In the unstable environment of the 11th and 12th centuries the monasteries were often welcome havens of peace and stability. In the wild upland area of Mont Lozère the knights of the order of Saint John of Jersusalem established themselves in the village of l’Hôpital and founded the Commanderie (garrison) de Gap-Francès. They acquired vast tracts of land, and their boundaries were marked by large stones engraved with the cross of Malta, which are still standing to this day (see Walk 20 and Tour of Mont Lozère). Their benevolent rule lasted until the start of the French Revolution.
The War of the Camisards
The Cevennes only really entered the pages of history in the early 15th century, when much of the population was converted from Catholicism to the ideologies of Luther and Calvin. Preachers and settlers entered the region spreading the word of this new way of thinking. It fell on fertile ground, and such was the zeal of the local inhabitants that a message was sent to Geneva from the town of Le Vigan in October 1560 asking for a minister. By 1563 twelve ministers were preaching in the region. The reaction of the authorities was to send punitive expeditions into the area, but the inhabitants fled into the countryside and there was little bloodshed.
The Edict of Nantes was issued in 1598, wherein it was stated that religious liberty was permissible throughout France. The Calvinist faith flourished and chapels were built where the population could openly gather and hold services. However, in 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes and the massacre of the Protestants began. Chapels were burnt, whole villages massacred and those that were not killed were imprisoned or sent to the gallows. Instead of deterring the people this seemed to harden their faith and they gathered secretly in isolated farms and caves to conduct their services, including marriages, baptisms and funerals. Many of the richer and more educated families fled to Calvinistic countries such as Switzerland or Germany; some emigrated to Canada and America. Others decided to stay and fight it out.
The War of the Camisards lasted for only two years, but many innocent people, both Catholic and Protestant, were killed as a consequence. The word Camisard comes from the word‘camisa’, meaning chemise (shirt) in the Occitan language, signifying the special shirts worn by the adherents.
The war began with the murder of the Abbot de Chaila, who was harbouring prisoners in his house in Pont-de-Montvert in the Mont Lozère region (see Walk 19), by a group of insurgents led by Esprit Séguier, who was subsequently burnt alive a few weeks later. Surprisingly few of the noble families were involved, and it was mainly a war organised by the peasants, the four commanders being Roland Laporte from Mailet and Castanet from the Aigoual region, who were both wool carders; brickmaker Jouany from Genolhac; and a baker named Cavalier from the southern Cevennes. A number of skirmishes took place, with villages fighting against other villages, the burning of churches on both sides and families torn apart.
Finally the forces of authority led by the Maréchal de Villiers managed to seriously wound Cavalier after discovering his arms depot. He then capitulated and was accused of treachery by his compatriots. Fleeing to England he eventually became Governor of the island of Jersey. In the autumn of 1703 the Maréchal de Montrovel, the chief of the royalist forces, decided to burn 32 parishes loyal to the Camisard cause. Roland continued to fight but was betrayed and killed near Uzzes in 1704. After that the Camisards lost heart and the war fizzled out.
In 1787 the Edict of Nantes was reinstated and the Protestants were free again to lick their wounds and rebuild their chapels. When walking in the Cevennes it is not unusual to come across isolated small graveyards; since the people did not wish to bury their dead in the official Catholic cemeteries they buried them on their land or, in many cases, in their basements so they would not be discovered by the royalist soldiers!
The War of the Camisards has become a legend of Cevenese pride and endurance, but has permanently marked the mentality of the people, who tend to be uncommunicative and self-contained. Although many villages, particularly in the north Gevaudan, reconverted to Catholicism, the majority of the region has remained strongly Protestant; it has taken until the Second World War for the tensions to really heal so that both religious communities can live together in harmony.
Every first Sunday in September some 15,000 protestants and descendants of those that fled the country in the 15th century gather in Le Mas Soubeyran, near Mailet, at the Musée de Désert (so called in memory of the Hebrews who crossed the desert). Here, in the birthplace of the Camisard chief Roland, which has now been turned into a musem, they commemorate the hundreds of Cevenese who died for their belief. The museum is worth a visit and is open from 1st March to 30th November from 9.30 to 12.00 and 14.30 to 18.00, and all day from 1st July to 1st September.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
No book can be written about the Cevennes region without a mention of the renowned writer Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote his classic Travels with a Donkey in 1878. A young, penniless Scottish student, he walked from Puy-en-Velay southwards, over Mont Lozère to Florac, and continued down the Mimente valley to St-Jean-du-Gard. His adventures and tribulations with his donkey, Modestine, have enchanted readers the world over and put this remote mountainous region, in many ways so like Stevenson’s native Scotland, firmly on the map.
Walking the Stevenson Trail, which takes around five days (though it took Stevenson longer), is still very popular, and on some walks in this book (Walk 31 and the Tour of Mont Lozère) you will see signposting indicating that you are on the Sentier Stevenson.
Cevenese Life
The Bible, the tree of bread and the tree of gold: these were the three mainstays of Cevenese life – the Bible their source of culture, the chestnut tree their source of food and the mulberry tree fed the silkworms providing economic stability. Through these three resources the Cevennes people emerged from obscurity in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Chestnut Industry
The origins of the chestnut tree forests are obscure but could date from the Iron Age, when the religious orders penetrated the region and began to clear the land and create the farms and villages that remain today. Chestnut trees were never part of the natural vegetation of the Cevennes, which was mainly oak, green oak and beech, but were planted on the slopes between 300m and 900m. In order to prosper the trees required constant maintenance, as they hate the cold and fog, needing a deep, rich soil with long periods of sunshine to ripen the nuts; they also need constant pruning, thinning out and manuring (they particularly like iron deposits) – all time-consuming and manpower-intensive activities. Indeed the Cevennes population could not cope alone, and itinerant workers came every year from surrounding regions to help with the chestnut harvest, and special markets were held to recruit these labourers (see Walk 29).
Until the end of the 19th century the cultivated chestnut trees were the main source of food for the Cevenese population. The nut, the wood, the leaves – every part of the tree was utilised. The nuts, collected in the autumn by special wooden rakes called gratto, were eaten fresh or dried and also ground into flour to make bread. The drying process took place in a stone building called a clède, which was built next to the mas (farm) or in the chestnut wood itself. The chestnuts were funnelled in from the outside and spread on a wooden grating hung underneath the beams. A fire was lit underneath and kept going for several weeks until the constant smoke had dried the nuts. They were then shelled, which was achieved by walking on them with special spiked shoes! The wood was used for building and for making furniture, beer barrels and fencing – even the traditional Cevenol beehives are made out of chestnut trunks. At the end of the harvest the flocks of sheep, goats and pigs grazed in the woods to fatten up on the leaves and remaining nuts.
In 1871 the chestnut forests were hit by disease called‘la maladie d’encre’and this, together with the exodus of the population, was the death knell of this noble tree. Two-thirds of the splendid chestnut woods have disappeared, cut down for their excellent wood, but have been
