmospheric disturbance is over.

How furious the wind may be, and what a force it exercises on the Aigoual, may be judged by looking at the refuge of the Touring Club that is fastened to the rock by chains, like the ropes of a tent.

The Mont Lozère, though higher than the Aigoual, is not so subject to these veritable tornadoes. There the wind blows almost invariably from the north. The Cevenol peasant says: which may be rendered, "If the cloud comes from the Aigoual, take your oxen and go to the stable. If the cloud comes from the Lozère, take your oxen and go to the furrow."


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hacket, George


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hacket, James Thomas


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 232 over chairs, and tables, and benches, and yelled and roared,—

"Oh my! oh my! bid the stick be still, else it will beat me to death, and you shall have back both your cloth and your ram."

When the lad thought the landlord had got enough, he said—

"Stick, stick! now stop!"

Then he took the cloth and put it into his pocket, and went home with his stick in his hand, leading the ram by a cord round its horns; and so he got his rights for the meal he had lost.

THE MASTER THIEF.

upon a time there was a poor cottager who had three sons. He had nothing to leave them when he died, and no money with which to put them to any trade, so that he did not know what to make of them. At last he said he would give them leave to take to anything each liked best, and to go whithersoever they pleased, and he would go with them a bit of the way; and so he did. He went with them till they came to a place where three roads met, and there each of them chose a road, and their father bade them good-bye, and went back home. I have never heard tell what became of the two elder; but as for the youngest, he went both far and long, as you shall hear.

So it fell out one night as he was going through a great wood that such bad weather overtook him. It blew, and


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Rh The Aigoual is a granitic mass, reaching to 5,140 feet, whereas the Roc de Malpertus, in the Mont Lozère group, rises to 5,520 feet, but this latter is far less suitable for meteorologic observation. Around the Aigoual erosion has formed a labyrinth of gorges and profound valleys, in the beds of which race torrents impatient to reach lower levels.

From the side of Merueys, the Aigoual does not present by any means an imposing appearance. It is a domed green mass, on the top of which gleam white the walls of the Observatory. From the side of La Luzette it bears some resemblance to a huge antediluvian monster in a crouching posture with fore paws extended.

On the south side the Aigoual is rugged and abrupt. Its precipices descend to great depths. The stream of the Claron there in a succession of falls drops to the depth of 3,000 feet in a very short distance.

The Aigoual has two heads, one of these, La Fayède, looking towards the sun-bathed basin of the Rhone; the other, that of the Hort Dieu, the loftiest but the least picturesque. Between these is a coombe, watered by a thousand springs that ooze from the turf and nourish a rich vegetation. It is this coombe really which is the Garden of God, as the natives term it.

On the one side the Aigoual rises out of mulberry and chestnut woods, torn and precipitous; on the other it is smooth and velvety, wooded only with distorted beech. It has been ravaged by the merciless axe of the peasant that has left it bald and desolate. From the summit a superb view is obtained of the tossed and torn ridges of schist mountain, some rounded, but furrowed like the face of one very aged, some starting


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 Rh sleeted, and drove so that he could scarce keep his eyes open; and in a trice, before he knew how it was, he got bewildered, and could not find either road or path. But as he went on and on, at last he saw a glimmering of light far far off in the wood. So he thought he would try and get to the light; and after a time he did reach it. There it was in a large house, and the fire was blazing so brightly inside that he could tell the folk had not yet gone to bed; so he went in and saw an old dame bustling about and minding the house.

"Good evening!" said the youth.

"Good evening!" said the old dame.

"Hutetu! it's such foul weather out of doors to-night," said he.

"So it is," said she.

"Can I get leave to have a bed and shelter here tonight?" asked the youth.

"You'll get no good by sleeping here," said the old dame; "for if the folk come home and find you here, they'll kill both me and you."

"What sort of folk then, are they who live here?" asked the youth.

"Oh, robbers! And a bad lot of them too," said the old dame. "They stole me away when I was little, and have kept me as their housekeeper ever since."

"Well, for all that, I think I'll just go to bed," said the youth. "Come what may, I'll not stir out at night in such weather."

"Very well," said the old dame; "but if you stay; it will be the worse for you."

With that the youth got into a bed which stood there,


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252 up into peaks, some stretching out saw-like ridges, some flat-headed, according to the nature of the rock of which composed. To the north rises the Tarnon that passes by Florae, below which it enters the Tarn. A little to the north-east is the Signal de l'Hospitalet, and beyond Barre des Cevennes. The old Roman road ran over this latter col to penetrate into the heart of the Cevennes; it kept to the crest, commanding glorious views.

The Aigoual should be ascended from Meyrueis, a little town half the population of which is Protestant. Near it, and on the way, is the Renaissance castle of Roquedols.

Here one passes abruptly from the limestone to the granite, and at once notes a corresponding difference in the flora. Among the limestone rocks the pinks show as drops of blood. On the granite are none. The fields by Roquedols are white with narcissus poeticus, not a flower of that bulb is in the calcareous fields. The distance from Meyrueis to the Aigoual is just over nineteen miles, and a carriage should be taken at least as far as to Camprieu, where Bramabiau demands a visit. On the top of the Aigoual a dinner and a bed may be obtained at the Observatory. Bramabiau may also be visited from Le Vigan. The rivulet of the Bonheur, that descends from the Col de Séyrerède near the Aigoual, after flowing over granite and schist, encounters a mass of Dolomitic limestone, through which it has bored a channel for a distance of 1,200 feet. The tunnel through which it flows is in one place open to the sky through the falling in of the roof. The name Bramabiau given to this cavern traversed by a stream is onomatopœic, and signifies


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hacket, John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hacket, John-Baptist


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 382 give to the Sow, the Sow'll give me bristles, the bristles I'll give to the Shoemaker, the Shoemaker'll give me shoes, the shoes I'll give to the Virgin Mary, the Virgin Mary'll give me a red ribbon, the red ribbon I'll give to the Linden, the Linden'll give me leaves, the leaves I'll give to the Spring, the Spring'll give me water, the water I'll give to Dame Partlet my mate, who lies at death's door in the hazelwood."

