Millions of years later, early man followed them, creating a simple path. Some historians suggest that by Phoenician times it was used as part of a convoy route for tin, from the Normandy port of Saint-Valéry-en-Caux to the Mediterranean. Certainly, the Romans used it to move metals around, but it was in the Middle Ages, after the Carolingian Empire broke up, that it became a major trunk route. The Rhône valley became part of the Germanic Empire, and la Voie Régordane then became the easternmost trunk route in France.

By now, man had developed carts drawn by animals, allowing much heavier loads to be moved. The trail changed from a single file footpath to a  track with two ruts about 1.4 metres apart. If you follow the path southwards from La Bastide Puylaurent you can still see these ruts in the ancient schist of the Thort plateau. At Génholac you will also see vestiges of the gothic arches of the entrances to village houses which were built over the vast warehouses used to store produce along the route.

The track known as ‘la Voie Régordane’, which connected ancient France (today’s Île-de-France, Paris and the surrounding region) with the Languedoc, runs from Le Puy-en-Velay in the Cévennes to Saint-Gilles on the edge of the Camargue. Strictly, it should be called ‘le Chemin de Régordane’ – the name ‘la Voie Régordane’, implying ‘Via’, a Roman road, appeared in the 20th century.

For many people, the favorite way to sample  le Chemin de Régordane is to start with a night at a gîte called L’Etoile in the village of  La Bastide Puylaurent. If you take a quick look at the English version of their web site, you’ll understand why.

In the evening, sample a meal accompanied by home-made bread, spring water and wine from the nearby monastery of Notre Dame des Neiges. On 26 October 1878, Robert Louis Stephenson stayed at the monastery – you can read an evocative account in his book ‘Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes’.

Somewhere between 7:30 and 9:30 the next morning (depending on the sort of person you are), sample some more home-made bread, with honey, as part of your breakfast. Now you are ready to set out on the Cévenol section of le Chemin de Régordane, which passes through the village a mere 100 metres away. You can get a good feel for it by walking as far as La Garde Guérin or Villefort – or if you are a dedicated trail follower you can go all the way to the Mediterranean, stopping off in gîtes on the way, and perhaps taking side trips to any of a score of fascinating places which I’ll describe in other articles. (How about pedalling your way along a railway line on a modified version of the old hand-driven trolleys used for track maintenance?)

The Chemin de Régordane takes its name from the ancient Province – la Regordana – through which it passes. This Province corresponded approximately to the area enclosed by the towns of Alés, Pradelles and Largentière. The section we will follow starts on the high volcanic plateaux of Thort, Les Molettes and Garde-Guérin, then it is cut out of the schist slopes of the Céze Valley. In the 12^th and 13^th centuries, developments in harness design led to carts drawn by teams of animals (typically oxen), but they were still limited to loads of about 500 kilos (half a tonne) because of the way they were constructed. In the second half of the 12th century, the epic poem ‘Le Charroi de Nîmes’ talks of the pays de Régordane and its profusion of carts: “… char et charettes i a à grant planté…”.

The reason was the climate of the time, which was similar to the one it enjoys now. Vegetable crops were abundant, and some of the resulting wealth was used to build the cathedrals we still admire. In the 14th century, the climate became cold and damp, malnourishment became common, and bubonic plague halved the population while the Hundred Years’ War devastated the country.

The carts disappeared and the tracks degenerated. Traffic was reduced to convoys of mules some of which, carrying silver and saffron, fell victim to bands of English robbers. It was only towards the end of the 17th century, triggered perhaps by the King’s concern over the Protestants of the Cévennes, that le Chemin de Régordane came back to life.

Maintaining it was a never-ending task. Swollen streams from the early autumn storms quickly eroded the gravel surface, and often did more serious damage. La Côte de Bayard, the section between Villefort and La Garde-Guérin, needed to be rebuilt completely every ten years. It used to zigzag directly up the slope above the village of Bayard, but in the middle of the 18th century it was abandoned and replaced by a long diagonal route across the slope below La Cham Morte. This is the ruined track you take today, showing the remains of paving which may look Roman but was built during the First Empire.

The new traffic dug narrower ruts – about 1.2 metres apart. The carts, copied from those currently used in the Velay, were narrower than the Roman ones although they carried greater loads.

But the 19th century brought accelerated progress. Horses were more powerful than oxen, and it was more efficient to build roads on which they could trot rather than walk. The result is the modern road, with about 650 bends between Alès and Pradelles. Now even the drivers of heavy trucks find this frustrating and even dangerous - they would rather have a steeper straight road. Maybe one day they’ll get it, and hikers will have a new trail at their disposal.