Page:A book of the Cevennes (-1907-).djvu/250

 drink water, only wine. If some of my children get diphtheria, it will leave more money for those who survive."

This it is that gives to so many of the towns and nearly every village in France a palsied, neglected look, as if the houses had lost their self-respect, like a man who has gone down in the world and sunk to be a tramp.

Pradelles is four miles from Langogne, built in an amphitheatre on the flanks of the mountains of Le Velay, surrounded by rich meadows, from which it derives its name (pratellæ). The many Prades that occur in the south are all so called from the pratæ that spread about them. In 1588 Chambaud, at the head of a large body of Huguenots, besieged the town. As it had but a scanty garrison, he shouted to those on the walls, "Ville prise, ville gagnée!" To which a young woman called back, "Pa'ncaro!" (not yet) and flung a great stone at him which broke in his skull. This act of heroism saved Pradelles from being sacked and its citizens from massacre. The memory of that woman, Jeanne de Verdette, is still green there, and in 1888 the third centenary of the deliverance was commemorated at Pradelles.

At Naussac, in the opposite direction, on a granite tableland that goes by the name of the Kidney of Lozère, is an ancient house with a tower that formed a portion of the château of Mgr. de Belsunce, the brave Bishop of Marseilles, who was so devoted in his attentions to the plague-stricken in the terrible pestilence of 1720, which carried off forty thousand of its population. S. Alban-en-Montagne is four miles from Langonne in the department of Ardèche. It lies high—3,565 feet.