So the Charcoal-burner took pity on the Cock, and gave him a bit of charcoal, and then the Smith got his coal, and the Woodcutter his axe, and the Baker's wife her wood, and the Thresher his bannock, and the Sow her corn, and the Shoemaker his bristles, and the Virgin Mary her shoes, and the Linden its red ribbon with a golden edge, and the Spring its leaves, and the Cock his drop of water, and he gave it to Dame Partlet, his mate, who lay there at death's door in the hazel-wood, and so she got all right again.

THE BIG BIRD DAN.

on a time there was a king who had twelve daughters, and he was so fond of them they must always be at his side; but every day at noon, while the king slept, the Princesses went out to take a walk. So once, while the king was taking his noontide nap, and the Princesses had gone to take their walk, all at once they were missing, and worse, they never came home again. Then there was great grief and sorrow all over the land, but the most sorry of all was


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 Rh the king. He sent messengers out throughout his own and other realms, and gave out their names in all the churches, and had the bells tolled for them in all the steeples; but gone the Princesses were, and gone they stayed, and none could tell what was become of them. So it was as clear as day that they must have been carried off by some witchcraft.

Well, it wasn't long before these tidings spread far and wide, over land and town, ay, over many lands; and so the news came to a king ever so many lands off, who had twelve sons. So when these Princes heard of the twelve king's daughters, they asked leave of their father to go out and seek them. They had hard work to get his leave, for he was afraid lest he should never see them again, but they all fell down on their knees before the king, and begged so long, at last he was forced to let them go after all.

He fitted out a ship for them, and gave them Ritter Red, who was quite at home at sea, for a captain. So they sailed about a long long time, landed on every shore they came to, and hunted and asked after the Princesses, but they could neither hear nor see anything of them. And now, a few days only were wanting to make up seven years since they set sail, when one day a strong storm rose, and such foul weather, they thought they should never come to land again, and all had to work so hard, they couldn't get a wink of sleep so long as the storm lasted. But when the third day was nearly over, the wind fell, and all at once it got as still as still could be. Now, they were all so weary with work and the rough weather, they fell fast asleep in the twinkling of an eye; all but the youngest


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Rh the bellowing of a bull, as the water in time of flood gives forth angry sounds.

Nothing surprises one more than the apparent inadequacy of the means to the end attained. The Bonheur is but a small stream, yet the work it has achieved is tremendous. But it must be borne in mind that where stands Camprieu was once a lake, the water held back by the barrier of limestone, and that the accumulated force was brought to bear on the rock to effect this tunnel of drainage. Moreover, the rock itself was full of holes like a sponge, with large vaults like huge bubbles in its interior, so that it was not a solid mass through which the stream had to bore its way. It was further aided by several springs rising within the rock, all working in their several courses to effect their escape.

The exploration of Bramabiau was accomplished in June, 1888, by M. Martel and his guides. They attempted first to penetrate by the opening through which the Bonheur leaps into light again, but found that the gallery consisted of a series of ascents, with cascades and pools; and although by wading and with ladders they succeeded in reaching a considerable distance, they could not attain to the point where the stream begins to dive underground. On the following day these indefatigable explorers attacked the tunnel from above, where the Bonheur enters, and were able to descend to the point reached on the preceding day, and further to pursue their course till they came out where the stream issues, a distance as the crow flies of a kilometre.

In January, 1888, a man of Camprieu disappeared, and there was reason to suspect he had committed


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 384 Prince, he could get no rest, and couldn't go off to sleep at all.

So as he was pacing up and down the deck, the ship came to a little island, and on the island ran a little dog, and bayed and barked at the ship as if it wanted to come on board. So the Prince went to that side of the deck, and tried to coax the dog, and whistled and whistled to him, but the more he whistled and coaxed, the more the dog barked and snarled. Well, he thought it a shame the dog should run about there and starve, for he made up his mind that it must have come thither from a ship that had been cast away in the storm; but still he thought he should never be able to help it after all, for he couldn't put out the boat by himself, and as for the others, they all slept so sound, he wouldn't wake them for the sake of a dog. But then the weather was so calm and still; and at last he said to himself; "Come what may, you must go on shore and save that dog," and so he began to try to launch the boat, and he found it far easier work than he thought. So he rowed ashore, and went up to the dog; but every time he tried to catch it, it jumped on one side, and so it went on till he found himself inside a great grand castle, before he knew where he was. Then the dog, all at once, was changed into a lovely Princess; and there, on the bench, sat a man so big and ugly, the Prince almost lost his wits for fear.

"YOU'VE NO NEED TO BE AFRAID," said the man—but the Prince, to tell you the truth, got far more afraid when he heard his gruff voice"—for I know well enough what you want. There are twelve Princes of you, and you are looking for the twelve Princesses that are


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 Rh lost. I know, too, very well whereabouts they are; they're with my lord and master, and there they sit, each of them on her chair, and comb his hair; for he has twelve heads. And now you have sailed seven years, but you'll have to sail seven years more before you find them. As for you, you might stay here and welcome, and have my daughter; but you must first slay him, for he's a hard master to all of us, and we're all weary of him, and when he's dead I shall be King in his stead; but first try if you can brandish this sword."

Then the King's son took hold of a rusty old sword which hung on the wall, but he could scarce stir it.

"Now you must take a pull at this flask," said the Troll; and when he had done that he could stir it, and when he had taken another he could lift it, and when he had taken a third he could brandish the sword as easily as if it had been his own.

"Now, when you get on board," said the Troll Prince, "you must hide the sword well in your berth, that Ritter Red mayn't set eyes on it; he's not man enough to wield it, but he'll get spiteful against you, and try to take your life. And when seven years are almost out all but three days," he went on to say, "everything will happen just as now; foul weather will come on you, with a great storm, and when it is over you'll all be sleepy. Then you must take the sword and row ashore, and so you'll come to a castle where all sorts of guards will stand—wolves, and bears, and lions; but you needn't be afraid of them, for they'll all come and crouch at your feet. But when you come inside the castle, you'll soon see the Troll; he sits in a splendid chamber in grand attire and array; twelve heads


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254 suicide. As his body could not be found, it was supposed that he had flung himself down the abyss of the Bonheur; and, in fact, when M. Martel searched the cavern he found the body wedged into a spot where, in the cave itself, the stream disappears underground for a while, to again reappear and continue its subterranean course. It goes through these vagaries twice, and perpetrates seven cascades.

