The Cévennes: in the Footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson by Solange Hando

Pistache was a happy donkey. She stepped daintily through the puddles, stopped whenever she fancied and grazed on every blade of grass along the way. ‘Look,’ said Jean-Pierre grabbing the rope, ‘it’s easy, sharp pull then let go, a donkey’s like a woman, you must be firm but gentle.’
   
I had never trekked with a donkey but this was a special occasion, 130 years since Robert Louis Stevenson walked across these rural heartlands with the cantankerous Modestine, torn between cajoling his four-legged friend and brandishing his goad. From Monastier in the Upper Loire to St Jean du Gard on the southern edge of the Cévennes, man and beast travelled 220km through farmlands and forests, mountains and valleys and villages where peasants stared as if they were going to the moon.

The main part of the trail crosses the Lozère department, today the least populated in France, a haven for nature lovers. You can walk the whole length in 12 days, if you are reasonably fit, or just a section, alone or with a guided group, with or without donkeys. Luggage is transferred by road and if you hire a donkey to carry your day pack, unlike Stevenson, you will be properly trained before you start.

On the Trail

We opted for a mere 55km in three days either side of Mont Lozère, rambling for fun, scenery and fresh air, but often sparing a thought for the young Scottish writer who undertook the journey alone to nurse a broken heart. He travelled for the sake of it and clutching his ‘Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes’, we followed this New Age backpacker like pilgrims.
   
On that misty autumn day, the little town of Langogne watched in wonder as we set off through the streets. There were beribboned donkeys, baguettes peeping out of the baskets and children waving on the steps of the corn market, though not a single lassie standing in ‘silent dudgeon’. Now everyone is used to strangers. The newly born Allier babbled under the old stone bridge as we headed for the red and white markers of the long distance footpath, GR70.

The trail wanders off the original route at times and there is tarmac now and then but it didn’t seem to matter at all. The path was lined with juicy blackberries, wild crocuses and mushrooms and clumps of broom shedding their last specks of gold. Only the twittering of birds or occasional braying of a donkey disturbed the peace.

In the pretty village of St Flour, we rested by the old wash-house, marvelled at the communal bread oven and the lamas in the Mayor’s garden, before picnicking in a sunny meadow on crusty bread, pâté, cheese, melon and more, and a glass of full-bodied wine. It was a far cry from the tinned Bologna sausage and chocolate slab, eaten together ‘by way of bread and meat’, when Stevenson lost his way and slept rough in the nearby woods.
   
We could imagine him soaked to the skin as he struggled until dark, dragging Modestine through the swamps, confused by the mysterious magnetic field around the Pascalou menhir. Today the menhir stands next to the road yet as we took turns to hold a metal rod and felt it move out of control, we shivered and walked away. ‘It was September 24th’, said Jean-Pierre, ‘just like today, but we’re ok, it’s still daylight. Now let’s go.’ We kept quiet for a while then ambled through bucolic hamlets where cow bells tinkled and a ruddy-faced farmer greeted us with a friendly ‘ça va?’ In 1878, it was different. No one would venture out to help a wanderer, especially after dark, lest they should meet the ghost of the legendary Beast haunting the woods of Gévaudan.
   
Fortunately for us, this monster of a wolf met its end long ago and we enjoyed great views of the distant hills of Ardèche in the setting sun. Then it was down all the way through glorious autumn colours until we reached Cheylard l’Evêque, ‘little worthy of all this searching, a few broken ends of village’. For us however, it was a delightful place sheltering in a lush hollow, with a chapel on a hillock and a flower-draped inn where, after a joyful gathering in front of the Mairie, we tucked into a hearty meal. Although it is advisable to pack a picnic lunch, there are plenty of lodges along the way offering a hot dinner and comfortable night. Few ramblers sleep ‘among sheepskins’ under the pines but just open your window and in this unpolluted corner of France, you might see the Milky Way clearer than you have ever done.

‘Flower of the Snows’

‘My heart was still as cold as a potato towards my beast of burden,’ wrote Stevenson on leaving Cheylard but when I saw Pistache sauntering down the lane that morning, I couldn’t wait to say hello. True, she was stubborn at times yet short of carrying me, she could be coaxed into almost anything. We were a good team.
   
