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The young Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson who later became famous for “Treasure Island” and “Kidnapped” stayed in the small village of Le Monastier sur Gazeille in the Haute Loire to arrange a walk through Velay and Cevennes. He wanted to meet the inhabitants of this mountainous, backward area, one of the last parts of France where Protestantism still prevailed after the wars of Religion and slaughters in the 17th Century. In his opinion these people, called Camisards where the French equivalent of the persecuted Covenanters of his own country.
On the 22nd. September 1878 he left on foot from Monastier sur Gazeille with a pack donkey called Modestine. 12 days, 156 miles and a host of adventures later he arrived at St. Jean du Gard in the South of Cevennes.
The book he wrote describing this expedition, “Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes”, made him well-known for the first time.
Today, the RLS Trail has become a classic route across the hills and along the valleys of this delightful region of rural France.
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