Where the Bonheur escapes into daylight there is an immense rift in the rocks, and out of this the stream leaps in a fall of some dignity. Up to 1888 it was not


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Rh thought possible that the Bonheur could be the stream that issued at Bramabiau, for anything thrown in above never issued below. But the exploration by M. Martel solved the mystery. The stream sinks, filters through the rock, leaving above that which is thrown in, and issues limpid at the cascade that rushes from the entrance.

The descent of the Aigoual on the side of Valleraugue is by a thousand steps hewn in granite and schist, and at the bottom of this is the vegetable garden of the officials of the Observatory.

Valleraugue lies at the bottom of a cirque of mountains at the confluence of the rivers of the Mallet and the Clareau, and it is after their marriage that the united streams assume the name of Hérault. The descent from the Aigoual to Valleraugue occupies two hours, the ascent by the carriage road takes seven. Valleraugue is a busy factory town; the population is mainly engaged in silk spinning and weaving. The place is almost wholly Protestant. This valley of the Hérault as far as Ganges is one of the most active in silk industry in the Cevennes. The vegetation is wholly southern; the hillsides disposed in terraces are planted with vines and mulberries; and ilexes abound, providing the tanneries with their bark. "This valley," says Ardouin Dumazet, "is a synthesis of all the somewhat severe graces of the Cevenol land." The Roman road over l'Hospitalet has been already referred to. It runs from Avignon to Anduze and then ascends the crest above the Garden, and passing under Barre stretches away to Florac. Barre itself occupies a Gallo-Roman oppidum, of which traces remain, and throughout the neighbourhood relics of the Roman tenure of the land are found. After the Col d'Aire de Côte ensues a series of frightful cirques, whose


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 386 he has of his own, and the Princesses sit round them, each on her chair, and comb his heads, and that's a work you may guess they don't much like. Then you must make haste, and hew off one head after the other as quick as you can; for if he wakes and sets his eyes on you, he'll swallow you alive."

So the King's son went on board with the sword, and he bore in mind what he had come to know. The others still lay fast asleep and snored, and he hid the sword in his berth, so that neither Ritter Red nor any of the rest got sight of it. And now it began to blow again, so he woke up the others, and said he thought they oughtn't to sleep any longer now when there was such a good wind. And there was none of them that marked he had been away. Well, after the seven years were all gone but three days, all happened as the Troll had said. A great storm and foul weather came on that lasted three days, and when it had blown itself out, all the rest grew sleepy and went to rest; but the youngest King's son rowed ashore, and the guards fell at his feet, and so he came to the castle. So when he got inside the chamber, there sat the King fast asleep as the Troll Prince had said, and the twelve Princesses sat each on her chair and combed one of his heads. The king's son beckoned to the Princesses to get out of the way; they pointed to the Troll, and beckoned to him again to go his way as quick as ever he could, but he kept on making signs to them to get out of the way, and then they understood that he wanted to set them free, and stole away softly one after the other, and as fast as they went, he hewed off the Troll King's heads, till at last the blood gushed out like a great brook. When the Troll was


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256 vertical walls crumble away by degrees under the action of the weather. The flanks of the mountain are profoundly breached, and form precipices. The nature of the rock contributes to augment the savagery of the region. It is composed of schists steeply inclined towards the north, and penetrated by numerous veins of porphyry that metamorphized them. Here are needles, here masses of schist support tables of limestone. A little triangular plateau, a lost islet of the Causse, succeeds to the schists. This is the Can de l'Hospitalet.

Florac hardly comes within the range that I have marked out for description, and yet some words must be given to it, as it was the centre of the Cevenol revolt, and was the scene of several conflicts and of the execution of Camisards.

It is a very dirty place, originally walled; the houses were so crowded that the streets were contracted to the narrowest possible width. One has to be careful not to walk down them before eight o'clock in the morning, as all the slops are thrown from the windows into the street, and may fall on the head of the incautious passenger; and here no warning call is given, as in the narrow lanes of old Edinburgh, to put the man in the street on his guard. What is cast forth remains where it falls till torrential rains sweep away the accumulated


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Rh filth of weeks and even months. In the Languedoc towns that reek with evil odours, in a country too where the hillsides are redolent with aromatic herbs, lavender, sage, marjoram, rosemary, beds of violets, thyme in sheets, one can hardly help repeating the lines of Bishop Heber: But it is not man who is vile, that he is nowhere, it is the refuse he casts about him that is offensive, and the offensiveness is a provision of nature to instruct him to remove it beyond the reach of the nose. But familiarity must breed a liking for these disgusting odours, or women would not sit on their doorsteps all day working and chatting, and let their children play about amidst festering garbage.

Florac is, in spite of dragonades and gallows and the stake, almost entirely Protestant. The large meetinghouse contains nothing but a pulpit and bare benches. The Catholic church is a new and mean structure, the temple bare as a barn, the church ugly as a modern French architect can make one.

Florac is near the influx of the Mimente into the Tarnon. The three valleys of the Mimente, the Tarn, and the Tarnon lead into the inextricable labyrinth of defiles in which the Camisards were able to establish their arsenals, hospitals, and storehouses. The Mimente rises in the mountain of Bougès, whose summit is crowned by the forest of Altefage, where under three huge beech trees met the murderers of the Abbé du Chayla. At Cassagnas, a village near the source of


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 Rh slain he rowed on board and hid his sword. He thought now he had done enough, and as he couldn't get rid of the body by himself, he thought it only fair they should help him a little. So he woke them all up, and said it was a shame they should be snoring there, when he had found the Princesses, and set them free from the Troll. The others only laughed at him, and said he had been just as sound asleep as they, and only dreamt that he was man enough to do what he said; for if any one was to set the Princesses free, it was far more likely it would be one of them. But the youngest King's son told them all about it, and when they followed him to the land and saw first of all the brook of blood, and then the castle, and the Troll, and the twelve heads, and the Princesses, they saw plain enough that he had spoken the truth, and now the whole helped him to throw the body and the heads into the sea. So all were glad and happy, but none more so than the Princesses, who got rid of having to sit there and comb the Troll's hair all day. Of all the silver and gold and precious things that were there, they took as much as the ship could hold, and so they went on board altogether, Princes and Princesses alike.

