Stevenson was Protestant by upbringing, and a non-believer by philosophy. The Protestant insurgents were known as the Camisards. Stevenson, like a school teacher would have done, tells us about the Cévennes which were the site of a Protestant rebellion around 1702, severely suppressed by Catholic French king Louis XIV. Why the title Travel with a Donkey in the Cevennes ? Because Modestine, the female donkey is as important as Stevenson in this travel. And Stevenson is much more my kind!įirst he seems, from the first pages, totally franck: he tells us about his troubles, his mistakes, his faults, as well as his joys and the pleasure he takes for this travel as a young and enthousiastic man a tiny twelve days travel, but after which, definitively, nothing will ever be the same for Stevenson. But also so many differencies between Thoreau and Stevenson.
There are similar ways of living their adventures, similar thoughts about nature, food, Men, society and philosophy. Two men living for a certain time in the nature. Few days ago, after finishing Walden by Thoreau, I picked it up… just because it was small ! And what an interesting reading after Walden : I had this book on my shelves for one or two years. All were ready to help in my preparations a crowd of sympathisers supported me at the critical moment of a bargain not a step was taken but was heralded by glasses round and celebrated by a dinner or a breakfast. I was looked upon with contempt, like a man who should project a journey to the moon, but yet with a respectful interest, like one setting forth for the inclement Pole. A traveller of my sort was a thing hitherto unheard of in that district. This was not merely from the natural hospitality of mountain people, nor even from the surprise with which I was regarded as a man living of his own free will in Le Monastier, when he might just as well have lived anywhere else in this big world it arose a good deal from my projected excursion southward through the Cevennes. In the midst of this Babylon I found myself a rallying-point every one was anxious to be kind and helpful to the stranger. Except for business purposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid aside even the civility of speech. There are adherents of each of the four French parties-Legitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists, and Republicans-in this little mountain-town and they all hate, loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. Monastier is notable for the making of lace, for drunkenness, for freedom of language, and for unparalleled political dissension.
In a little place called Le Monastier, in a pleasant highland valley fifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent about a month of fine days. THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE PACK-SADDLE
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