Page:A book of the Cevennes (-1907-).djvu/108

 the church, reconstructed in the ninth century, stands on the ruins of an edifice of the fourth. Some Roman fragments are incrusted in the walk. Above the town, built into modern constructions, are many fragments of the old city. The chapel of N. Dame du Haut-Solier has been regarded as occupying the site of a temple dedicated to the sun, and is built up of Gallo-Roman materials. Hereabouts the spade is continually turning up relics, among others were found a head of Jupiter Serapis, and inscriptions, of which one is commemorative of Etruscilla, wife of the Emperor Decius. The chapel of the Sisters of S. Joseph possesses a Romanesque doorway with bold zigzag ornament, removed from the ruined commandery of Montredon.

S. Paulien was the birthplace of the sculptor Julien, of whose work some specimens may be seen in the museum at Le Puy. He was a shepherd boy, the son of very poor parents, but he had an uncle in the Jesuit Order. One day this priest, walking on a bit of wild moor scantily covered with coarse grass and juniper bushes, lit on his nephew, then aged fourteen, guarding his flock, and engaged in modelling a figure out of clay with a bit of stick. The lad looked up with his brown, intelligent eyes, coloured, and said—

"Sorry, mon père, that the figure is so bad."

"Bad!" exclaimed the priest. "Do you call that bad? On the contrary, I pronounce it admirable. Go on and prosper." He hastened back to S. Paulien, burst in on the Julien family, and insisted on their surrendering the lad to him. "He is moulding a saint out of clay," said the Jesuit. "Give me that lump of humanity, and I will shape it into a great artist." So the uncle carried off young Julien and committed him