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There is a world full of marvels under the causses of the Lot, the Aveyron, and the Lozère; but although much more will be known about it, a vast deal will remain for ever hidden from man. I will now return to my wayfaring across the Causse de Gramat in the early summer.
The Causse was in their possession from the Dordogne to the Lot, and Perigord to the gates of the capital. They overran Auvergne, the Gevaudan, Poitou, the Angoumois, the Rouergue and the Saintonge, to speak only of provinces south of the Loire. The Government exhibited incredible feebleness towards them.
I am now upon the causse and already see the castellated outworks of the 'Devil's City. The city itself lies in a hollow, and I have not yet reached it. The mule-path fortunately leads in the right direction. On my way multitudes of very dark, almost black, butterflies flutter up from the short turf, which is flecked with the gold of yellow everlastings.
As I had, however, to reach the gorge of the Tarn before nightfall, and it was still far off, I only took away two souvenirs of the diabolic garden a white scabious and a bit of rock-potentil. The name given to the tract of country I was now crossing the Causse Noir, fitly describes it, It is singularly dark and mournful, and almost uninhabited.
But when she grew up she was convicted of the same crime, and was condemned to be burnt or buried alive. I have given elsewhere a very full account of the cave a den of robbers beside which that to which Gil Blas was carried was a paradise La Crouzate on the Causse de Gramat in the Department of Lot. I will therefore here mention it but superficially.
The great privation of these poor people is that of a regular water- supply one large, by no means pellucid, pond, with cisterns, are all the sources they can rely upon from one end of the year to the other; not a fountain issues from the limestone for miles round, not a stream waters the entire Causse, a region extensive as Dartmoor or Salisbury Plain.
He was to learn there is nothing more unpalatable than the repentance of the headstrong.... He found it a stiffish climb up out of the valley of the Jonte. By the time he had managed it, the sun had already robbed all vegetation of its ephemeral jewellery, the Causse itself showed few signs of a downpour which had drenched it for seventy-two hours on end.
This place the peasants of the canons have called "The Old City"; and no one living will go near it who knows it well. The Causses have also this peculiar to them: that the ravines by which each is cut off are steep and sudden. But the cliffs of the Causse of Mende are walls.
Why should I not follow their example? Sorely tempted as I was to carry out the same programme, once more I hesitated. I could obtain very little precise information as to the real difficulties, if any, that beset the way, but everyone agreed that it was not at all a commonplace journey in other words, not a very easy one. The long drive across the solitary Causse to St.
Having left the pit, we went in the direction of Loubressac, to which village my companion belonged. While still upon the causse a spot was reached where a small iron cross had been raised. The stone pedestal bore this inscription: 'SOUVENIR DE HÉLÈNE BONBÈGRE, MORTE MARTYRE EN CE LIEU EN 1844.