some confined, till, midway between Brives and Figeac, it makes a magnificent sweep, curving boldly round the concave side of an immense bend in the hills, and maintaining at the same time a high elevation above the surrounding plain. The extended geometric curve thus described is somewhere within reach of the station and village of Montvalent-a name which may possibly be shared by the rocky mass itself out of whose flank the iron road in question has been cunningly carved. It forms, indeed, a spur of the great mountain chain which, after splitting Auvergne in two like a backbone, from north to south, shifts its course westwards, stretching away over Quercy and Périgord successively, and gradually disappearing as the diminishing hills dip into the ocean. This fine semicircle of iron road-overshadowed by mountain tops, while, beneath, a wide expanse of fertile plain looks like the arena of some huge natural amphitheatre-is not only a triumph of engineering skill, but contributes its share, in conjunction with the landscape of hill and dale and plain, to affect the mind of the beholder with a pleasing impression of beauty, the result of nature and art in happy combination.

Not far hence is Gramat, a small town of some local mark, and giving name to a canton, which, as well as Montvalent, is within the arrondissement

of Gourdon in the northern part of Quercy. Gour don forms one of three arrondissements, or sub divisions, into which the department of the Lot (conterminous with the historical Quercy) is divided. The other two are Figeac in the extreme east, and Cahors in the south, which, together with Gourdon, constitute the chief towns of the province.

To the first of these-Figeac-a ride of something less than an hour after leaving Gramat brings you. It is a pretty hill-girt little place, having much of the character and consequence of a market town with us, and agreeably situated by the margin of the Celle, an affluent of the Lot. The Celle, which has its source among the hills of Upper Auvergne, flows southwards, Figeac standing on its left or eastern bank, between it and the Lot, the two rivers at this point running in a nearly parallel course, north and south, separated from each other only by the interval of a league or so, till they unite their currents some twenty miles farther down, in the direction of Cahors. The second town in Quercy, Figeac is important enough to possess two parish churches, those of Notre Dame du Puy and St.-Sauveur. As not unfrequently happens in France, the railway station here is so tastefully built, and so judiciously set off with flowers, creepers, and shrubs that it might well have place in a picture representing the fine hilly and woodland

country in which it stands. The French, we must own, excel in domestic architecture. Whatever be the style they adopt, their instinctive sense of the graceful in design tends to give to their buildings an elegance of outline and a consequent justness of proportion which, together, impart even to their most unpretending structures a dash of artistic effect that harmonizes with the surrounding landscape, rather than breaking in upon it with the intrusion of commonplace.

During the wars of the Huguenots, when Guienne was a stronghold of the Protestant party, we read of Figeac being garrisoned by adherents of Henry of Navarre in the campaign of 1580, at which time its castle was vainly beleaguered by the Catholics. Another historical association with this pleasant country town is an abbey once of considerable repute, and frequently named in connection with Ste.-Foy de Conques, over which latter the early abbots of Figeac claimed jurisdiction: a claim that led to many a squabble between the two Houses, until the independence of Conques was finally assured by a synod held at Nismes in the year 1096.1

From Figeac a flying visit may conveniently be made southwards by diligence to Cahors. Starting towards noon, one pursues at a steady jog-trot a road lying through the hilly watershed

1 Notice de l'Abbaye de Conques, par M. Barrau, pp. 22-23.

of the lower Celle, vineyards covering the slopes and pastures the lowland. As you thread the valley of the Celle, and farther on approach that of the larger stream into which it flows, several villages and hamlets are seen on the way, but none apparently of particular interest, at any rate such as to attract the notice of the passing traveller. By a late hour of the afternoon, or early in the evening, you are rambling over the pavement of the gabled, overhanging streets of Cahors. The city is built upon the northern bank of the Lot, whose waters bathe it on three sides-south, east, and west. Whilst the saffron-coloured diligence lumbers along to the jingling of its own horses' bells, through the narrow streets of this old provincial capital-water-girt, the winding current spanned here and there by a bridge of ancient date you feel that both in the mode of travelling, and by the fact of your arrival in this out-of-theway little city of southern France (longer spared than almost any other the more or less vulgarizing touch of the railway), you are getting farther from the track of tourists, and beginning to enjoy the peculiar savour of the South, with its picturesque realities and romantic imaginations.

Cahors, capital of the province of Quercy, has a long history. It was chief town of the Cadurci,1

1 Mentioned repeatedly by Cæsar, Bell. Gall., lib. vii. c. 3, 64, and 75.

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whence both city and province--Cahors and Quercy-alike derive their names. It was the seat of a bishopric so early as the third century, if implicit confidence may be placed in the ecclesiastical historians. We find it qualified by Sully as 'a large and populous town' in 1580. A remarkable episode in the same writer's Memoirs' tells how, on a sultry June night of that year, Henry of Navarre, with fifteen hundred followers (among whom was Sully) advancing stealthily from Montauban, contrived, under cover of darkness, to get a footing within the walls of Cahors, then held by the party of the League. There ensued an obstinate hand-to-hand combat protracted through five whole days, resulting in the citizens at length laying down their arms, when, calmly adds the narrator, 'the city was entirely pillaged.' The doubtful honour of this fratricidal enterprise-the tragedy culminating in a general sack-was due to the Viscount of Gourdon, who did not shrink from inflicting on his fellow-countrymen and co-provincials the last horrors of a ruthless civil war. Such were the 'good old times' some persons look back upon with fond regret. Cahors may still be fitly described in Sully's words as 'a large and populous city,' with a great church dedicated to St. Stephen and two or three others of less importance. It stands well on the water's edge, a bend in the river