On day two, the weather was at one with Stevenson’s most sombre mood. The wind blew, the temperature dropped, the sun refused to shine. How could we warm up in those damp woods? ‘I know, let’s dance the Bourrée’, suggested a local walker and within minutes, we were shedding layers. We gathered blueberries to add to our lunch while Pistache and her friends feasted on heather. Duly revived, we scrambled down to Luc, a sprinkling of red roofs among emerald hills with a medieval castle overlooking the Allier, all crumbling walls and towers and a white Madonna gleaming on top.  Nearby is the old transhumance route where shepherds have led their flocks for centuries.
   
We did not stay long in Luc. The wind picked up once again, blowing the leaves off the trees as we set off for a long afternoon across forests and fields and the final climb to Our Lady of the Snows, a Cistercian monastery claiming three chapters in the book. Brought up as a Presbyterian, Stevenson approached this site with trepidation, shuddering as he spotted ‘a medieval friar, fighting with a barrowful of turfs…, robed in white like any spectre’.

Strangely enough, when we reached this secluded spot at 1100 metres, a monk appeared out of nowhere, shuffling like a ghost across the courtyard, though whether he was on his way to the garden or wine cellar, I could not tell. Stevenson mentions liqueur in the pantry but in the 21st-century, the Brothers in need of income produce their own wine for communion and visitors alike. You can stay overnight for a small donation and enjoy a simple meal, washed down with a bubbly ‘Flower of the Snows’, a heavenly reward at the end of the day.
   
Time was short so we moved on to Chasseradès where the writer shared ‘a little upstairs room’ with five men surveying the land for the proposed Mirandol viaduct. We saw it the next day, spanning the valley in an elegant curve, but the train flashed past just as I put my camera away. We could almost hear Stevenson laughing under his belt. Meanwhile up on Mont Lozère, Pistache waited in a meadow, ready for our last lap into the Cévennes.

The Cévennes

When the Scotsman planned his journey, maps showed the Cévennes extending north to Le Puy, so we can’t blame him for an inaccurate title. But fully restored in 1978, signposted at first in blue and white with St Andrew’s cross, the trail covers a surprising variety of landscapes before reaching these southern mountains
   
Mont Lozère was breathtaking, reaching 1699 metres at Pic de Finiels, wild and barren except for heather and tall granite stones, some with a Maltese cross, marking the ancient route along the crest. Up there on the windswept moors, we caught our first glimpse of the real Cévennes, ‘the hazy air of heaven and a land of intricate blue hills’ reaching south towards the National Park rich in rare plants and birds. Pistache munched to her heart’s content while we gazed at the view, ridge after ridge as far as we could see.

Dazed by the world at our feet, we wandered off in the wrong direction but Jean-Pierre’s bouncy sheepdog brought us back on track. We trekked down through the woods, past tumbling streams and waterfalls, and stopped in the village of Finiels. Madame Lucille showed us the old flour mill and the stables where her father made mouse traps and clogs and a cupboard out of a single tree trunk. During the religious upheavals in the early 18th century, these could be used as hiding places for the ‘Camisards’, the rebellious Huguenots whose story had drawn Stevenson to the Cévennes.

On these southern slopes, we felt almost in the Midi. The sun was bright, the light translucent and crickets sang all around. Cows grazed on pastures strewn with dramatic boulders, hamlets nestled on steep slopes and the breeze rustling through the trees was gentle and warm. In this land of shale and chestnut, we followed the mountain path snaking down to Pont de Montvert, such an idyllic village in the cusp of the hills we did not want to dwell on its troubled past.

Even Stevenson, so keen on the Camisards, couldn’t help musing about the first pretty woman he had met since Monastier, ‘her grey eyes steeped in amorous languor.’ Her name was Clarisse and her portrait still hangs in the Auberge des Cévennes where she waited at his table. So we sat on the terrace overlooking the Tarn and just as Stevenson would have done, we ordered a bottle of wine. Pistache sniffed around the marigolds and returned to her patch of grass.