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He was a remarkable man in many ways. He was the first to map his native Perigord, and the first to write a chronicle of the diocese of Sarlat, a valuable work for any who would compile a history of the Hundred Years' War, the first also to repudiate the accepted attribution of the dolmens as altars of sacrifice, and to indicate their true character as sepulchres.
But to reach this flight one has to mount by a series of posts serving as steps driven into sockets in the rock, with only here and there a sustaining iron bar. Below the structure are chambers, possibly prisons, but more probably store rooms dug out of the rock. In this castle one of the Bishops of Sarlat, in stormy times, lived continuously, and there died.
Count v. Quite as curious, and with a less tragic history is La Roche Gageac on the Dordogne, below Sarlat. "Ma chere patrie," wrote the old chronicler, Jean Tarde, "une petite ville bien close et tres forte dependant de la temporalite de l'evesque de Sarlet, la quelle ne fut jamais prinse par les Anglais."
From this vultures' nest the Ribauds devastated the neighbourhood and the Sieur des Eyzies on the opposite side of the river, and who was on the French side, was powerless against them. In company with the garrison of Bigaroque they surprised Temniac near Sarlat, S. Quentin and Campagnac, in 1348, but were shortly after dislodged by the Seneschal of Perigord from these acquisitions.
In 1599 he was made honorary chaplain to Henry IV., and in 1626 was published his Description du pais de Quercy. His history of Sarlat, after remaining in MS. was at length published in 1887, but only 150 copies were printed. Happily one is in the British Museum, and I possess another.
After the treaty that followed the battle of Poitiers they continued their depredations, heedless of the orders communicated to them by the English commissioners. They carried their raids up to the walls of Sarlat, even at the time of vintage, although this season was much respected in the Middle Ages by violent men, from a motive that was perhaps not disinterested.
The principal castle, that which belonged to the Bishop of Sarlat, occupies one of the profound horizontal furrows in the face of the rock, that are so common in the limestone and chalk formations. It consists of three towers, two of which are square and one round, with curtains uniting them, and a gate-tower, to which a flight of steps cut in the rock gives access for a part of the way.
A fourth pilgrimage of the priest and poet was afterwards made to the towns of Rodez, Villefranche-d'aveyron, Cahors, Figeac, Gourdon, and Sarlat; and the proceeds of these excursions, added to a subvention of 5,000 francs from the Government, enabled the church of Vergt to be completed. But it was still without bells, for which a subsequent pilgrimage was made by Jasmin and Masson.
But the testimony of Montaigne himself upsets the theory of this coincidence; written in his own hand upon a manuscript, partly autograph, of the treatise by De la Boetie, is a statement that it was the work "of a lad of sixteen." La Boetie was born at Sarlat on the 1st of November, 1530, and was, therefore, sixteen in 1546, two years before the insurrection at Bordeaux.
It would be too hot were it not for the abundant springs, and the proximity to the Dordogne down which a cool air is wafted. The habitations are either partly or wholly caves, they do not reach half-way up the rock which overhangs to the west. In the face of the cliff are two castles built into its recesses, one pertained to the Bishop of Sarlat, and the other to the Fenelon family.
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