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Only here and there on the skirts of Sauveterre, near Mende, and of the Causse Noir, near Millau, as we have seen, are relics of feudal times. Close around, under the very shadow of these vast promontories, cresting the borders of the Tarn and the green heights between Millau and Mende, ruined strongholds and chateaux abound.

Paul, Abbe Duchayla's brother, and the Marquis Duchayla, his nephew, brought eighty horsemen from the family estates. The Count of Morangiez rode in from St. Auban and Malzieu with two companies of cavalry, and the town of Mende by order of its bishop despatched its nobles at the head of three companies of fifty men each.

The nobles and gentry also left their châteaux, the merchants their shops and warehouses, and took refuge in the fortified towns. Even the bishops of Mende, Uzes, and Alais barricaded and fortified their episcopal palaces, and organized a system of defence as if the hordes of Attila had been at their gates.

The first districts in which they were appointed to work were those of Mende, Alais, Viviers, Uzes, Nismes, and Montpellier, in Languedoc districts which, fifteen years before, had been the scenes of the Camisard war.

There was scarce a sign of culture; only about Bleymard, the white high-road from Villefort to Mende traversed a range of meadows, set with spiry poplars, and sounding from side to side with the bells of flocks and herds. From Bleymard after dinner, although it was already late, I set out to scale a portion of the Lozère.

He was charged with the interruption of the sittings of the 20th of June, 1789, with the Bed of Justice held on the 23d of the same month, the aristocratic conspiracy thwarted by the insurrection of the 14th of July, the entertainment of the Life Guards, the insults offered to the national cockade, the refusal to sanction the Declaration of Rights, as well as several constitutional articles; lastly, all the facts which indicated a new conspiracy in October, and which were followed by the scenes of the 5th and 6th; the speeches of reconciliation which had succeeded all these scenes, and which promised a change that was not sincere; the false oath taken at the Federation of the 14th of July; the secret practices of Talon and Mirabeau to effect a counter-revolution; the money spent in bribing a great number of deputies; the assemblage of the "knights of the dagger" on the 28th of February, 1791; the flight to Varennes; the fusilade of the Champ de Mars; the silence observed respecting the Treaty of Pilnitz; the delay in the promulgation of the decree which incorporated Avignon with France; the commotions at Nimes, Montauban, Mende, and Jales; the continuance of their pay to the emigrant Life Guards and to the disbanded Constitutional Guard; the insufficiency of the armies assembled on the frontiers; the refusal to sanction the decree for the camp of twenty thousand men; the disarming of the fortresses; the organisation of secret societies in the interior of Paris; the review of the Swiss and the garrison of the palace on the 10th August; the summoning the Mayor to the Tuileries; and lastly, the effusion of blood which had resulted from these military dispositions.

The very place was marked down in my itinerary simply because it seemed impossible to reach the region we were bound for from any other starting-point. At least, the two other alternatives had drawbacks: we must either make a circuitous railway journey round to Mende, or a still longer detour by way of Millau.

Their chief city was Anduitum, now Mende, G. vii. 64; they join the general confederacy of Vercingetorix, and give hostages to Luterius, G. vii. 7 Galba Sergius, sent against the Nantuates, Veragrians, and Seduni, G. iii. 1; the barbarians attack his camp unexpectedly, but are repulsed with great loss, iii. 6

According to Durand of Mende, both flowers and trees represent good works, of which the virtues are the roots; according to Honorius, the hermit, green herbs are for wisdom; those in flower are for progress; those in fruit are the perfect souls; finally, we are told by old treatises on symbolical theology that all plants embody the allegory of the Resurrection, while the idea of eternity attaches more particularly to the vine, the cedar and the palm."

A railway ran beside the river; the only bit of railway in Gévaudan, although there are many proposals afoot and surveys being made, and even, as they tell me, a station standing ready built in Mende. A year or two hence and this may be another world. The desert is beleaguered.