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Then a tax was levied throughout Perigord to pay for the cost of the sieges of Bigaroque and the Rock of Tayac. We will now pass from Perigord to Quercy. Here the English Companies held the valley of the Lot from below Capdenac to the gates of Cahors, except the impregnable towns of Cajarc and Calvignac. Flowing into the Lot at Conduche is the river Cele that descends from Figeac.
There is reason to believe that the last of the sovereign Dukes of Aquitaine made a stand here when pursued by his implacable enemy Pepin le Bref. The people pronounce the word 'Waïffier' as though it commenced with a 'G. Towards evening I recrossed the Lot and entered Cajarc.
After leaving Cajarc in the morning I was soon alone with Nature on the right bank of the river. Autumn was there in a gusty mood, blowing yellow leaves down from the hills upon the water and driving them towards the sea over the rippled, gray surface lit up with cold, steel-like gleams of sunshine struggling through the vapour.
I crossed a toll-bridge over the river just below Cajarc, and again entered the department of the Aveyron, my object being to ascend the valley of a tributary of the Lot, to a spot where it flows out of a pool of unknown depth, called the Gouffre de Lantouy. The road passed under the village of Savagnac, built upon the hillside.
While I was at Brengues, the skeleton of a young rhinoceros was discovered in the phosphate mine at Cajarc. On the hill above the Célé, on the side opposite to that where the Château des Anglais is to be seen, are the remains of an entrenched camp, upon the origin of which it is almost idle to speculate. In the same neighbourhood is a cavern situated high up in the face of a perpendicular rock.
Cajarc, although it looks like a village to-day, was once a fortified town of considerable importance in the Quercy. Its inhabitants offered an obstinate resistance to the English on several occasions. In 1290 they refused to swear fealty to the King of England until their lord, the Bishop of Cahors, gave them the order to do so in the name of the King of France.
He made the citizens of Cajarc contribute to the expense of this proceeding, and even required them to send masons to assist him in the work; but as they were loyal subjects of the French King they demurred at this, and he substituted additional money payment for personal service.
In 1380 Bertrand de Bassoran, captain of an English company, captured Corn, and using this place as his point d'appui, he placed garrisons in the neighbouring burgs of Brengues, Sauliac, and Cabrerets. He also compelled the consuls of Cajarc to treat with him. After a hasty meal in a little inn where I had to be satisfied mainly with good intentions, I called upon the schoolmaster.
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