Mont Lozère is the highest peak in the Cévennes National Park of France, at 1,699 metres (5,574 ft). There is also a secondary peak. Mont Lozère is commonly used for skiing during the winter months. It is also a popular destination for school/college/university groups during the summer months . It offers some stunning natural scenery and is covered by coniferous plantations and 'broom'scrub moorland. Mount Lozere is also the source of the River Tarn.

The Camisards

The religious war of the Camisards broke out in 1702 in Pont de Montvert. The religious stuggle between Protestants and Catholics began in 1589 with the Edict of Nantes, issued by Henry IV of France. The edit granted the French Protestants to practice their religion without persecution, but it was revoked in 1685 by Louis XIV. After that the practice of the austere Protestant faith was forebidden by the authorities. As a result some 400,000 French Protestants or "Huguenots" fled the country, many settling in Britain.

Many left the Cévennes, but being hardy mountain people many resisted the imposition of Catholicism. TRoops were billeted with many people to force them to adopt Catholicism, and atrocities, torture, imprisonment, deportation and execution were commonplace. On 24th July 1702 the Abbé du Chayla, the Catholic governor of the district around Pont de Montvert, was brutally murdered by a group of 52 men, an event which started the 100-year-long War of the Camisards. This continued untill 1789 when the Revolutionary Government granted religious freedom to the French Protestants. Pierre-Espirit Séguier, the leader of the gand, was captured within a few days and was burnt alive on 12th August. The Protestants became known as the "Camisards" after their shirts ("camisa" in the old Occitan language), a distinguishing feature from the French army in uniform and armour. At the time of Robert Louis Stevenson's visit in 1878 the war was within living memory.

Spinning

From the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, the local breeding was mainly that of sheep. It allowed the development of cadisserie, that is to say the manufacture of woolen cloth. This was done on a family basis.

Only Le Pont-de-Montvert possessed spinning equipment, founded in 1888 by Monsieur Saumade. Situated on the site of an old mill at the foot of La Jalerie street, it used the hydraulic energy of the Rieumalet. Its activity ceased in 1931.