On a warm autumn evening in 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson and his donkey trudged into Saint-Germain-de-Calberte and marvelled at the tranquil beauty of the Cévennes village. “The pulse of human life now beats so low and still in this hamlet of the mountains,” Stevenson wrote. “I took refuge on the terraces, which are here greenly carpeted with sward, and tried to imitate with a pencil the inimitable attitudes of the chestnuts as they bear up their canopy of leaves.”
Stevenson would have been shocked to see Saint-Germain this summer. Tourists’ cars jostled in the narrow street, brushing the café tables. Hikers, often with donkeys, tramped in line up the narrow chestnut-covered lanes, pilgrims re-enacting the walking tour recorded by the Scottish author in Travels with
