VOLCANOS OF THE HAUTE LOIRE AND THE ARDECHE. 255 
with a villa or castle ; ” and relates, on the authority of Gregory 
of Tours, how Theodoric, the eldest son of Clovis, led his 
troops, reinforced by the fiercest barbarians of Germany, 
and spread desolation over the fruitful face of Auvergne. Two 
places only, a strong castle and a holy shrine, were saved or 
redeemed from their licentious fury. The fortress he fixes on 
was at a place called 44 Castel Merliac, two miles from Mauriac.” 
At all events, the higher rocks and commanding situations 
appear to have everywhere been fortified at an early period, 
as the Puy Pallet near Clermont. On the occasion alluded 
to, the church of Brioude was sacked, and a division made of the 
spoils at a small distance from the town. 
To the west of Brioude are the high granite summits of Le 
Forez near La Chaise Dieu, where rise numerous tributary 
streams both of the Allier and the Loire. This is a wild in- 
hospitable district, with forests of fir still tenanted by wolves. 
Here, too, as in Cevennes, the Huguenots, when they became 
an isolated and proscribed race, often took shelter, during the 
Beign of Terror in the days of Louis XIV. The singular 
village of La Chaise Dieu was once famous for its Benedictine 
abbey, founded as early as 1452 by a canon of Brioude, who 
was afterwards looked upon as a saint, under the title of, St. 
Bobert. The once extensive monastery is now desolate enough, 
the great tower and some melancholy buildings attached to it 
being all that remains. The church is remarkable for its size, 
its fine windows, carved oak, and a fine tomb and figure of 
Clement VI. But where are the worshippers ? All is moulder- 
ing and damp, and the country around is wild and drear, the 
granitic gneiss weathering into a poor unfertile soil, traversed 
by torrents, which in rainy weather turn the Loire and Allier 
into roaring floods. 
Nevertheless, the geologist may in this district gather a 
good deal of information as to the physical conformation of the 
country long, long ago. He may roam among those granite 
heights and restore in imagination the features of the country, 
even as far back as Eocene times, before the mountains of 
Cantal, Mont Dore, or Monts Dome, now such grand features in 
the landscape, had any existence. No doubt long ages of denuda- 
tion have planed down the peaks and precipices of the old 
granitic mountains ; but there stand 44 the eternal hills, ” their 
forms and features greatly changed perhaps, but looking down 
now from the most elevated heights upon towns and villages 
where once flowed the waters of fresh-water lakes. By the 
shores of the old lake of Le Puy the long extinct forms of the 
palaeothere and anoplothere might have been seen roaming 
about; and the gazelle-like xiphodon was chased by the hyseno- 
don over the granite mountains which rose above the lakes. 
