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The inhabitants agree in saying that the feudal walls are the work of the English, but they are probably in error. The original castle belonged to Waïfré. It afterwards passed to the Gourdon family, who doubtless rebuilt it upon the old foundations. The last descendant of this family was one of the most ardent Huguenots in the Quercy.
There is some historic reason for believing that the convent at Lantouy was founded by Charlemagne. Very near this spot are the remains of some ancient fortified works, and the locality is known as 'La domaine de Waïffier. This name is evidently the same as Waïfré.
The preceding year, in 745, Hunald, Duke of Aquitaine, with more patriotic and equally pious views, also abdicated in favor of his son Waifre, whom he thought more capable than himself of winning the independence of Aquitaine, and went and shut himself up in a monastery in the island of Rhe, where was the tomb of his father Eudes.
The king of the Franks treated his powerful vassal well; and Duke Lupus swore to him afresh, "or for the first time," says M. Fauriel, "submission and fidelity; but the event soon proved that it was not without umbrage or without all the feelings of a true son of Waifre that he saw the Franks and the son of Pepin so close to him." The aggressive campaign was an easy and a brilliant one.
The fairest districts of Auvergne, Limousin, and Berry, were laid waste and burnt by Pepin; and in the Frankish territories Waifre levied an equally terrible retribution. He was murdered at last by some of his own subjects, at the instigation of the Frankish king.
Duke Waifre was as able in negotiation as in war: at one time he seemed to accept the pacific overtures of Pepin, or, perhaps, himself made similar, without bringing about any result, at another he went to seek and found even in Germany allies who caused Pepin much embarrassment and peril.
According to this plan, Charlemagne had to traverse the territories of Aquitaine and Vasconia, domains of Duke Lupus II, son of Duke Waifre, so long the foe of Pépin the Short, a Merovingian by descent, and, in all these qualities, little disposed to favor Charlemagne. However, the march was accomplished without difficulty.
He made himself master of Narbonne and other towns, and freed the Septimanians. Then turning upon Waifre, Duke of Aquitaine, he summoned him to disgorge the spoils which he had seized from the Aquitanian lands of certain churches of France. Waifre replied in defiant terms, and for nine years resisted the attempts of Pepin to reduce him to submission. It was a sanguinary and desolating war.
The King of the Franks treated his powerful vassal well; and Duke Lupus swore to him afresh, "or for the first time," says M. Fauriel, "submission and fidelity; but the event soon proved that it was not without umbrage or without all the feelings of a true son of Waifre that he saw the Franks and the son of Pépin so close to him." The aggressive campaign was an easy and a brilliant one.
The pointed form of the arch disposes of the hypothesis which has been put forward without much reflection, that this legacy of the old wars in Guyenne is part of the defences raised in the country by the unfortunate Waifré, Duke of Aquitaine, when he was being chased from rock to rock by his relentless enemy.
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