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I had been walking for some time in the department of the Cantal, but the ferry landed me on the Aveyron side of the river. I had now seriously to consider the shortest way to Conques, separated from me by very rough hill country and an uncertain number of miles.
My design was to reach the abbey of Conques before evening, but instead of going directly towards it over the hills, I preferred to keep as long as possible in the valley of the Lot, which is here of such witching loveliness. As there was a road on the river-bank for many miles, I could follow this fancy, and yet feel the comfort of walking on good ground.
I was tramping wearily on my way, which seemed endless, when, clustered on the side of another wild and thickly wooded gorge running up amidst the hills, I saw many houses, and a dark pile of masonry, rising far above their roofs. I knew that this must be Conques; it showed its religious origin so plainly in the choice of the site.
According to an ecclesiastical author and local historian, the Abbé Debon, the lawless bands spread such terror through the country that they stopped the pilgrims from going to Figeac, Conques, and other places that had obtained a reputation for holiness.
The monks of Conques appear to have followed originally the rule of St. Martin, and to have adopted that of St. Benedict soon after its introduction into France. The abbey of Figeac was therefore always Benedictine. About the year 900 the monks began to cultivate learning, their labour having previously been devoted almost exclusively to the soil.
If I had only suspected the fraud, I might have been tempted to keep suspicion down in order to spare the picture of the Carlovingian age which I had elaborated; but it is known at the École des Chartres, and the Abbé B. Massabie of Figeac has, moreover, written a book that removes all doubt as to the spuriousness of the charters upon which the abbots of Figeac, when their jealousy of Conques reached its climax in the eleventh century, based their pretensions to priority.
A seraphim holds the closed book of life, upon which these words are carved: 'Hic signatur liber vitae. On various parts of the portal are numerous inscriptions, some of which, like the following, are in leonine verses: 'Casti pacifici mites pietatis amici Sic stant gaudentes securi nil metuentes. The archaeological interest of Conques is not confined to its church.
In the eleventh century, the discord between the two monasteries had reached such a pass that popes and councils were appealed to to settle the question of priority. In 1096 the Council of Nîmes laid down a modus vivendi without pronouncing upon the principle. It was decreed that the abbots of Figeac should thenceforth be independent of the abbots of Conques.
Historians of the abbey state that the relics of the saint were brought from Agen to Conques about the year 874, and that Etienne, Bishop of Clermont, caused a basilica to be raised here in her honour between the years 942 and 984. It was under the direction of Ololric, Abbot of Conques, that the existing church was built between the years 1030 and 1062.
The pilgrims' money had not made it pretentious, nor the people who kept it dishonest changes which 'filthy lucre' is very apt to bring about in the holiest places. But the pilgrims who come to Conques are, for the most part, peasants who look well before they leap, and who so contrive matters as never to spend more upon anything than they have set aside for it.
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