The St Gilles way or the Regordane trail (GR700) start from Le Puy en Velay to St Gilles and go through one of the most beautiful and wild part of France across the Massif-Central and the Cevennes. Medieval villages, castels, romain way, canyon and very nice and comfortable Guesthouses and Bed and Breakfasts. Itineray, pictures, history of France, information.
GR700
Walking on the Regordane Way or the St Gilles Trail from Auvergne to Languedoc
It
fell asleep, or more precisely dormant... To traverse, it is him to give again the life because its vocation, it was the advance. That of the merchants avernes
and Greeks. That of the knights, the pelerins, the hawkers. Jugglers and
troubadours. Salt, spice, wine trail simple like oil and cheeses. But also "
strategic " road of tin towards the Mediterranean. Francque knighthood goes from
there against the sarrazin. Of the monk in pelerinage towards Gilles Saint and
perhaps the East. A star path in the Milky Way of the voyage which was the
Means-Age.To say of Lozere which it is wedged,
it is to want to be unaware of its history or at least to reduce it at the time
of the railroads...Lozere, and more still its province
of origin
Gevaudan, not
only was never wedged until the medium of XIXe century but, even, can be
regarded as a particularly strong zone of great passages, junctions and roads
where kings, hawkers, monks, knights and merchants, herds and charrios
intersected intensely. The mobiles of such a circulation was varied, tangled up:
monks, economic, military, pastoral; before all it be a zone of
contact essential and privilege between a civilization Mediterranean (that it
be Greek, Roman or Arab) and and a world Scandinavian, the mysterious country of
tin and some dark forest, govern by the people celto-Germanic.
Among
the innumerable roads, feel or drailles which still crosses our province, is to
us perhaps more particularly near, it is the Regordane way which connected Nimes
to Le Puy en
Velay and the country arverne;
Mediterranean in the barbarian world of Gaule, even with the regions strange of
Brittany and Ireland.The origin of this way is lost in the
mists of time. Probably way of natural transhumance then pastoral at the time
prehistoric, very quickly it grows rich by a circulation by goods at the time
Roman between the country arverne and that of Volques centered around Nemausus (Nimes):
wine counters weapons and jewels; oil and salt counter wheat and cheeses...
with the progression of rolling, maintenance then the widening of the roadway
system organizes... tolls and " protections " also because the country is not
very sure and this circulation of rich nesses crams, especially those which
constitute the Eastern products (silk trade, spices) arrived by the wearing of
Gilles Saint and going up towards the famous Champagne fairs.Places of meet, of exchange are
constituted, starts cities and boroughs which we know today:
Chamborigaud,
Genolhac,
Langogne,
Villefort,
stages, shelters, warehouses of a trade which enriches the bordering
populations. Fortresses appear, the such castle of Gates or the
Guerin Guard
which protect (or oppose) these economic but so cultural currents.
Because
quite naturally, the Regordane way becomes in more one road of pilgrimage. If
the inns flower, the places of worship also and its sets of relics whose our
Average Age has the so delicious secrecy. Just to North, towards Puy, passes the
path of Jacques Saint. That of Teutons, which drains all North East of Europe
towards the Marial Sanctuary of Le Puy en Velay. Carrefour for Jacquets and
others pilgrims which by Regordane will offer a descent towards the large
Monastery of Gilles Saint and his port to the many destinations.Path religious, tourist, cultural
also where ribaudes and feast, trouvere and chanson de geste enamel a
pilgrimage somewhat " longuet ". The hotel of this time look after already the
greeting and be unaware of not the animation... the account warlike of crusade
(and one know that towards the South and the Spain, the crusade be largely
former with Cross) offer a support of dream and some history with long night of
mythical valley
Cevennes.
It is necessary to follow the
Regordane way, to discover its ancestral paving, which they are Roman or "François". It is necessary to observe under the vegetation the ruts left in the
rock by the carriages heavily charged with mysterious food products to the
dubious destinies; these boroughs and these porches considerable which swallowed
at the falling night horses and mules, bundles and hawkers to restore
them the morning in the sunny freshness of the colors, the rumors, the odors...
