# Lost on the D39, above the Vallée Borgne

> An improvised stop on a narrow road in the Cévennes reveals the hidden history of a land of ridges and resistance.

Canonical: https://ntilia.com/u/davidherreman/en/lost-on-the-d39-above-the-vallee-borgne
Language: en
Author: David Herreman (https://ntilia.com/u/davidherreman)
Published: 2026-08-14T17:39:00+00:00
Last updated: 2026-09-07T14:21:12.406+00:00
Coordinates: 44.136555, 3.763986 (WGS84)
Series: Séjour dans le Gard 2026 (https://ntilia.com/u/davidherreman/s/sejour-dans-le-gard-2026?lang=en)
Tags: Cévennes, Vallée Borgne, Camisards, Protestant history, Saumane, rural depopulation, D39 road, Corniche des Cévennes

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> On August 14, 2026, while trying to cross the Cévennes, we got lost on a narrow road, without guardrails, amid magnificent landscapes. In the car, the family was panicking. I stopped.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=44.136555&mlon=3.763986&geo=exact#map=16/44.136555/3.763986


We were no longer quite on the map we had in our heads. The road twisted, narrowed, clung to the schist. No barrier, no low wall: just the void, the carpet of pines, and switchbacks that kept starting over. Every bend promised a way out. Every bend closed another.

Inside the car, the silence was no longer that of a leisurely drive. The narrowness of the road, the absence of protection, the feeling of dropping too close to the slope: the family was panicking. As for me, I drove slowly, my hands a bit too tight on the wheel, telling myself there was no other choice but to follow the asphalt until it decided to release us.

Then the road finally offered us a shoulder.

## A stop at La Tourette

We stopped at 6:04 p.m., on a simple widening of the D39, in the hamlet of La Tourette, commune of Saumane, 30125, Gard. Altitude: 485 meters. Coordinates: 44.136555 N, 3.763986 E.

![Landscape from the La Toutette lay-by, view west-southwest toward the Col du Pas.](https://estwtgoraddyvzadcfnx.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/c259246f-b887-4e6c-a30f-d8bc097924be/af87eab5-0d3f-460d-9d58-7a282d976eda/1e91b3db-5391-4147-a066-8c13ea8127b7.jpg#srcset (David Herreman))

Behind us, Saint-André-de-Valborgne and L'Estréchure. Ahead, if one still dares to say "ahead" on a ridge: Lozère, Saint-Roman-de-Tousque, the Vallée Française. We were not on the famous Corniche des Cévennes. We were on its little sister, narrower, easier to miss: **the road to Saint-Roman-de-Tousque**.

I took out the camera. The sky was overcast, a few drops of rain, a low patch of clear sky on the horizon. The view, at 242°, fell exactly along the axis of the **Col du Pas**, 833 meters, less than eight kilometers away, then Valleraugue. The serres des Plantiers closed off the middle of the frame. The Aigoual itself stayed out of shot, a bit further to the right.


![](https://estwtgoraddyvzadcfnx.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/c259246f-b887-4e6c-a30f-d8bc097924be/af87eab5-0d3f-460d-9d58-7a282d976eda/227302d7-8401-40ba-ae28-f4ad32b6f727.jpg#srcset (David Herreman))

That's what it means to get lost in the Cévennes: the ridges all look alike. They are called *serres*. Between them, *valats*, valley bottoms where the Gardon de Saint-Jean and the Borgne stream flow. 93% of the commune of Saumane is forest or moorland. The hamlets are scattered. The roads — D39, D10, D20, D193, D907 — weave through the same schist. At 6 p.m., in August, with the sun already low, the small valleys close in.

## What this road tells

The D39 climbs from the Vallée Borgne, on the Gard side, toward the Vallée Française, on the Lozère side. When it breaks — a retaining wall, for instance, in the fall of 2025 — the official detour follows the Corniche des Cévennes and adds a quarter of an hour. This is not a bureaucratic detail: it is the very shape of the land. Here, a road is never just a road. It is a line of escape, a ridgeline, sometimes a front line.

The Corniche, higher up, wider, better known, was first a road of power. At the time of the Camisard War, at the very start of the 18th century, the "royal roads" were meant to allow Louis XIV's troops to hold a massif where people got lost on purpose. The Camisards knew the valats, the drailles, the chestnut groves. The army, for its part, wanted to see from afar. To see was already to control.

Two centuries earlier, Protestantism had taken root in these valleys. In 1685, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes made faith a crime. During the long century of the Désert — until the Edict of Tolerance of 1787 — people prayed in forests, caves, valley bottoms. Owning a Bible in French could send a man to the galleys, a woman to the Tour de Constance. We had seen this, a few days earlier, at the Musée du Désert ([[The wheel torture, a weapon of repression against Protestants]]) and at the [temple of Lussan](https://ntilia.com/blog/a5384872-33f5-46a9-a538-1c6ea6f5931a). Here, further west, higher up, the setting of this clandestine life is no longer a biblical garden: it is the mountain itself.

