Wanderings by Southern Waters, Eastern Aquitaine

by Edward Harrison Barker

Such streams of pilgrims crossed the country from various directions, moving towards the sanctuary in the Haut-Quercy, that inns or 'halts' were called into existence on the principal lines of route, and lanterns were set up at night for the guidance of the wanderers. The last halt was close to Roc-Amadour, at a spot still called the Hospitalet. Here were religious, who bound up the pilgrims' bleeding feet, and provided them with food before they descended to the burg and completed the last part of their pilgrimage—the ascent of the steps—upon their knees. The sportelle, or badge of Notre Dame de Roc-Amadour, ensured the wearer against interference or ill-treatment on his journey. It is acknowledged that the English respected it even in time of war. At the Great Pardon of Roc-Amadour, in 1546, so great was the crowd of pilgrims, who had come from all parts, that many persons were suffocated. The innkeepers' tents gave the surrounding country the appearance of a vast camp. Sixteen years later, when Roc-Amadour fell into the hands of the Huguenots, and the religious buildings were pillaged and partly destroyed, the pilgrimage received a blow from which it never quite recovered. It ceased completely at the Revolution, but has since been revived, and some thousand genuine pilgrims, chiefly of the peasant class, now visit Roc-Amadour every year.

For nearly 300 years the history of the Quercy and Roc-Amadour was intimately associated with that of England. Henry II. did not at first claim the Quercy as a part of Eleanor's actual possessions in Aquitaine; but he claimed homage from the Count of Toulouse, who was then suzerain of the Count of Quercy. Homage being refused, Henry invaded the county, captured Cahors, where he left Becket with a garrison, and thence proceeded to reduce the other strongholds. Roc-Amadour appears to have offered little if any resistance. The Quercy was formally made over to the English in 1191 by the treaty signed by Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur-de-Lion; but the aged Raymond V. of Toulouse protested, and the Quercynois still more loudly. These descendants of the Cadurci found it very difficult to submit to English rule. Unlike the Gascons, who became thoroughly English during those three centuries, and were so loath to change their rulers again that they fought for the King of England to the last, the Quercynois were never reconciled to the Plantagenets, but were ever ready to seize an opportunity of rebelling against them. It is well known that Richard Coeur-de-Lion lost his life at the hand of a nobleman of the Quercy. While Guyenne was distracted by the family quarrel of the first Plantagenets, the troubadour Bertrand de Born by his gift of words so stirred up the patriotic and martial ardour of the Aquitanians that a league was formed against the English, which included Talleyrand, Count of Périgord, Guilhem (or Fortanier) de Gourdon, a powerful lord of the Quercy, De Montfort, the Viscounts of Turenne and Ventadour. These nobles swore upon the Gospels to remain united and faithful to the cause of Aquitaine; but Richard, partly by feats of war and partly by diplomacy, in which it is said the argument of money had no inconsiderable share, broke up the league, and Bertrand de Born, being abandoned, fell into the Plantagenet's hands. But he was pardoned, probably because Richard was a troubadour himself in his leisure moments, and had a fellow-feeling for all who loved the 'gai sçavoir.' Meanwhile, the Lord of Gourdon was not to be gained over by fair words or bribes, and Richard besieged his castle, some ruins of which may still be seen on the rock that overhangs the little town of Gourdon in the Quercy. The fortress was taken, and Richard in his fury caused the stern old man who defended it and two of his sons to be put to death. But there was a third son, Bertrand de Gourdon, who, seeking an opportunity of avenging his father and brothers, joined the garrison of the castle of Châlus in the Limousin, which Richard soon afterwards besieged. He aimed the bolt or the arrow which brought Richard's stormy life to a close. Although forgiven by the dying Coeur-de-Lion, Bertrand was flayed alive by the Brabançons who were in the English army. He left no descendants, but his collaterals long afterwards bore the name of Richard in memory of Bertrand's vengeance.

A member of a learned society at Cahors has sought to prove that Gourdon in the Quercy is the place where the family of General Gordon of Khartoum fame had its origin. It is true that the name of this town in all old charts is spelt Gordon; but, inasmuch as it is a compound of two Celtic words meaning raven's rock, it might as feasibly have been handed down by the Gaelic Scotch as by the Cadurcians.

The Plantagenets came to be termed 'the devil's race' by the people of Guyenne. This may have originated in a saying attributed to Richard himself in Aquitaine: 'It is customary in our family for the sons to hate their father. We come from the devil, and we shall return to the devil.'

In 1368 the English, having again to reduce the Quercy, laid siege to Roc-Amadour. The burghers held out only for a short time, and the place being surrendered, Perducas d'Albret was left as governor with a garrison of Gascons. Froissart quaintly describes this brief siege. Shortly before the army showed itself in the narrow valley of the Alzou, the towns of Fons and Gavache had capitulated, the inhabitants having sworn that they would remain English ever afterwards. 'But they lied,' observes Froissart. Arriving under the walls of Roc-Amadour, which were raised upon the lower rocks, the English advanced at once to the assault. 'Là eut je vous dy moult grant assaust et dur.' It lasted a whole day, with loss on both sides; but when the evening came the English entrenched themselves in the valley with the intention of renewing the assault on the morrow. That night, however, the consuls and burghers of Roc-Amadour took council of one another, and it was unanimously agreed that the English had shown great 'force and virtue' during the day. Then the wisest among them urged that the place could not hold out long against such an enemy, and that if it was taken by force they, the burghers, would be all hanged, and the town burnt without mercy. It was, therefore, decided to surrender the town the next day. This was accordingly done, and the burghers solemnly swore that they would be 'good English' ever afterwards. For their penance they undertook to send fifty mules laden with provisions to accompany the English army on its march for fifteen days. The fact that the burghers owned fifty mules in the fourteenth century shows how much richer they were then, for now they can scarcely boast half as many donkeys, although these beasts do most of the carrying, and even the ploughing.

