One spring I decided to retrace, as far as possible, the route that Robert Louis Stevenson took in his Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes in 1878. In a remote hamlet I was asked, ‘Êtes-vous un Stevenson?’ – I gather that most summers parties of walkers retrace his steps. In Monastier there is even Le Bar Stevenson. During the journey I stayed at an inn at La Pradelles, a slightly tumbledown (I prefer rural France not too ti