Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1875-07-24
THE FLOODS IN FRANCE.
Further Details Of the Terrible Disaster--
Frizhtfal Loss Of Life and Destruction OF
Property.

the recent disasters in southern France
enable us to measure their scope and
force more accurately than was possible
from the meager outlines of the cable
news, they assume the proportions al
most of a cataclysm. Nothing approach
ing these foods in severity and in the
extent Of fertile, densely populated
country ravaged by them, has been wit
messed before during the current cen
tury. In one and another locality the
stricken inhabitants seek some sort of
comfort in the reflection that twenty
years ago, in 1852, or forty years ago, in
1885, their own particular region was
visited by flood as sweeping and as If
resistible. But even in regard to these
instances it must be remembered that
the foundations of 1886 or of 1852 over
took country less thickly inhabited and
destroyed industries less richly devel-
oped than now. The range of the floods
of 1875 covers the whole width of south
ern France from Beziers, on the shores
of the Gulf of Lyons, to Bayonne, on
the Bay of Biscay. Portions of at
least twelve departments, which in all
contain more than four millions of in
habitants, and occupy an area of more
than ninety thousand square kilometers
have been submerged, in many cases to
the depth of from nine to twenty-five
English feet. To enable us to imagine
what this means, we may fancy, for ex-
ample, the State of Maine inhabited by
the population of the State of New
York, and flooded by simultaneous
rise of all its inland waters from Moose
head lake to the Atlantic.
Two mountain chains, the Pyrenees,
which run from the southeast to the
northwest, along the Spanish frontier of
France, and the Cevennes, which run
from the northeast to the southwest, at
an angle with the Pyrenees, may be re-
garded as the main sources of the
calamity, which has, however, beyond a
doubt, been greatly aggravated by a
most extraordinary state of the atmos-
phere. From almost all parts of the
afflicted region we have accounts of I'M
precedentedly violent and long-continued
rain storms, such as that which raging
less than fortnight ago over the hills OF
Buda, in Hungary, fairly converted the
streets of that precipitous old Oriental
town into torrents, and washed scores Of
helpless people down into the Danube.
In the extreme southeastern corner Of
France, the ancient Roussillon, snow
actually fell in the middle of June. In
that region the towns of Olette, Mont
Louis and Saillegouse We're flooded, and
there is reason to fear that the focks
which, as the custom is, had already
been driven up into the mountains, have
suffered severely. . ...
In the department. of the Aude the
Pyrenees and the Cevennes divide be-
tween item the disaster. The Aude
which Uses in the Pyrenees and flows
north and eastward to the Mediter
ranea, has submerged the region about
Castdnauday and Carcasonne, while the
plaiis about Castres have been laid un
derwater by the rise of the Agout, which
decends from the Ceyennes and runs
Westward towards the Atlantic. All the
vDinity of Narbonne, the plucherrinac
farb0 of Martial, and one of the mos
ancient Roman cities of Gaul, on the
Mediterranean, has been submerged
The crops, which in this part of France
were extraordinarily promising, have
been utterly destroyed. The river Tarn
which like the Agout rises in the Ceven
hes, has done more mischief even thar
its colleague. After flooding the coun
try about Abby, the picturesque ole
southern city whose name was immor
talized by the sufferings of the perse
cuted Albigensians, the Tarn has con
verified all the neighborhood of the beau
tiful and lively town of Montauban int
a lake. Itfows into the Garonne, abou
six miles below the town of Moissac
and such has been the rise in both river
that the whole intervening space be
tween Moissac and the junction of th,
Tarn with the Garonne is now O. wilt
waste of waters, the two streams con
founded in one. ALI this region is full
OF admirable corn and wheat lands il
the highest state of cultivation, and tn
damage done here may therefore be NOR
easily imagined than described.
The most dreadful destruction of all
however, has, of course, been wrough
by the great stream of the Garonne it
self. This river, which rises between
the Pic de Montpelier and the might,
Maladetta, the "Cursed mountain " O
the Pyrenees, draws to itself o grea
number OF tributary torrents in it's down
ward course towards the unhappy cite
of Toulouse and Agen. At Toulouse
seems to have risen nearly thirty feet
and after devastating plains, villages an,
hamlets for miles in its headlong course
it threw itself with irresistible fur
upon that ancient city. Thirty thousan,
people in one great and busy quarter O
the southern capital, the Faubourg 0
st. Cyprien We're cut off for twelv
hours from all communication with th
rest of the city. One after another tn
bridges which linked them with the res
of the city were swept away, having bee,
beaten from their solid foundations b.
the masses of wreck swept incessantl