Front, the church which I have seen and which
renewed my faith.
THE POSITION
There is a place where the valley of the Allier escapes from the central
mountains of France and broadens out into a fertile plain.
Here is a march or boundary between two things, the one familiar to most
English travellers, the other unfamiliar. The familiar thing is the rich
alluvium and gravel of the Northern French countrysides, the poplar trees,
the full and quiet rivers, the many towns and villages of stone, the broad
white roads interminable and intersecting the very fat of prosperity,
and over it all a mild air. The unfamiliar is the mass of the Avernian
Mountains, which mass is the core and centre of Gaul and of Gaulish
history, and of the unseen power that lies behind the whole of that
business.
The plains are before one, the mountains behind one, and one stands in
that borderland. I know it well.
I have said that in the Avernian Mountains was the centre of Gaul and the
power upon which the history of Gaul depends. Upon the Margeride, which is
one of their uttermost ridges, du Guesclin was wounded to death. One may
see the huge stones piled up on the place where he fell. In the heart of
those mountains, at Puy, religion has effects that are eerie; it uses odd
high peaks for shrines--needles of rock; and a long way off all round is a
circle of hills of a black-blue in the distance, and they and the rivers
have magical names--the river Red Cap and Chaise Dieu, "God's Chair.
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