196 Travels in France 



Le Puy, another commanding one rises to a vast height; with 

 another more singular for its tower-Uke form, — on the top of 

 which St. Michael's church is built. Gypsum and limestone 

 abound ; and the whole country is volcanic ; the very meadows 

 are on lava: everything, in a word, is either the product of fire, 

 or has been disturbed or tossed about by it. At Le Puy, fair 

 day, and a table d'hote, with ignorance as usual. Many coffee- 

 houses, and even considerable ones, but not a single newspaper 

 to be found in any. — 15 miles. 



i8/A. Leaving Puy, the hill which the road mounts on the way 

 to Costerous, for four or five miles, commands a view of the town 

 far more picturesque than that of Clermont. The mountain, 

 covered with its conical town crowned by a vast rock, with those 

 of St. Michael and of Polignac, form a most singular scene. The 

 road is a noble one, formed of lava and pozzolana. The adjacent 

 declivities have a strong disposition to run into basaltic penta- 

 gons and sexagons; the stones put up in the road, by way of 

 posts, are parts of basaltic columns. The inn at Pradelles, kept 

 by three sisters, Pichots, is one of the worst I have met with in 

 France. Contraction, poverty, dirt, and darkness. — 20 miles. 



19/A. To Thuytz; pine woods abound; there are saM^-mills, 

 and with ratchet wheels to bring the tree to the saw, without the 

 constant attention of a man, as in the Pyrenees; a great im- 

 provement. Pass by a new and beautiful road along the side of 

 immense mountains of granite; chestnut trees spread in every 

 quarter, and cover with luxuriance of vegetation rocks apparently 

 so naked that earth seems a stranger. This beautiful tree is 

 known to delight in volcanic soils and situations : many are very 

 large ; I measured one fifteen feet in circumference, at five from 

 the ground; and many are nine to ten feet, and fifty to sixty 

 high. At Maisse ^ the fine road ends, and then a rocky, almost 

 natural one for some miles; but for half a mile before Thuytz 

 recover the new one again, which is here equal to the finest to 

 be seen, formed of volcanic materials, forty feet broad, without 

 the least stone, a firm and naturally level cemented surface. 

 They tell me that 1800 toises of it, or about 2| miles, cost 

 180,000 livres (£8250). It conducts, according to custom, to a 

 miserable inn but with a large stable; and in every respect 

 Monsieur Grenadier excels the Demoiselles Pichots. Here mul- 

 berries first apppear, and with them flies; for this is the first 

 day I have been incommoded. At Thuytz I had an object which 

 I supposed would demand a whole day: it is within four hours' 



* Mayres. 



