In certain versions of this etext, in certain browsers, clicking on this symbol will bring up a larger version of the map on page 4. They have been most unjustly neglected. The scenery is singularly varied. The historical associations are rich, but mainly tragic. This is not a guide-book, but an introduction to the country, to be supplemented by guide-books. The area is so extensive, that I have had to exercise restraint and limit myself to a few of the most salient features and most profitable centres whence excursions may be made.
For inns, consult the annual volume of the French Touring Club; Baedeker and Joanne cannot always be relied on, as proprietors change, either for the better or for the worse. I have been landed in unsatisfactory quarters by relying on one or other of these guide-books, owing to the above-mentioned reason.
THE great central plateau of France that serves as the watershed between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and severs France properβthe old medieval Franceβfrom Languedoc, is due to a mighty upheaval of granite, carrying with it aloft on its back beds of schist, Jura limestone, chalk, coal, and red sandstone. The granite has not everywhere reached the surface, it has not in all parts shaken off the burden that lay on it. The superincumbent beds do not lie in position one above another, like ranges of books on shelves.
Many of them over a large tract have been carried away by denudation through the action of water. The plateau under consideration stretches over an area of 3, square miles. It dies down towards the [Pg 2] north-west, but reaches its highest elevation in the east and in the south. This great upland district had to be crossed before the peoples dwelling north and south of it could be fused into one.
But it was disturbed, broken up, and overlaid by volcanic eruptions at a comparatively recent date, pouring forth floods of lava and clouds of ash in Auvergne, le Velay, and le Vivarais. In its upheaval, moreover, the granite turned up, snapped, and exposed the superposed beds, and left them as bristling ridges to the east and south.
