CEVENNES (ancient Cebenna), the chief mountain range in the s. of France. With its continuations and offsets, it forms the water-shed between the river systems of the Rhone and the Garonne. Its general direction is from n.e. to s.w., commencing at the southern extremity of the Lyonnais mountains, and extending under different local names as far as the canal du Midi, which divides it from the northern slopes of the Pyrenees. The central mass of the C. lies in the departments Lozere and Ardeche, Mont Lozere reaching an elevation of 4,884 ft., and Mont Mozen (the culminating point of the chain) an elevation of 5,794 feet. The average height is from 3000 to 4000 feet. The masses consist chiefly of amphibolic rocks, grauwacke, and limestone, covered with tertiary formations, which in many places are interrupted by volcanic rocks.
The C. has been celebrated as the arena of religious warfare. As early as the 12th c. the several sects known by the names, the " Poor of Lyon," the .Albigenses (q.v.), and the Waklenses (q.v.), were known and persecuted in this district. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. in 1685, a series of cruel persecutions of the Protestants in the C. began, especially in 1697, after the peace of Ryswick. `• Dragon nades" (q.v.) were employed to enforce the doctrines of the monks sent as missionaries into the heretical district. All persons suspected of Protestantism met with the most harsh and cruel treatment. Some of the inhabitants emigrated, others fled into the
fastnesses of the mountains. Driven to desperation, the persecuted people at length rose to arms, and the murder of the abbe du Chaila, who was at the head of the dragon. nades, gave the signal of a general insurrection in 1702. The insurgent peasants were styled eamisards—possibly from earn i se, a smock worn by the peasantry. Headed by bold leaders, the most famous of whom were Cavalier and Roland, they defeated the troops sent against them by Louis again and again, until that king thought the insurrec tion of sufficient importance to require the presence of the distinguished general, mar shal Villars; but he was recalled before the revolt had been put down, and it was left to the duke of Berwick to extinguish it in blood; the contest terminating in an entire des olation of the province, and the destruction or banishment of a great portion of the inhabitants. The embers of religious hatred still remained glimmering through the fol lowing century, and, after the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, burst out into flames in the terrible persecution of the Protestants in Nimes (q.v.) and other places in the s. of France. See Ilistoire des Troubles des Cevennes by Court de Gebelin (1760); Schulz's Gesehichte der Camisarden (1790); Bray's Revolt of the Protestants of the C. (1870).