But when they had gone a bit out on the sea, the Princesses said they had forgotten in their joy their gold crowns, they lay behind in a press, and they would be so glad to have them. So when none of the others was willing to fetch them, the youngest King's son said,—

"I have already dared so much, I can very well go back for the gold crowns too, if you will only strike sail and wait till I come again."

Yes, that they would do. But when he had gone back


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258 the Mimente, the caverns may be inspected that served the Camisards as magazines, filled with corn, wine, oil, and above all chestnuts. Roland had established here a powder factory; the saltpetre was obtained, as later during the European wars of Bonaparte, from the numerous caverns that contained the bones of extinct beasts. Drugs were procured for the wounded from Montpellier, where there were many well-wishers ready to smuggle them into the mountains. When the watermills for grinding the corn were destroyed by the military commander of Languedoc, the Camisards reverted to the use of querns. In some of the caves whole flocks and herds were secreted; others were stored with salted meat.

Florac possesses its natural curiosity, the Fontaine du Pêcher, that discharges the water infiltrated from the plateau of Méjan. It pours forth in an abundant stream and forms a cascade, but the water is at once eagerly captured for the purpose of irrigation. During the winter and after a storm it vomits forth a torrent with a roar like that of a lion.

After a visit to the summit of the Aigoual it would be well to descend the Dourbie to Milau, reaching the Dourbie by the ravine of the Trévesel. The Pas de l'Ase is a profound gorge, 1,200 feet deep, between fiery-red dolomitic cliffs, in three stages superposed and separated by slopes of detritus. At midday, when the sun streams down on these rocks, the effect is dazzling. At Trèves, where are coal mines, is the cave called the Baume de S. Firmin, and near by the ruins of a castle.

S. Firmin was the grandson of Tonantius Ferreolus, Prefect of Gaul, who, as we have seen, was the host of Sidonius Apollinaris. He had a villa here, Trevido, as


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Rh the town was then called, and in it he died in the year 470. Firminus was educated by his uncle Noricus, Bishop of Uzès, the son of Tonantius, and he in turn became bishop of the same see, and died at the early age of thirty-seven, in the year 553, and was succeeded by his nephew, Ferreolus; so that at that time it is pretty clear bishoprics had become the perquisites of members of the great families of Gallo-Roman origin. When S. Firmin visited his grandfather or his father, at Trèves, he was wont to retire to the cave that bears his name, for reading and devotion. Possibly the dampness of this grotto may have sowed the seeds of the disorder from which he died. The cave runs deep into the mountain, and is adorned with numerous white and graceful stalactites. But it is very damp; notwithstanding this, prehistoric man occupied it, for in the first two halls of the grotto have been found old hearths, remains of feasts, broken and split bones, and fragments of badly burnt pottery.

About ninety feet above the Baume de S. Firmin is another cave forming a great vault that is filled with water during heavy rains. Nevertheless man inhabited it at a remote period; for thence also have been excavated numerous fragments of vessels, which by their paste and ornamentation show that they belonged to the age of polished stone.

How the men of that period must have suffered from rheumatism! And it has been noticed that among the bones of prehistoric man, who was a cave dweller, rheumatic swellings of the joints are common. Usually the caves in limestone and chalk are tolerably dry. France must have teemed with peoples at that early period, for not only on the Causse, but also in the chalk


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 districts of Dordogne and Lot, and in the sandstone regions of Maine-et-Loire and Vienne, troglodite habitations abound.

After crossing the Col de la Pierre-Plantée, the road winds down into the valley of the Dourbie, which wriggles along at a great depth below between rocks of quartz and schist, then passes among chestnut trees, and reaches S. Jean-du-Bruel, when we are in the valley of the Dourbie. Here comes in the road from Saudières, where is a station on the line from Le Vigan to the junction on the main line opposite Roquefort; and the lower valley of the Dourbie can be visited from Le Vigan by taking the train to Saudières and a carriage thence to Milau.

Nant, a little town on the left bank of the Dourbie, has a Celtic name, very descriptive, for Nant signifies a valley or a river bottom. Nantes in Brittany has the same derivation, as has also Devon in Welsh, Dyffneint, the county of valleys. So also the Dourbie and the Durzon proclaim that they were named by Celts, for dour signifies water in Welsh.

The church of S. Pierre of the twelfth century is all that remains of a Benedictine abbey; the Romanesque chapel of S. Alban stands on a barren rock 2,400 feet high. But the great attraction is the source of the Durzon, as Reclus describes it:—

"A little river issuing from a deep foux some six or seven kilometres from Nant, near the Mas-de-Pommier, at the bottom of a cirque where walls, which are those of the Larzac, rise above the well to the height of 900 feet. There opens a great gulf, un dormant qui ne dort pas toujours. A slight rain on Larzac agitates it, and it begins to boil languidly in the centre of the well; but after a long rain, a storm, or the


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Rh melting of the snows, the water rises in clashing floods like a cascade turned upside down; it is no longer a murmuring stream, but a growling torrent whose voice breaks the austere silence of the cirque."

Still descending the valley, we see perched high up on the right the curious village of Cantobre, on a point of the Causse Bégon, shaded by gigantic dolomitic mushrooms, and comprised within the walls of a ruined castle that was destroyed in 1660, after its owner, Jean de Fombesse, had been executed as a coiner.

But more curious even than Cantobre is the village of S. Veran, plastered against the rocks which shoot up into needles. The ravine opening behind it describes a circus bristling with pinnacles and rocks scooped out and shaped into the most fantastic forms. The whole is commanded by an immense wall of limestone on which, and intermingled with which, are the artificial structures of a castle, the cradle of the family of Montcalm, whose most illustrious member was the Marquess who fell on the heights of Abraham, 14th September, 1759, in the struggle over Quebec, that cost also the life of Wolfe. The inhabitants of this poor hamlet, in a barren and waste land, are themselves wretchedly poor. Some one said to one of them: "So, the Montcalms left this place!" "Aye! and would to God we could leave it too," was the reply.

