Cévennes & Nimes

The Cévennes, known to the Romans as Mons Cebenna, form the southeastern section of the Massif Central, lying between the valleys of the Ardèche and the Hérault and falling steeply down to the Rhône basin. This beautiful range of hills has an average height of around 1,500m/4,900ft, rising to 1,702m/5,584ft in Mont Lozère (Pic de Finiels). The hills consist mainly of slate and the plateaux of limestone. Between the sharp-edged hill ridges (serres) are canyon-like gorges, the best known of which are the Gorges du Tarn.

The Cévennes form the climatic boundary between the mild Mediterranean region and the harsher Massif Central, so that they have a varied pattern of vegetation. The forest clearance which took place in the 18th and 19th centuries to supply the charcoal needed by the numerous glass-blowing establishments gradually came to an end around a hundred years ago, and since then much reafforestation has been carried out. The varied landscape of the Cévennes, alternating between areas of forest, barren grassland, bare moorland and deeply indented valleys, offers a haven of solitude and tranquillity. The National Park of the Cévennes was established in 1970 to protect the typical fauna and flora of the region. The Corniche des Cévennes is a beautiful scenic road running through the hills for some 50km/30mi between Florac to the northwest and St-Jean-du-Gard to the southeast, offering views of the two highest peaks in the range.

The foreland region to the southeast, an area transitional to Provence and Languedoc, already has a Mediterranean climate in which olives, vines and mulberry trees extend far into the hills.

The coal mined round Alès has made possible the development of ironworking and chemical industries.

During the 16th C wars of religion, and after Louis XIV's revocation of the Edict of Nantes, these inaccessible mountain regions offered a place of refuge for the Huguenots. The persecution of Protestants led to the Guerre des Cévennes (1702-1710), a rising by the Huguenots, who became known as the "Camisards" from the shirts they wore. Finally the killing was ended by an amnesty. The descendants of the Huguenots still meet annually at the famous Musée du Désert in commemoration of these events. The population of the Cévennes is still largely Protestant, even though Protestants were not granted equal rights in France until 1804, under the Code Napoléon. The clearance of the Cévennes forests was halted by a series of well conceived measures introduced by Georges Fabre, director of forestry, from 1875 onwards.