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Corn was a feof of the family of Beduer, one of the five most powerful in Quercy. In 1379 Perducat, the Bastard of Albret, an English Captain, occupied Corn, but sold it to John, Count of Armagnac, Seneschal of Quercy; after having marched out and pocketed his money, he turned round, marched in again, and set to work to fortify the caves.
The victory of the Black Prince at Poitiers, followed by the treaty of Brétigny, made the King of England absolute master of the Quercy. The Prince of Wales came in person to take possession of Cahors in 1364, and despatched his seneschal, Thomas de Walkaffara, to Figeac to receive from the inhabitants the oath of fealty. They swore obedience, but with much soreness of soul. They afterwards got released from their oath by the Pope, and joined a fresh league formed against the English. After enjoying the sweets of French nationality again for a brief period, they were made English once more by the treaty of Troyes. But the British domination in Guyenne was now approaching its close. The maid of Domrémy was about to change her distaff for an oriflamme. The year 1453 saw the English power completely broken in Aquitaine; a collapse which an old rhymer records with more relish than inspiration: 'Par Charles Septième
The plough used upon these moors, on the causses of the Quercy, and in some other districts where the barrenness of the soil has kept the inhabitants for centuries imprisoned within the circle of their old routine, is one of the simplest that the world has known.
This had happened before; but now for the first time he seemed to have no wish to re-establish himself, and a longing came over him to see his little pepper-box of a tower in the Quercy, and to be once more the Sieur de Besmé instead of the King of Folly. "Eh bien, Pompon!" he said, addressing the ape, "the kingdom of fools is too wide a realm for one man to rule. I shall abdicate, I think.
I have here my bales of cloth which I carry to Cahors woe worth the day that ever I started on such an errand! I crave your gracious protection upon the way for me, my servant, and my mercery; for I have already had many perilous passages, and have now learned that Roger Club-foot, the robber-knight of Quercy, is out upon the road in front of me.
It is no uncommon thing for a curé to keep his trap. I have several times met priests on horseback in the Quercy, but never without thinking that they would look better if they used side-saddles. The early Gothic Church of Saint-Cirq-la-Popie, to judge by its high massive walls and round tower, was raised more with the idea of defence than ornament.
"Whereas, this land, at the time when it passed under the obedience of the King of England, was the richest and most populous in all the Duchy of Guyenne, and contained the finest cities, towns, and castles and fortresses in the said duchy, which were free and quit of all taxes and imposts, and with privileges conferred on them and confirmed by the King of France when they shook off the English yoke; and the said land of Quercy, after having returned to its legitimate sovereigns, has testified to them the greatest loyalty; yet have its inhabitants been grievously injured, assailed, beaten, robbed, pillaged, imprisoned, killed, maltreated by the English in divers ways, which enemies have since taken and occupied the greater part of the finest towns and fortresses of the land; on which account the land of Quercy has since continued in a condition of mortal warfare with the said enemies for the space of fifty-five years; and this carried on without aid from us, or from any one: This unfortunate land has resisted to the utmost of its powers and is doing so still; and it has been surrounded for long by our said enemies, and is as it were destroyed and uninhabitable, and the greater number of its towns, castles, and strongholds have become desert and wild, covered with forest and scrub, inhabited by wild beasts, with the exception of some few small places that are very poor and miserable, and though at one time they were great and rich, they have been to such an extent depopulated partly through the war and partly through pestilences that have ensued there are now hardly one hundredth part of the people remaining, and those who do remain are but poor labourers and men of servile class; and these are kept night and day harassed by watching against enemies, and yet are compelled to buy them off with patis and pensions, so that the greater portion of their substance is consumed in this way; therefore, &c."
The Hundred Years' War, that has left ineffaceable traces in the south of France, began in 1336 before the conclusion of the Treaty of Bretigny, which was in 1360, and it lasted till 1443 over a century, though not without interruption; and it desolated the fields of Perigord, Quercy, and to a less degree Rouergue and the Limousin, and wrought havoc to the gates of Paris.
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 was a wistful look in his eyes indeed, as if he were thinking of something or some one far away Kit's face on the sunny hills of Quercy where he had ridden with her, perhaps; a look which seemed to say that the doings here were nothing to him, and the parting was yonder where she was. But his bearing was calm and collected, his step firm and fearless.
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