Schist ravines—Valley of the Arre—Wolves—Vindomagus—Fountain of Isis—Saracens—Priory—Jean Peyrenc—Persecution of Huguenots—Murder of Daudé—Execution of Bénézet—Reprisals—Avèze—Pont de Mousse—Brigand barons—A long lawsuit—The Montcalm family—Aulos—A man of many duels—The Vis—Montdardier—The Ginestous—Causse de Blandas—Navacelles—Le Vigan—The Chevalier d'Assas—Triaire.
drop Cap W
WHEN the line leaves Ganges it leaves the white limestone crags and plunges among broken schist mountains, and the curious rugged mass of Esparon stands up before one as a fortress against the blue sky. The valley of the Arre is entered, and presently we arrive at Le Vigan in a pleasant site, a green smiling valley enclosed within a triple range, first of hills terraced up, step above step, with walls to retain the meagre deposit of soil laboriously cultivated. The second stage is one of mountains dense with chestnuts. Above this rises the rugged range of granite that forms the watershed between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Among the higher rocks sprout a few twisted and stunted beech, the relics of the ancient forests that formerly sheltered the bear, the wild boar, and the wolf. These forests have disappeared, partly through fires kindled to clear away the lurking-places of the Camisards, partly to destroy the shelter of the wolves, [Pg 238] mainly through the improvidence of the peasantry. It has been found simpler to get rid of the wolves by strychnine than by fire, and they are now very nearly exterminated. But the destruction of the forests has had such lamentable results that the Board of Forestry is engaged in replanting large tracts.
Le Vigan is supposed to occupy the site of the old Gallo-Roman town of Vindomagus. The name implies that a Celtic population was settled there. Magh signifies meadow or plain, and vindo is the Latin form given to the word we find in so many places to signify open country, wind-swept, sun-scorched, rambled over by sheep, that still lingers on upon the Welsh border, as Gwent. No descriptive appellation could better suit Le Vigan.
The town gathered a little way below the great sacred spring that now supplies its fountains and runnels with limpid water, once dedicated to Isis, the Egyptian goddess, who was introduced into Rome and became fashionable. It is still called the Fontaine d'Is, and the bath and remains of her temple are under the present corn market.
The Saracens penetrated the defiles of the Cévennes, and attacked and destroyed Vindomagus. They have left their traces in the terminology of certain localities about the town, as Le Champ de Maoureses and Le Camp Sarrasin.
In the Middle Ages Le Vigan was a walled town, about a priory; the prior exercised rights of high justice alternately with the King of France, each for three years, turn and turn about, one of these clumsy, confusing arrangements only possible in those topsy-turvy days. It suffered the usual miseries also of those days from [Pg 239] 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:—
"Pour raser l'Angleterre,
On met au ministère
Peyrenc dont le grand-père,
Faisait fort proprement,
Des barbes au Vigan."
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 [Pg 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 Baville 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 30th, 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 [Pg 241] the dragoons. Marazel managed to escape; the other was conveyed a prisoner to Montpellier. Bénézet 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.
THE GOAT'S LEAP, LE VIGAN
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, the 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 [Pg 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 chateau 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 chateau 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 thirt............