Page:A book of the Cevennes (-1907-).djvu/69

Rh Arvant curves round the town before it settles into the station, much as a dog turns about before he lies down to snooze.

What at once arrests the eye on approaching Le Puy is that out of the very midst of the basin up start two rocks; the largest is Mont Anis, and about this, up its steep sides, the town scrambles. On a ledge above all the houses is the cathedral, and soaring above that again is the rock of Corneille, crowned by a colossal statue of the Virgin fifty-two feet high, and the largest in the world. It is run out of two hundred Russian cannons taken at Sebastopol, and stands on a pedestal of twenty feet. It is a disfigurement to the town, for it dwarfs the venerable cathedral. The site was formerly occupied by a ruined tower.

The other rock is the Aiguilhe, the Needle, on the summit of which stands the church of S. Michel, reached by 265 steps cut in the face of the rock.

The town is composed of houses grappling to every ledge; the streets are stone stairs, and the place is staged on steps. When to this is added that the cathedral is unique in its way, a marvel of Romanesque architecture, treated in original fashion, then it will be conceived that Le Puy is an attractive place to visit.

But when we come to consider how it may be reached we are beset with difficulties. The direct line from Paris is undoubtedly that leading to Vichy, but the trains from Vichy onward do not correspond, and are moreover omnibus trains that loiter for six hours and a half over seventy-four miles.

Nor can we reach Le Puy by the main line from Paris to Nîmes in a day, for at the junction, S. George's d'Aubrac, the trains do not communicate, and there is