Page:Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe.djvu/128

 of this grotto, which is from 15 to 18 feet square, is in part closed by a breastwork of stone.

Below this cave is a very large shelter cut out square-headed in the cliff, but not deep; and this is used by the peasants of Soulier as a place for stacking their hay. Square hollows wrought in the rock show that formerly some building was accommodated to it, and the roof ran back under it. In Auvergne are many souterrains that have served as places of concealment in times of war. The Puy de Clierson occupies the centre of an area of four volcanoes. It is shaped like a bell, the slopes are covered with brushwood, and a ring of broken rocks forms the precipitous wall of the circular and flattish cap. The hill is composed of trachyte, and the upper portion is perforated in all directions by galleries and vaults that served formerly as a quarry for the extraction of stone of which the Romans formed their sarcophagi, in consequence of its powers of absorption of the moisture exuding from the bodies laid in their stone chests. The same may be said of Le Grand Sarcoui, shaped like a kettle turned bottom upwards. In some of the galleries are unfinished sarcophagi. But although originally quarries, they were used as refuges in later times. At Corent, on the Allier near Veyre-Mouton, are refuges in caves, so also at Blot-l'Eglise near Menat, which served the purpose during the troubles of the League.

Meschers is a village in Charante Inférieure, lying in the lap of a chalk hill that extends to a bluff above the Gironde. This cliff is honeycombed with caves, excavated perhaps originally as quarries, but several certainly served as habitations; the several chambers or dwellings are reached by a ledge running along the face of the cliff, but the chambers of each particular cave-house have doors of intercommunication cut through this rock. The Grottes de Meschers are said to have been used by the Huguenots at a time when it was perilous to assemble in a house for