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In 1353 they surprised the church and fortress of Tursac and the castle of Palevez. The men of Sarlat hastened to recover Tursac, bringing with them some machines of war, named La Bride, Le Hop, Le Collard, and l'Asne, that flung stones and bolts and pots of flaming tar and sulphur. They managed to drive the English out of Tursac, but were unable to recover the other castle.

They seized the bullocks that were harnessed to the waggons, and bore them off to their strongholds. It is but fair to add, however, that the Sarladais did not formally submit to English authority until 1361 five years after the battle of Poitiers. Then Chandos went to Sarlat and received the submission of the burghers.

Her husband was a fisherman of the Dordogne, and she sold his fish in the Sarlat market, some eight miles distant from where they lived by the river. In order to be early in the market, she had to start at about two in the morning, and the road, which was uphill all the way, ran between woods where the wolves, descending from the vaster forests of Black Perigord, often howled in winter.

Soon afterwards Edward III confirmed all the privileges they had been enjoying under the kings of France. But they did not remain quiet long. Persuaded by Talleyrand and other nobles, they rebelled in 1369, and the town became again French. The people of Sarlat often boast that their town never submitted to the English. In this matter, however, they are in error.

Tayac and Les Eyzies form one very straggling commune, and the church where the slain men of Sarlat lie serves for the entire population. This edifice of the eleventh and twelfth centuries deserves a brief description. There is much grandeur in its vast, deeply-recessed Romanesque portal, with marble columns in the jambs and numerous archivolts.

Such was the stronghold which obtained so evil a reputation throughout a wide district as an almost impregnable den of bandits and cut-throats. We read that the English, who had fortified themselves at the Roque de Tayac, having ravaged the country of Sarlat in 1408, the men of Sarlat laid an ambush for them, and, taking them by surprise, cut them in pieces.

Fenelon took part also in some of the Conferences on Scripture that were held at Saint Germain and Versailles between 1672 and 1685. In 1681 an uncle, who was Bishop of Sarlat, resigned in Fenelon's favour the Deanery of Carenas, which produced an annual income of three or four thousand livres.

In 1620 we find Jean Tarde, Canon of Sarlat, arguing that because the sun is "the eye of the world," and the eye of the world cannot suffer from ophthalmia, therefore the appearances in question must be due, not to actual specks or stains on the bright solar disc, but to the transits of a number of small planets across it!