Below this is La Roque, whence Roquesaltes may be visited, and the Rajol, extraordinary groups of rocks little less curious than those of Montpellier le Vieux, that are also reached from the valley of the Dourbie. But these I have described elsewhere, and I am not so garrulous that I care to repeat myself.


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 388 so far that they couldn't see him any longer, Ritter Red, who would have been glad enough to have been their chief, and to have the youngest Princess, said, "it was no use their lying there still waiting for him, for they might know very well he would never come back; they all knew, too, how the king had given him all power and authority to sail or not as he chose; and now they must all say 'twas he that had saved the Princesses, and if any one said anything else, he should lose his life."

The Princes didn't dare to do anything else than what Ritter Red willed, and so they sailed away.

Meanwhile the youngest King's son rowed to land, went up to the castle, found the press with the gold crowns in it, and at last lugged it down to the boat, and shoved off; but when he came where he ought to have seen the ship, lo! it was gone. Well, as he couldn't catch a glimpse of it anywhere, he could very soon tell how matters stood. To row after them was no good, and so he was forced to turn about and row back to land. He was rather afraid to stay alone in the castle all night, but there was no other house to be got, so he plucked up a heart, locked up all the doors and gates fast, and lay down in a room where there was a bed ready made. But fearful and woeful he was, and still more afraid he got when he had lain a while and something began to creak and groan and quake in wall and roof, as if the whole castle were being torn asunder. Then all at once down something plunged close by the side of his bed, as if it were a whole cartload of hay. Then all was still again; but after a while he heard a voice, which bade him not to be afraid, and said,—


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 Rh

"but the first thing you must do when you wake in the morning, will be to go to the barn and fetch four barrels of rye for me. I must fill my crop with them for breakfast, else I can 't do anything."

When he woke up, sure enough there he saw an awfully big bird, which had a feather at the nape of his neck, as thick and long as a half-grown spruce fir. So the King's son went down to the barn to fetch four barrels of rye for the Big Bird Dan, and when he had crammed them into his crop he told the King's son to hang the press with the gold crowns on one side of his neck, and as much gold and silver as would weigh it down on the other side, and after that to get on his back and hold fast by the feather in the nape of his neck. So away they went till the wind whistled after them, and so it wasn't long before they outstripped the ship. The King's son wanted to go on board for his sword, for he was afraid lest any one should get sight of it, for the Troll had told him that mustn't be; but Bird Dan said that mustn't be either.

"Ritter Red will never see it, never fear; but if you go on board, he'll try to take your life, for he has set his heart on having the youngest Princess; but make your mind quite easy about her, for she lays a naked sword by her side in bed every night."

So after a long, long time, they came to the island where the Troll Prince was; and there the King's son was welcomed so heartily there was no end to it. The Troll Prince didn't know how to be good enough to him for having slain his Lord and Master, and so made him King of


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, James (1811-1883)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, John (1534?-1605)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, John (1750?-1820)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, John (1755-1825)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, John (1807-1876)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, John (1811-1878)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, John Radford


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, Matthew


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, Patrick


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, Peter


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, Robert (1657-1700)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, Robert (1822-1888)


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 390 the Trolls, and if the King's son had been willing he might easily have got the Troll King's daughter, and half the kingdom. But he had so set his heart on the youngest of the twelve Princesses, he could take no rest, but was all for going after their ship time after time. So the Troll King begged him to be quiet a little longer, and said they had still nearly seven years to sail before they got home. As for the Princess the Troll said the same thing as the Big Bird Dan.

"You needn't fret yourself about her, for she lays a naked sword by her side every night in bed. And now if you don't believe what I say," said the Troll, "you can go on board when they sail by here, and see for yourself, and fetch the sword too, for I may just as well have it again."

So when they sailed by another great storm arose, and when the king's son went on board they all slept, and each Princess lay beside her Prince; but the youngest lay alone with a naked sword beside her in the bed, and on the floor by the bedside lay Ritter Red. Then the king's son took the sword and rowed ashore again, and none of them had seen that he had been on board. But still the King's son couldn't rest, and he often and often wanted to be off, and so at last when it got near the end of the seven years, and only three weeks were left, the Troll King said,—

"Now you may get ready to go, since you won't stay with us; and you shall have the loan of my iron boat, which sails of itself, if you only say,

In that boat there is an iron club, and that club you must lift a little when you see the ship straight a-head of


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, Thomas (1587-1655)


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Rh L'Hospice des Enfants Assistés; and the purely clerical romances, Lucifer and l'Abbé Tigranne.

The delicacy of touch, the exquisite delineation of character among the peasantry of the Cevennes, and the beautiful descriptions of scenery and bird life in the first category make these stories essential to a knowledge of the country I am describing in this chapter, and no one should visit it without having read at least some of them. Ferdinand Fabre was born in 1830 at Bédarieux, and was the son of an architect. After having spent his first school years in his native place, he was committed to his uncle, the curé of Camplong, and he remained with him for two years. These years left an indelible impression on his mind. The happy life in the country, the habits of the villagers, the ways of the birds, the bald causses, and the chestnut woods of the valleys; above all, the kind, simple-minded old uncle, and the grumbling, economising, but tender-hearted old housekeeper, filled the young heart so full, that it was Fabre's delight in mature life to pour forth his reminiscences of those two happy years. The uncle and the housekeeper recur again and again, the former either as the Abbé Courbezon, the Curé Fulcran, or Mon Oncle Célestin.

On leaving Camplong, Ferdinand entered the Petit Seminaire at S. Pons, and thence passed in due time to the Grand Seminaire at Montpellier. It was there that he made those experiences of clerical life that he has given forth in the remarkable novel, l’Abbé Tigranne, remarkable if only in this particular, that it is a novel without a woman in it. This story represents the conflict of an ultramontane bishop imposed on the diocese with his clergy, who are Gallican-minded.