Saumane still carries this double memory: a Protestant temple from 1875, and a Sainte-Marie church already mentioned in 1079 in the cartulary of Saint-Victor de Marseille. During the Revolution, the commune was named Union-la-Montagne. Later, other forms of resistance took up the same ridges: the Aigoual-Cévennes maquis, which Saumane still commemorates at Aire de Côte.

## A land that emptied out, then grew back into forest

In the mid-19th century, Saumane had 556 inhabitants. In 1982, only 141 remained. The story is that of all the schist Cévennes: the chestnut groves, the silkworm houses, silk production, then the opening of markets, ink disease, exodus. The abandoned slopes were reclaimed by forest, often by conifers. Hence this carpet of pines, so dense that looking for a house in it is like looking for a boat at sea.

In 2023, the commune had grown back to 303 inhabitants. Two farms remain, sheep and goats. Agropastoralism here is not a brochure word: it is the reason why the Causses and Cévennes have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2011. Saumane lies within the membership area of the Cévennes National Park (created on September 2, 1970), within the biosphere reserve (1985), and within the Natura 2000 site of the Gardon de Saint-Jean valley.

Beauty is not harmless. The Gardon and the Borgne overflow their banks. The commune has been declared a natural disaster area for flooding and mudslides in 1982, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2002, 2011, 2014, 2015, and 2020. The same valats that shape the landscape also shape the Cévennes storm episodes. In summer, fire adds to the risk.

## Back on the road

I put the camera away. The family waited for the D39 to finally head back down toward something resembling a village: a temple, a church, a swim in the Gardon, a name on a sign. Saumane isn't far. Neither are Les Plantiers. Saint-André-de-Valborgne has a tourist office branch for Mont Aigoual Causses Cévennes.

We did not "do" the Corniche. We avoided it without knowing it, and that's just as well. The Corniche, one chooses. The D39, one finds when already lost.

That evening, the right thing to do was not to immediately find the main road again. It was to stop, to look, to note the place. A road without guardrails, a hamlet of a few houses, a valley the Camisards knew by heart and that the GPS still names too late.

If your steps, or your wheels, ever lead you between Le Vigan and Florac, allow yourself to take the wrong ridge. The Cévennes cannot be visited in a straight line. They must be earned in switchbacks, a little too narrow, a little too beautiful, and sometimes without protection.

> This article was written on nTilia, an app with free access: https://ntilia.com

## Sources

- [Saumane (Gard) — Wikipedia](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saumane_(Gard))
- [SAUMANE en CEVENNES, official commune website](https://saumane-en-cevennes.fr/)
- [Points of interest and hikes — Saumane](https://saumane-en-cevennes.fr/vivre-a-saumane/tourisme/)
- [The Cévennes National Park — Saumane](https://saumane-en-cevennes.fr/le-parc-national-des-cevennes-un-territoie-exceptionnel/)
- [The sources of the Borgne — Destination Cévennes](https://destination.cevennes-parcnational.fr/fr/trek/95054-Les-sources-du-Borgne)
- [Closure of the RD39 (Saumane – Saint-Roman-de-Tousque)](https://saumane-en-cevennes.fr/2025/09/15/%F0%9F%9A%A7fermeture-de-la-rd39-saumane-st-roman-de-tousque/)
- OpenStreetMap: D39, La Toutette lay-by (44.1366 N, 3.7640 E)
- Photograph metadata (iPhone, August 14, 2026, 6:04 p.m., azimuth 242°)

## Frequently asked questions

### Where did we take this photo?

On a shoulder of the D39, in the hamlet of La Toutette, commune of Saumane (30125, Gard), at 485 m altitude. Coordinates: 44.136555 N, 3.763986 E.

### What is this road?

The D39, known as the road to Saint-Roman-de-Tousque. It connects the Vallée Borgne (Gard) to the Vallée Française (Lozère). It is not the Corniche des Cévennes (D907), even though the Corniche serves as a detour when the D39 is cut off.

### Which direction does the landscape face?

West-southwest, azimuth 242°: along the axis of the Col du Pas (833 m) and Valleraugue, through the serres des Plantiers. Mont Aigoual is out of frame, a bit further west.

### Why is it so easy to get lost there?

The wooded ridges all look alike, the settlements are scattered, and several departmental roads weave through the same schist. In the late afternoon, the small valleys close in. The road is narrow, often without protection.

### Is Saumane still part of the Protestant Cévennes?

Yes. A temple from 1875, a Catholic church mentioned as early as 1079, the memory of the Désert and the Camisards throughout the massif, a local commemoration of the Aire de Côte maquis. The commune was named Union-la-Montagne during the Revolution.

### Is the commune within the National Park?

It lies within the membership area of the Cévennes National Park, within the UNESCO biosphere reserve, and within the Causses and Cévennes territory listed as a World Heritage Site for its agropastoralism (2011). Natura 2000 covers the Gardon de Saint-Jean valley.