Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe - Sabine Baring-Gould (books to read to improve english TXT) 📗

by three circular airholes, 6 inches in diameter. There are numerous silos in the floor, and fragments of coarse grey pottery turned on the wheel have been found there. [Footnote: _Revue de l'Art Chretienne_, Paris, 1868, p. 498 _et seq_.]

M. L. Druyn, in his _La Guyenne Militaire_, Bordeaux, 1865, gives the following account of a refuge he explored. "Ascending the valley that separates the castle of Roquefort from the church of Lugasson, after having passed the village of Fauroux, one reaches, on the left side of the road, a splendid quarry of hard stone, but a few paces further on, upon the same side, the stone becomes soft. Here on the right, in a little coppice beside the road, is found a place of refuge of which I give the plan as accurately as it was possible for me to take it where one had to crawl on hands and knees, and sometimes wriggle forward lying on one's stomach, over earth that was damp and rubble fallen from above, and in corridors completely filled by one human body.

"The entrance is at A on a level with the soil outside against the rock, but this cannot have been the original place of admission. It is a round hole and very narrow. The real entrance was at K, where one can distinguish a circular opening like the orifice of a silo, but which is now in the open and is choked with stones; or else at the end of the gallery H B. The chamber Y containing silos for preservation of grain must have been the furthest extremity. It is 6 feet 3 inches high, and the floor is higher above the mouth of the silos than elsewhere. The cavern is hewn out of the rock. All the chambers are circular. They are vaulted for the most part in the form of low cupolas. The domes of some are so low that one cannot stand upright in them. The corridors are still lower than the chambers, and one can only get along them by creeping. The extremities of the corridors and the entrances to the chambers had doors originally. One can see the notches for the reception of the closing beams. I saw no trace of hinges. The passages are all arched over in semicircle."

Lacoste, speaking of the Saracen invasion and devastation of Quercy, says that "in Lower Quercy, where caverns are not common as they are in Upper Quercy, the inhabitants dug _souterrains_ with a labour that only love of life could prompt. Three of vast extent have been discovered at Fontanes, Mondoumerc, and Olmie. That of Mondoumerc is cut in the tufa, and is about 20 feet deep. It consists of an infinity of cells, or small chambers, united by a corridor. But the vastest and most remarkable for its extent and the labour devoted on it, is that of Olmie. The chambers are scooped out of a very hard sandstone. In some of them are little wells or reservoirs that were filled with water as a precaution against thirst, if refugees were obliged to remain long in this asylum. The passages, with their turns, constitute a veritable labyrinth whence it would be hard to find one's way out without the assistance of a guide."

The entrance to these hiding-places was either under a ledger stone in a church, or through a cellar, or half-way down a well, or in a thicket.

It must be remembered that it was the duty of every feudal seigneur to provide for the safety of his vassels, and the security of their goods. Consequently a great number of such _souterrains_ are under castles or in the grounds of a feudal lord. The rock on which his towers stood was often drilled through and through with galleries, chambers, and store places, for this purpose. On the alarm being given of the approach of an army marching through the land, of a raid by a marauding neighbour, or the hovering of a band of brigands over the spot, within a few hours all this underground world was filled with ploughs, looms, bedding, garments, household stuff of every description, and rang with the bleating of sheep, the lowing of oxen, the neighing of horses, and the whimpering of women and children. At Vendome, the rock on which stands the castle is riddled with passages and halls, access to which is obtained not from the castle, but from the town. At Lavardin by Montoire it is the same. At Paulin in Tarn is a noble castle standing on a rock 300 feet high, and in this rock are storerooms, halls, a kitchen, a winding staircase. At Montvalon- Tauriac, in the same department, under the castle are refuges and granaries. At Murat in Cantal is the castle of Anterroche, and the rocks about it are traversed with galleries leading to chambers containing silos. At Salles-la-Source in Aveyron, in a cleft of the plateau, is the castle of the Count of Armagnac, and here also there is the same provision. At S. Sulpice in Tarn are the remains of a castle built in 1247, with its chapel over crypts and galleries carved out of the living stone. At Contigne, in Maine-et-Loire, is the manor of Gatines, underneath which are _souterrains_ that extend for a mile, with store-chambers and chapels, hewn out of the tufa. I might mention a hundred more. But all these pertain to a period before the feudal system had sunk into one of oppression, and when the vassals had confidence in their seigneur. In process of time the conditions altered, and then they contrived their own private hiding-places from their lords and masters.

The stories everywhere prevalent where there are castles, that there are under them passages connecting them with a church, a river, or another castle, are probably due to the fact of there having been these subterranean retreats intended for the use of the vassals. But when these latter ceased to look to their lords to protect them, and cast about instead to shelter themselves from their lords, the original purport of these _souterrains_ was forgotten and misinterpreted.