It is difficult now to find a trace of the wall which defended the burg on the side of the valley; but here, not far above the bed of the Alzou, are some ruins of the castle where Henry II. stayed, and which the inhabitants still associate with his name. It is improbable that he built it; it is more reasonable to suppose that it existed before his marriage with Eleanor in 1152. His son, 'Short Mantle,' also used it when he came to Roc-Amadour, and behaved, as an old writer expresses it, 'like a ferocious beast.' Some ruined Gothic archways may still be seen from the valley, the upper stones yellow with rampant wallflowers in the early spring. The older inhabitants speak of the high walls, the finely-sculptured details, etc., which they remember; and, indeed, it is not very long ago that the ancient castle was sold for a paltry sum, to be used as building material. The only part of the interior preserved is what was once the chapel. It is vaulted and groined, and the old vats and casks heaped up in it show that it was long used for wine-making, before the phylloxera destroyed the vineyards that once covered the sides of the stony hills. A little below this castle is a well, with an extraordinary circumference, said to have been sunk by the English, and always called by the people 'Le puit des Anglais.' It is 100 feet deep, and those who made it had to work thirty feet through solid rock.

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After wandering and loitering by rivers too well fed by the mountains to dry completely up like the perfidious little Alzou, I have returned to Roc-Amadour, my headquarters, the summer being far advanced. The wallflowers no longer deck the old towers and gateways with their yellow bloom, and scent the morning and evening air with their fragrance; the countless flags upon the rocky shelves no longer flaunt their splendid blue and purple, tempting the flower-gatherer to risk a broken neck; the poet's narcissus and the tall asphodel alike are gone; so are all the flowers of spring. The wild vine that clambers over the blackthorn, the maple and the hazel, all down the valley towards the Dordogne, shows here and there a crimson leaf; and the little path is fringed with high marjoram, whose blossoms revel amidst the hot stones, and seem to drink the wine of their life from the fiery sunbeams. Upon the burning banks of broken rock—gray wastes sprinkled with small spurges and tufts of the fragrant southernwood, now opening its mean little flowers—multitudes of flying grasshoppers flutter, most of them with scarlet wings, and one marvels how they can keep themselves from being baked quite dry where every stone is hot. The lizards, which spend most of their time in the grasshoppers' company, appear equally capable of resisting fire. In the bed of the Alzou a species of brassica has had time since the last flood to grow up from the seed, and to spread its dark verdure in broad patches over the dry sand and pebbles. The ravens are gone—to Auvergne, so it is said, because they do not like hot weather. The hawks are less difficult to please on the score of climate; they remain here all the year round, piercing the air with their melancholy cries.

I needed quiet for writing, and could not get it. Of all boons this is the most difficult to find in France. It can be had in Paris, where it is easy to live shut off from the world, hearing nothing save the monotonous rumble of life in the streets; but let no one talk to me about the blessed quietude of the country in France, unless it be that of the bare moor or mountain or desolate seashore. In villages there is no escape from the clatter of tongues until everybody, excepting yourself, is asleep. The houses are so built that wherever you may take refuge you are compelled to hear the conversation that is going on in any part of them. In the South the necessity of listening becomes really terrible. The men roar, and the women shriek, in their ordinary talk. A complete stranger to such ways might easily suppose that they were engaged in a wordy battle of alarming ferocity, when they are merely discussing the pig's measles, or the case of a cow that strayed into a field of lucern, and was found the next morning like a balloon. It is hard for a person who needs to be quiet at times to live with such people without giving the Recording Angel a great deal of disagreeable work.

I would not have believed that so small a place as Roc-Amadour, and such a holy one, could have been so noisy if my own experience had not informed me on this subject. Every morning at five the tailor who did duty as policeman and crier came with his drum, and, stationing himself by the town pump, which was just in front of my cottage, awoke the echoes of the gorge with a long and furious tambourinade. While the women, in answer to this signal, were coming from all directions, carrying buckets in their hands, or copper water-pots on their heads, he unchained the pump-handle. Now for the next two hours the strident cries of the exasperated pump, and the screaming gabble of many tongues, all refreshed by slumber and eager for exercise, made such a diabolic tumult and discord as to throw even the braying of the donkeys into the minor key. Of course, sleep under such circumstances would have been miraculous; but, then, no one had any right to sleep when the rocks were breaking again into flame, and the mists which filled the gorge by night were folding up their tents. I therefore accepted this noise as if it had been intended for my good, and the crowd in front of the pump was always an amusing picture of human life. It was at its best on Sunday, for then the tailor—who also did a little shaving between whiles—had put on his fine braided official coat, as well as his sword and best képi. (On very grand days he wore his cocked hat, and was then quite irresistibly beautiful.) He had to look after the women as well as the water. The latter was precious, and it was necessary to protect it in the interest of the community. Then the pump was parsimonious, and all the women being impatient to get their allowance and go, it was needful that someone in authority should stand by to decide questions of disputed priority, and to nip quarrels in the bud which might otherwise lead to a fight. Poor man! how those women worried him every morning with their badinage, and how glad he was to chain up the pump-handle and turn the key!