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, Thomas (1773-1829)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, William (fl.1653)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, William (1749-1815)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, William (1751-1821)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Young, William (1799-1887)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Younge, Richard


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Younger, Elizabeth


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Younger, John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Yule, Henry


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zaehnsdorf, Joseph


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zerffi, George Gustavus


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 Rh you, and then they'll get such a rattling fair breeze, they'll forget to look at you; but when you get alongside them, you must lift the club a little again, and then they'll get such a foul wind and storm they'll have something else to do than to stare at you; and when you have run past them you must lift the club a third time, but you must always be sure and lay it down carefully again, else there'll be such a storm, both you and they will be wrecked and lost. Now when you have got to land, you have no need to bother yourself at all about the boat; just turn it about, and shove it off, and say,

When he set out they gave him so much gold and silver, and so many other costly things, and clothes and linen which the Troll Princess had sewn and woven for him all that long time, that he was far richer than any of his brothers.

Well, he had no sooner seated himself in the boat and said,

than away went the boat, and when he saw the ship right a-head, he lifted up the club, and then they got such a fair breeze, they forgot to look at him. When he was alongside the ship, he lifted the club again, and then such a storm arose and such foul weather, that the white foam flew about the ship, and the billows rolled over the deck, and they had something else to do than to stare at him; and when he had run past them he lifted the club the third time, and then the storm and the wind rose so, they had still less time to look after him, and to make him out. So he came to


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zincke, Christian Friedrich


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zincke, Foster Barham


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Zoffany, John


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 392 land long, long before the ship; and when he had got all his goods out of the boat, he shoved it off again, and turned it about and said,

And off went the boat.

Then he dressed himself up as a sailor—whether the Troll king had told him that or it was his own device, I'm sure I can't say—and went up to a wretched hut where an old wife lived, whom he got to believe that he was a poor sailor who had been on board a great ship that was wrecked, and that he was the only soul that had got ashore. After that he begged for house-room for himself and the goods he had saved.

"Heaven mend me!" said the old wife, "how can I lend any one house-room! look at me and mine, why, I've no bed to sleep on myself, still less one for any one else to lie on."

Well, well, it was all the same, said the sailor; if he only got a roof over his head it didn't matter where he lay. So she couldn't turn him out of the house, when he was so thankful for what there was. That afternoon he fetched up his things, and the old wife, who was very eager to hear a bit of news to run about and tell, began at once to ask who he was, whence he came, whither he was bound, what it was he had with him, what his business was, and if he hadn't heard anything of the twelve Princesses who had been away the Lord knew how many years. All this she asked and much more, which it would be waste of time to tell. But he said he was so poorly and had such a bad headache after the awful weather he had been out in, that he couldn't answer any of her questions; she must just leave him alone and let him rest a few days till he came to himself after the


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264 Not feeling a vocation for the priesthood, Fabre went to Paris, and was at first a lawyer's clerk, but was soon left to his own resources. There he published his first literary venture, Feuilles de Lierre, 1853, which attracted little notice, and, disheartened, with enfeebled health, he returned to the south. Then he began to write stories concerning scenes and personages with which he was intimate. He produced Les Courbezon in 1862, and this "caught on" at once. The charm of style, the sweetness of mind it displayed, the keenness of insight into character, and the daintiness of description caused the literary world to realise that a writer of extraordinary merit had risen as a star on the horizon. Les Courbezon was crowned by the Académie. Next year, 1863, appeared Julien Savignac, a study of a mind affected with incipient insanity. The tale is powerful and painful. Le Chevrier was produced in 1868, a disappointing performance, but, with the curious perversity that characterises many an author, preferred by Fabre to his other works; and as it did not obtain success as a novel, he converted it into a drama, which was also a failure. Barnabé, an excellent study of a class of men now completely passed away, appeared in 1875. Fabre died in Paris on 11 February, 1898.

Bédarieux is, or rather was, a busy manufacturing town, with forges and glass works, indebted for its coal to the neighbouring mines of Grassensac. But a few years ago a strike took place. The ironmasters and glassmasters could not meet the demands of the men, and forges and factories have since been closed, and the population has dwindled to nearly half what it was. This also has seriously affected the miners of Grassensac.

Bédarieux is on the Orbe at the confluence into it


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Rh of the Courbezon. The station is three-quarters of a mile from the town. There is nothing of interest in the place itself, except the church of S. Alexandre of the fifteenth century, and that not remarkable. For a centre of excursions it is good, but preferable is Lamalou-les-Bains, where are excellent hotels; but Bédarieux must be tarried at for a few nights if Rochefort, Lunas, and Boussagues are to be visited, or much time will be lost in the trains. Bédarieux is the station of bifurcation of three lines from the main trunk from Clermont to Béziers, and any one who has had experience of French lines will know that as often as not this implies a tedious halt, perhaps of an hour, at the station where a change has to be made.

The nature of the mountains through and by which flows the Orb differs greatly from that of the schisty Cevennes—the Cevennes proper—and the limestone of the causses and of the garigues. They are a ripple rather than a billow, and being sheltered from the north winds by the high range at their back form a sort of natural hothouse, in which the sweetest fruits of a southern clime ripen readily, where the spring comes earliest and the autumn sun lingers longest.

In the Languedoc plain, in Roussillon, even to Perpignan, the icy blasts from the Cevennes are dreaded. The olives, the planes, the mulberries are bent, leaning towards the south, permanently given this incline under the influence of these cruel winds. They scourge Beziers and Montpellier as with a cat-o'-nine-tails dipped in water that has been frozen. But these winds pass over Bédarieux and the valley of the Orb to expend their violence elsewhere. Here in the upper reaches of the Orb the vine, the fig, the olive, the


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266 pomegranate, the almond, the nettle-tree luxuriate, untortured, unnipped.

Villages are many, clustering as so many sets of beehives in every warm and sheltered nook that faces the sun, and has a mountain wall at its back.

And it is precisely here, where least wanted, that a prodigal nature lavishes heating material in beds of anthracite and other coal.

This is what Fabre says of the natives. There are two types not due to difference of blood, but of surroundings and of occupations. We are now in the department of Hérault, of Lower Languedoc, and I may be allowed a few words on the mixture of peoples of diverse origin that have been fused together into a homogeneous race.

From a period before history began, this country was inhabited by populations of diverse origins, habits, and language, drawn thither by the delicious climate, its natural resources, or simply by the chance of migration. One fact characterises the establishment of the tribes or nationalities in these parts; so far as we can judge, it was their attitude towards the people who preceded


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 Rh hard work he'd had in the gale, and then she'd know all she wanted.

