In 1684, the last male heir of the Ginestous, lords of Montdardier, was a Protestant pastor. He had an only child, a daughter, whom he married to François d'Assas on condition that her descendants should assume the name and bear the arms of Ginestous. The castle is now the property of the Viscount de Ginestous at Montpellier. In the village are the remains of a hospital of the Templars. On leaving Montdardier the causse appears before one in all its nudity, and the eye that has been gratified by the green woods and pastures of the valley is now smitten and half blinded by the glare of the bald limestone, with here and there only a little field of corn where some snuff-coloured earth has accumulated. Not a stream, not a spring, all the water that falls is absorbed and disappears in the fissures to fill the mysterious reservoirs that feed the rivers. Flocks of lean sheep wander about the waste and eat the herbs and bushes that attempt to grow, as well as the burnt and scanty grass. Even the droppings of the sheep are not suffered to remain and enrich the meagre soil. They are carefully collected and sold to the vinedressers of the plain. Blandas is four miles from Montdardier. There are eleven megalithic monuments in this commune alone. Nothing breaks the monotony of the Causse, beyond the white plateau of which is the blue chain of distant mountains, of pure cobalt. All at once, what seems to be a fold in the plain gives way, and we stand at the edge of a tremendous depression of 960 feet. Below, beneath the escarpments of white Jura limestone, a silver line appears winding among green meadows, and flowing from a cascade. "The view of Navacelles produces an impression never to be forgotten. I really do not know how better to advise those who accompany tourists than to make them halt at a great tree about two hundred yards from the gap. There they should have their eyes bandaged, and they should be led to the edge of the precipice, and their backs turned to it. The bandage removed, they would see before them only the nakedness of the Causse. But let them turn about, and they would spring back filled with amazement. Even the details of the spectacle presented before them are most curious. The position of the declivity against which leans the village of Navacelles has an extraordinary resemblance to a gigantic oyster-shell, whilst to right and to left the spirals of the Vis are surmounted by precipitous rocks in fangs. The source of this strange river is not less interesting than its cañon. In half an hour one reaches La Foux. There between the escarped flanks of the Causse the river pours out of a deep cavern, and at once puts a mill in movement."[11]