My pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela (2) : Gévaudan, the land of the Beast

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Although Le Puy-en-Velay is a state capital with a statue of Our Lady of France at the top of a hill making it look a bit (seen from far away) like Rio-de-Janeiro, it is a lot less fun, no carnival and no 4G in 2014. Leaving Le Puy the country looks more and more wild, although the area is still civilized. Near Rochegude, there is a railway bridge by Gustave Eiffel (the architect of the Eiffel tower) and in Rochegude, a farm, at the feet of what remains of a 12th C tower which was controlling the Allier valley, has different rubbish bins showing that the place does not ignore selective sorting. Then you enter Gévaudan, a province famous for its Beast that killed more than 100 people between 1764 and 1767. It became a state affair, the king sent the army in 1765 and offered a 6000 Francs reward to kill the Beast. The reward attracted a lot of hunters. One of them killed a big wolf which was said to be the Beast, but the deaths continued until another hunter killed the Beast in 1767. What kind of animal was the Beast is still disputed today. The path was not very reassuring. I followed another hiker, just in case there would be still a Beast in the woods. In Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole the castle, with its rose stones, seems to have been inspired by Italian architecture. The nobility of Gévaudan was rich and was traveling. At the end of the 18th C a Lord tried to plant trees along the path of his village to embellish it. The villagers removed the trees during the night... They were a bit defiant to progress. Then comes Aubrac, a high granitic plateau. Except grass for cows there is not a lot of resources in Aubrac. People migrated massively to Paris during the 19th C where they were selling coal, wine or opened restaurants. Some famous parisian cafés were created by them, like the café de Flore. (Soon the next episode) Photos : Top : a cross on the route to Saint-Privat-d'Allier ; an Eiffel bridge near Rochegude Center : Rochegude ; the path in the woods of Gévaudan ; a woodman's shelter ; the castle of Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole Bottom : megaliths ? No, rocks shaped by a glacier ; a public old water-trough in Aubrac