Cévennes Mountains (France); France -- Description and travel
S. Roch was a native of Montpellier. His story is an ecclesiastical
romance. The earliest biographer states candidly that he found "nothing
trustworthy about him" in record, and so compiled his life from popular
legend. In or about 1350 a squalid-looking man, a beggar, was taken up
by the authorities of Montpellier and cast into gaol, where he died. On
the removal of the body for burial, it was discovered that the vagabond
was Roch, a nephew of the governor of the town, who had embraced a life
of dirt and poverty out of "sheer cussedness." There always have been
and always will be men who, like Falstaff, "have a kind of alacrity in
sinking"; who revolt against the restraints and refinements of social
life, and find their pleasure in living like swine. S. Roch had his
parallel in Bampfylde Moore Carew.
There is nothing edifying in the story, nothing in his career to
justify canonisation. Nevertheless he is in vast repute as a patron
against plague and fever and sores, and he has been given a place in
the Roman martyrology, accepted and held up to be invoked, although
absolutely nothing trustworthy is known of him. Can slackness and
carelessness go further? In fact, the Roman martyrology, possessing the
sanction of the self-entitled Vicar of Christ, is a veritable Noah's
Ark containing clean and unclean beasts.
From Antraigues, a climb of an hour leads to the Coupe d'Aizac, the
best-preserved crater in the Vivarais. M. Paulett Scrope thus describes
it:—
"The Coupe d'Aizac rises on the ridge of one of the granitic
abutments that project from the steep escarpment of the Haut
Vivarais. It has a beautiful crater slightly broken down towards
the north-west, and from the breach a stream of basalt may be seen
to descend the flank of the hill, and turning to the north-east
enter the valley of the river Volane, which has subsequently
cut it entirely across, and discloses three distinct storied
ranges; the lowermost very regularly columnar, that in the middle
less so, and the upper nearly amorphous, cellular, and with a
ragged scoriform surface. This current, which appears originally
to have occupied the bottom of the gorge in an extent of four
miles, from the village of Antraigues nearly to Vals, has been
worn away and carried off on many points by the violence of the
torrent. Its relics adhere in vast masses to the granite rocks on
both sides, sometimes reaching the height of 160 feet above it.
The lower portion of this bed is very beautifully columnar, the
upper obscurely so; this latter has been in parts destroyed, and
a pavement or causeway left, formed by an assemblage of upright
and almost geometrically regular columns fitted together with the
utmost symmetry."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account