One has but to look through the brief notices of towns and villages in Joanne's Departmental Geographies to see what a number of these refuges are already known to exist in France. And he records, be it remembered, only the most interesting. There are thousands more that have either not yet been discovered or remain unexplored. Some are revealed by accident; a peasant is ploughing, when his oxen are suddenly engulfed, and he finds that they have broken through the roof of one of these hiding-places. A gentleman is building his chateau, when in sinking his foundations he finds the rock like a petrified sponge--but not like a sponge in this, that the galleries are artificial. A _paysan_ lets himself down his well to clean it out, as the water is foul. He finds that in the side of the shaft is the opening of a passage; he enters, follows it, and finds a labyrinth of galleries.

As an instance of the abundance of the _souterrains_ in France, I will take the department of Vienne and give in a note below a list of the communes where they are known to be, from _De Longuemar, Geographie du dep. de la Vienne_, Poitiers, 1882, and also from several editions of Joanne's Geography. [Footnote: Natural grottoes that may have served as refuges are not included. Availles, Bellefonds, Bethines, Beruges, Bonnes, Bussieres, Chateau Gamier, Champniers, Curzay, Civeaux, Gouex, Ingrandes, S. Julien Lars, Jazneuil, Leugny- sur-Creuse, Loudun, Lautiers, Lusignan, Marnay, Maire-le-Gautier, S. Martin-Lars, S. Martin-la-Riviere, Maslou Montmorillon, Mazerolles, Mondion, Maulay, Montreuil-Bonnin, Naintre, Princai, Romagne, S. Remy- sur-Creuse, Saulge, Nouvaille, Persac, S. Savin, Sossais, Thure, Usson, Varennes, Le Vigean, Veniers, Velleches, Verrieres, Venneuil-sur-Biard. Several of these are under churches, others under castles. At some of these places are three or more distinct _souterrains._]

Victor Hugo, in his _Quatrevingt Treise_, speaking of the war in La Vendee, says: "It is difficult to picture to oneself what these Breton forests really were. They were towns. Nothing could be more secret, more silent, and more savage. There were wells round and small, masked by coverings of stones or by branches. The interiors at first vertical, then carried horizontally, spread out underground like tunnels, and ended in dark chambers." These excavations, he states, had been there from time immemorial. He continues: "One of the wildest glades of the wood at Misdon, perforated by galleries and cells, out of which came and went a mysterious society, was called 'The Great City.' The gloomy Breton forests were servants and accomplices of rebellion. The subsoil of every forest was a sort of sponge, pierced and traversed in all directions by a secret highway of mines, cells and galleries. Each of these blind cells could shelter five or six men. Usually the cover, made of moss and branches, was so artistically fashioned that, although impossible on the outside to distinguish it from the surrounding turf, it was very easy to open and close from the inside. In several of these forests and woods there were not only subterranean villages grouped about the burrow of the chief, but also actual hamlets of low huts hidden under the trees. These underground belligerents were kept perfectly informed of what was going on. Nothing could be more rapid, nothing more mysterious, than their means of communication. Sometimes they raised the cover of their hiding-places and listened to hear if there was fighting in the distance." He mentions the ability of the ambushed men to spring up, as it were, under the feet of the armies sent against them. And to show the numbers of the concealed forces, he continues: "There are in existence lists which enable one to understand the powerful organisation of that vast peasant rebellion. In Isle-et- Villaine, in the forest of Pertre, not a human trace was to be found, yet there were collected 6000 men under Focard. In the forest of Meullac, in Morhiban, not a soul was to be seen, yet it held 8000 men. These deceptive copses were filled with fighters, lurking in an underground labyrinth."

On March 26, 1807, Napoleon demanded a fresh conscription of 80,000 men. This was the third levy that had been called for since the Prussian War began. The three conscriptions supplied no less than 240,000 men in seven months, and the call for the third produced consternation throughout France. The number of young men who reached the age of eighteen annually in half a year, more than the entire annual generation, had been swept off to lay their bones in the East of Europe. Great numbers of young fellows fled to the woods, caves, and secret refuges, and concealed themselves; and the gendarmes were employed in hunting them out, but not often with success unless aided by a traitor. Again in 1812, when Napoleon meditated an invasion of Russia, fresh calls were made on the male population. Every male capable of bearing arms was forced to assume them, and again, as in 1807, the young men disappeared as rabbits underground. It is quite possible that the peasants, who have found these refuges so convenient in the past, should know more about them and where they are situated than they pretend, thinking that at some future time, another revolution or another German invasion, the knowledge may prove serviceable.

And now let us turn to Picardy, perhaps the one of the ancient provinces of France most undermined. On the night of February 13, 1834, after heavy rains, a portion of the wall of the apse of the parish church of Gapennes, half-way between Aussy-le-Chateau and S. Ricquier, collapsed, and in the morning the inhabitants of the commune were stupefied to see the desolation of the holy place. Not only was a large breach gaping in the sanctuary, but all the