Quaint stone well-heads are frequently to be seen in front of the houses; the vine becomes more and more frequent, and the umbrella pine begins to appear here and there as one journeys southwards. Between Brantôme and Château-l’Évêque a light railway crosses the road half a dozen times, and keeps by the road all the way to Périgueux.
At Château-l’Évêque the very picturesque fifteenth-century castle of the Bishops of Périgueux stands out in a most attractive fashion to the right of the road just behind the village. The steep red roof rises above the square and round towers that give great dignity to the pile.
The road drops down the valley of the Beauvronne, a small tributary of the Isle, passing the village of Chancelade, where there are very extensive underground quarries. A recent collapse was the cause of several deaths.
The greater part of the abbey church, founded in 1120, dates from a restoration in 1625, but the Romanesque front remains, with the doorway half concealed by a modern porch of plaster and wood. There is also a twelfth-century chapel at the west end.
PÉRIGUEUX
The first view of the city, through an opening between steep slopes near Chancelade, is full of promise to those in search of romance. If it should happen to be a fine evening, a beautiful light gilds the great Byzantine campanile and clustered domes of the cathedral, as well as all the faces of the buildings turned towards the west, so that the river-encircled city assumes mellowed tones of creamy gold contrasted with the wooded hills overlooking it on all sides.
History.—The original prehistoric Périgueux stood on the south side of the River Isle, and it afterwards became the Gaulish city of Vesuna, the capital of the Petrocorians, whose name survives in Périgueux. When the Romans had occupied the country a new city was built on the site of the present one, and in the period of its prosperity, before the barbarian invasions swept away the Gallo-Roman civilization, the arena, the temple of Vesuna, and other surviving remains, were built.
The coming of Christianity is associated with the name of St. Front, around whose tomb an oratory was built in the sixth century. Towards the end of the tenth century an abbey arose on the site, and then, precisely as at Tours, a new town arose alongside the walled Roman cité, and the dual towns must have had somewhat the appearance of the Carcassonne of to-day. After being in rivalry for a time, the two portions of Périgueux were in 1240 united by a solemn treaty.
Town Plan No. 13.—Périgueux.