The very next day the old wife began to stir him up and ask again, but the sailor's head was still so bad he hadn't got his wits together, but somehow he let drop a word or two to show that he did know something about the Princesses. Off ran the old wife with what she had heard to all the gossips and chatterboxes round about, and soon the one came running after the other to ask about the Princesses, "if he had seen them," "if they would soon be there," "if they were on the way," and much more of the same sort. He still went on groaning over his headache after the storm, so that he couldn't tell them all about it, but so much he told them, unless they had been lost in the great storm they'd make the land in about a fortnight or before perhaps; but he couldn't say for sure whether they were alive or no, for though he had seen them, it might very well be that they had been cast away in the storm since. So what did one of these old gossips do but run up to the Palace with this story, and say that there was a sailor down in such and such an old wife's hut, who had seen the Princesses, and that they were coming home in a fortnight or in a week's time. When the King heard that he sent a messenger down to the sailor to come up to him and tell the news himself.

"I don't see how it's to be," said the sailor, "for I haven't any clothes fit to stand in before the King.

But the King said he must come; for the King must and would talk with him, whether he were richly or poorly clad, for there was no one else who could bring him any tidings of the Princesses. So he went up at last to the Palace


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 394 and went in before the King, who asked him if it were true that he had seen anything of the Princesses.

"Ay, ay," said the sailor, "I've seen them sure enough, but I don't know whether they're still alive, for when I last caught sight of them, the weather was so foul we in our ship were cast away; but if they're still alive they'll come safe home in a fortnight or perhaps before."

When the King heard that he was almost beside himself for joy; and when the time came that the sailor had said they would come, the King drove down to the strand to meet them in great state; and there was joy and gladness over the whole land when the ship came sailing in with the Princes and Princesses and Ritter Red. But no one was gladder than the old King, who had got his daughters back again. The eleven eldest Princesses too, were glad and merry, but the youngest, who was to have Ritter Red, who said that he had set them all free and slain the Troll, she wept and was always sorrowful. The King took this ill, and asked why she wasn't cheerful and merry like the others; she hadn't anything to be sorry for now when she had got out of the Troll's clutches, and was to have such a husband as Ritter Red. But she daredn't say anything, for Ritter Red had said he would take the life of any one who told the truth how things had gone.

But now one day, when they were hard at work sewing and stitching the bridal array, in came a man in a great sailor's cloak with a pedlar's pack on his back, and asked if the Princesses wouldn't buy something fine of him for the wedding; he had so many wares and costly things, both gold and silver. Yes, they might do so perhaps, so they looked at his wares, and they looked at him, for they thought


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Rh them. If some of them swept away the indigenous race, more often they planted themselves beside the earlier population peaceably and fused with them. Most of these invaders seem to have possessed gentle manners, and were not goaded on by the passion for extermination, for which there was no provocation or need, as the land was wide and rich enough to sustain all. This mode of colonisation had the result of filling Lower Languedoc with very heterogeneous inhabitants, the complexity of which explains the apparent contradictions of early writers. But on one point these writers are unanimous: the variety of races or mixtures that occupied the land in Gallia Narbonensis. In the first century before Christ, Cicero notices this; and in the fourth century after Christ, Ausonius sang: "Who can record all thy ports, thy mountains and thy lakes, who the diversity of thy peoples, their vestures and their languages?"

The most ancient inhabitants recorded were the Iberians, who extended their domination over the Spanish peninsula and to the Rhone on the east, which formed the boundary between them and the Ligurians. But at a time difficult to determine these latter crossed the river and invaded the territories of the Iberians. But instead of expelling the conquered peoples, the Ligurians, having an aptitude for absorption, mingled with those whom they had subdued and formed the mixed race of the Iberian-Ligurian. There was, however, already in the land a third nation, that of the Umbranici, apparently the same as the Umbrians of Northern Italy. They have left their name at Ambrussum, now Pont-Ambroise, on the Vidourle. Twenty-three inscriptions remain, mostly in Gard, in an unknown


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268 tongue, but written in Greek characters, that bears an affinity alike to the Ossian and Umbrian language in Italy.

The Greek trade of Marseilles spread through the land. At Murviel, a cyclopean enclosure, not many miles from Montpellier, have been found Greek coins of Marseilles.

In the fourth century before the Christian era a new ethnic element came to add to what already existed. The Gauls appeared in the land. A branch of this stock was that of the Volci. These established themselves between the Rhone and the Garonne, and extended their authority over the Ibero-Ligurians. These new arrivals seem to have treated the conquered much as the Ligurians had the Iberians. They established themselves peaceably among them or alongside of them. This was the more easy, for, as Strabo says, though the Gauls belonged to a wholly different stock, yet they resembled the Ligurians in their mode of life.

Their dominion was not for long—not for more than two centuries—for in B.C. 121 their country was conquered by the Romans.

Such, then, is the origin of the population of Lower Languedoc, and explains the diverse origin of the names of rivers, mountains and towns, some Iberic, some Celtic, some Latin, some of undiscoverable derivation, given perhaps by the Umbrian colony.

The staple of life in the Cevennes, mainly in the southern portion, is not corn, but the chestnut. That is why we see this tree everywhere, old and twisted, but sturdy still, young and vigorous when recently planted. But unhappily a malady has broken out among them, the cause of which has not been discovered with certainty, nor has any remedy been found efficacious. In some years the leaves fall in September, and the fruit


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 {| Was put on the shelf Because he would not spell "pie"; When his aunt, Mrs. Grace, Saw his sorrowful face, She could not help saying, "Oh, fie!"
 * BookOfNurseryRhymes p131.jpg
 * Jack Jelf

And since Master Jelf Was put on the shelf Because he would not spell "pie," Let him stand there so grim, And no more about him, For I wish him a very good-bye!
 * }

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 Rh they had seen both him and many of his costly things before.

"He who has so many fine things," said the youngest Princess, "must surely have something still more precious, and which suits us better even than these."

"Maybe I have," said the Pedlar.

But now all the others cried "Hush," and bade her bear in mind what Ritter Red had said he would do.