It is necessary, with the length of our tour, in the many traces which left our parents of this time, knowledge to read their concern, their hopes, their myths. Guilhem with the court Nes, Fierbrace is always there, present and irons of its destrier still resound on the ancestral flagstone. He which borrowed Regordane starting from Le Puy en Velay to take again Nimes in Sarrazins. Felons which (in true God do not believe nor in Dame Marie). They thus deserve an exemplary punishment:
Vestent hauberz, lacent hiaumes gemez
Ceingnent espees a ponz d'or noielez
Montent es seles des destriers atrivez;
A lor cops pendent lor forz escus bouclez,
and en lor poinz les espiez noielez.
De la vile issent et rengie et serre
Devant els font l'oriflanbe porte
Tout droit vers Nymes se sont achemine.
A tot dis mille de François bien armez
qui de bataille estoient aprestez...
Par mi forez et par bois chevauchierent
Par Ricordane outre s'en trespasserent,
De si au Pui onques ne s'aresterent...
Ten thousand knights on Regordane? the path lived its hours of glory. Would too much prosperity, out of joy kill? Would a thousand-year-old history be inserted in the lapse of memory? Like always alive Merlin with the lady of the lake, the memory of Regordane laps gently under the water's surface. As at the end of XIVe century when the Hundred Years
War made us forsake our territory, time has made us lose the Regordane.
The valley of the Rhone and the honest fairs of Lyon will come again. Re-appearing in XVIIIe century from the royal will, it sparkles again because its life is elsewhere.More nothing? Ruins, brousailles, paving, a path. It is here, it is there...
But does it hold prisoners on the sides of the sirens? The music is still there. Perfumes and sonnailles have not finished telling its innumerable legends. And the disjoined paving stones sing deaf an old song.
Enveloping and eternal are its shores. And its mirages which lead nowhere safe at the end of our dreams.
The
priest's journey Aulanier du Brignon on de
Regordane way in the XVIIe century.
16 november 1644 : de bon matin (start) pour le voyage de Nisme en
Languedoc disner à Pradelles où despense 16 sols; à Pranlas un picotin pour ma
cavale et collation : 5 sols 6 deniers et souper et coucher à la Bastide, au
logis des trois rois, 23 sols.
17 november : partis à l'aube du jour
de la Bastide, fus disner à Villefort au logis des trois rois, despense 17 sols
6 deniers; collation et picotin à Genolhac, 4 sols 6 deniers; souper et coucher au Pradel chez le logis appele Fornier, despense 19 sols 9 deniers.
18 november :
parti du Pradel au lever du jour, l'Abbe Aulanier
dine à la Lege d'Alais où il depense 23 sols 3 deniers pour lui et son cheval;
il fait collation et donne l'avoine à la Barraque de la Bitarelle où 9 sols 6
deniers sont depenses; et enfin il arrive pour souper et coucher à Nismes ce
qui lui coûte 25 sols 9 deniers compris 2 sols au port.
P.
Grelet de la Deyte, at the end of
de XVIIe century, has been traveling between le Puy and Montperlier:
« Jey fait deux voyages en la ville de Montpellier … savoir au mois de juin de
l'annee 1681 et l'autre au mois de janvier 1692. Pour y aller il faut passer du
Puy à Bisac, à Costerot, à la Sauvetat, à Pradelles, à Langonhe, à Luc, à Pranla,
à Regletout, à la chapelle Saint Thomas, au Tord, à la Molete, à la Garde Guerin,
à Bayard, à Villefort, à Viluy, à Genoulhac, à Chamber Rigau, à Porte, au Pradel,
au Maviau, à Saint Martin, à la ville d'Allex, à la Taverne, auquel lieu il faut
passer la riviere du Gardon, à Ladinghan, à Crepian et à la chapelle, à la ville
de Soumiere, à Formaingnhe, au Pont Neuf et à Montpellier. D'icy à Montpellier
il y a environ 35 lieux. »
PAYRARD, J.B. Petites ephemerides vellaviennes. 1889, Le Puy en Velay. " Le livre de raison de Louis Jouve " dans Bulletin historique et scientifique de l'Auvergne. Tome XXXIII, n°603, 1964.
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Guesthouses and Bed & Breakfasts on the Regordane Way (St Gilles way).
GR-Infos Stevenson Trail GR70 |
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Old romantic Hotel, L'Etoile Guest-House is a mountain retreat in the South of France. With a beautiful park along the Allier River, L'Etoile Guesthouse is located in La Bastide Puylaurent between Lozere, Ardeche and Cevennes. Many hiking trails like GR70 Stevenson trail, Regordane way (St Gilles trail), GR7, GR72, GRP Le Cevenol, Roujanel, Margeride loop and Allier river trail. The right place to relax.