Travelling with Stevenson ...

... It has been quite a while since I last wrote a Stevenson post. But, after a trawl through my old journals from my numerous travels in the Cévennes, I've discovered a few nuggets of previously unpublished bits of info and, most surprisingly, a pic!  Read on ... 

On one of my earliest trips to Mende and the surrounding area, I came across a very odd-looking scene on a mountainside.  At that point, I didn't carry a camera with me everywhere I went.  So, I just quickly sketched what I could see in my notebook.  As I was thumbing through my notes from that trip, I came across the said sketch.  I had completely forgotten it was there.  I had also ignored the action point I gave myself at that time: Find out what these funny little trees really are.

Finally, I have done that research, the sketch is above, and an idea came into my head for a plot line as a result.  In Mazargues, one of the local farmers has an issue with wood being stolen from his copse of trees that sits at one edge of his land.  That character is Fermier Sallan.  It's Didier Duclos who takes charge of the investigation, and he brings it to the best conclusion he can under the circumstances.  But it's quite clear that Didier isn't really happy with how the matter is resolved.

In Meyrueis, Fermier Sallan turns up at Jacques' office in Mende along with his younger brother, Maurice.  It turns out that the Sallan family are being targeted again, but this time it's because of their bees.  Maurice Sallan's wife manages the bees and their hives.  She sells the honey in Mende and at markets in and around the area.  The day before the brothers come into town to see Jacques, one of the hives has been destroyed.  As always, Jacques takes on the case, and he and Didier go to the farm to see the real problem for themselves.

It was my research into the origins and use of the 'strange little trees' I had discovered on the hillside that day that came to my rescue when I needed a subplot for Meyrueis.  In the Cévennes, a particular type of bee is kept up on the slopes - the European Black Bee.  It is still a proper honey bee, but it is more hardy than the bees we see all over the UK.  It is particularly suited to the harsh climate of the mountainsides and, because of the uniqueness of the flora in the area, the resulting honey has a flavour all of its own.  A bit like the honey from Scotland, where the bees feed on the pollen from the heather.  Honey has been produced in the mountains of the Cévennes for centuries. You can still see vestiges of this in the national park where the ancient farming practices are preserved.  So there are no white painted square hives as we are used to seeing in the UK.  The hives are old chestnut tree trunks that are hollowed out and then set on a small plinth.  The bees create their colony in the space inside the trunk, and pieces of wood are laid on the top. The flat stone laid across each hive is there to keep it safe from the winds.

Along with the sketch in my notebook, I also jotted down a brief description, and the couple of phrases are the basis for a description that I gave to Jacques ...

'Coming out of the shade of a small stand of trees, Jacques saw that the hillside had some kind of stepped arrangement reaching up, the highest point already in the first light from the morning sun. On the terraces, he could see round tree trunks with what appeared to be large flat stones on top. They were arranged like a resting army in uneven ranks. Not all quite the same height or width. Not all standing perfectly upright.'

There will be more from Meyrueis and the Causse Here, and if you want to read my earlier posts click the links Meyrueis Part 1  Meyrueis Part 2

If you want to read about my time following Robert Louis Stevenson through the Cévennes, here's the link Following Stevenson