"Well, some time after the Princesses sat and looked out of the window, and then the King's son came again with the great sea-cloak thrown about him, and the press with the gold crowns at his back; and when he got into the palace hall he unlocked the press before the Princesses, and when each of them knew her own gold crown again, the youngest said,—

"I think it only right that he who set us free should get the meed that is his due; and he is not Ritter Red, but this man who has brought us our gold crowns. He it is that set us free."

Then the King's son cast off the sailor's cloak, and stood there far finer and grander than all the rest; and so the old King made them put Ritter Red to death. And now there was real right down joy in the palace; each took his own bride, and there just was a wedding! Why, it was heard of and talked about over twelve kings' realms.


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130

was a man in our town, And he was wondrous wise, He jumped into a bramble bush, And scratched out both his eyes; But when he saw his eyes were out, With all his might and main, He jumped into another bush, And scratched 'em in again.

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 father he died, but I can't tell you how, He left me six horses to drive in my plough.

I sold my six horses, and I bought me a cow, I'd fain have made a fortune, but did not know how.

I sold my cow, and I bought me a calf; I'd fain have made a fortune, but lost the best half.

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 I sold my calf, and I bought me a cat; A pretty thing she was, in my chimney corner sat.

I sold my cat, and bought me a mouse; He carried fire in his tail, and burnt down my house.

That he pleased both the girls and boys, And they stopped to hear him play "Over the hills and far away."

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 So Doll and the cow danced "the Cheshire round," Till the pail was broke, and the milk on the ground.

He met old Dame Trot with a basket of eggs, He used his pipe and she used her legs; She danced about till the eggs were all broke, She began for to fret, but he laughed at the joke.

He saw a cross fellow was beating an ass, Heavy laden with pots, pans, dishes and glass; He took out his pipe and played them a tune, And the jackass's load was lightened full soon.

title: Page:A Book of Nursery Rhymes.djvu/161


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 The four-and-twenty sailors That stood between the decks Were four-and-twenty white mice, With chains about their necks.

The captain was a duck, With a packet on his back; And when the ship began to move, The captain said, "Quack! quack!"

I three ships come sailing by, Come sailing by, come sailing by— I saw three ships come sailing by, New Year's Day in the morning.

And what do you think was in them then, Was in them then, was in them then? And what do you think was in them then, New Year's Day in the morning?

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142 Three pretty girls were in them then, Were in them then, were in them then -

Three pretty girls were in them then, New Year's Day in the morning.

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text: Author:William Douglas Caroe

title: Author:William Douglas Caroe


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Rh comes to nothing, reducing the people to a condition almost of famine. In order to preserve the nuts through the winter and spring and prevent the sprouting, they are subjected to desiccation in clèdes that may be seen as a part of the outbuildings of every farmhouse and of many cottages.

The Spanish chestnut is a beautiful tree. It was indigenous in England. A few years ago I was draining a field by the river, and cut down to glacial clay nearly nine feet below the surface, and lying on this was a huge tree, black as ebony. With great labour I had it removed to the sawmill, thinking it to have been black bog oak. It was Spanish chestnut, and since then others have been found in the same valley. It seems willing to grow anywhere. The peasants build up terraces no larger than a doormat, and it grows there. But where there is plenty of soil it will grow much more vigorously than on a ledge of rock.


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270 I believe that the reason why we have so few old chestnuts in England, why we have not woods of them, is that the rabbit dearly loves its sweet bark when young. In planting chestnuts they must be protected by wire, or every one will be pealed in early spring by these wretched rodents. The beating of the trees and the gathering of the fallen chestnuts is a great festival among the Cevenol, as is the vintage in the plains. I will give an account of the beginning of the gathering in from the pen of Ferdinand Fabre. I must premise that the mountaineers from the bald causses come down to the zone where the precious tree grows and hire themselves out as beaters and gatherers. A body of men, mostly young, arrive in a village waving branches, and is met by the old people in the street.

"Our old men and women, very attached to the Fète of the Chestnuts which brightened their youthful years, had quitted the fireside and had advanced to the first house of the village. There they drew up in file, ranged against the south wall. From one end of the line to the other the features were grave with wrinkles and furrows, softened on some by their white hair. Warped, bowed, shivering, they looked ahead with glassy eyes kindled with curiosity. The young folk of the mountain were about to pass by and they desired to see them, and in seeing them revive recollections of their own young days, and warm themselves thereat.

"At the first house the arrivals halted; then waving their boughs in salutation, asked altogether, 'Good folk, how go the chestnuts this year?' 'Very well, children,' replied the old people. Then a little woman, aged eighty-five, detached herself from her nook in the wall and advanced towards the beaters. 'You have not forgotten, friends, the Complaint of


text: Popular Tales from the Norse/The Big Bird Dan


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She sent him to market, A live goose he bought: "Here! mother," says he, "It will not go for nought."

title: Page:A Book of Nursery Rhymes.djvu/151


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Rh the Chestnut Tree?' 'To be sure, the Complaint of the Chestnut Tree,' cried all.

"From the midst of the grove of boughs carried in their hands, and which seemed suddenly to have taken root in the soil of the road, rose the Complainte (ballad), so popular among the Cevenols of the south, and which, like most of their popular songs, express their toil, their sweat, their sighs of hunger at last assuaged by labour.

"After the fourth couplet the ballad was interrupted. Our Cevenols raised their boughs, brandished the leaves, and made therewith the sign of the cross.

'On your knees!' said the old woman, extending her hand. The beaters knelt at once. Then, all at once, from a thousand sturdy breasts young for the most part, rolled forth the final verse of the Complainte du Châtaignier. It was as grand, as beautiful, as sublime as any psalm, any hymn I have heard in any church.


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 One could whistle, and another could sing, And the other could play on the violin— Such joy was there at my wedding, New Year's Day in the morning.

time of prosperity friends will be plenty, In time of adversity not one amongst twenty.

me, riddle me, riddle me ree, None are so blind as those that won't see.

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  Lady Wind, my Lady Wind, Went round about the house to find A chink to get her foot in: She tried the key-hole in the door, She tried the crevice in the floor, And drove the chimney soot in.

And then one night when it was dark, She blew up such a tiny spark That all the house was pothered; From it she raised up such a flame

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