The _métayer_, now placed in charge of the castle, showed me over it.
It was a sad spectacle. The building, one of the best preserved and
most elaborately decorated works of the Renaissance in this part of
Guyenne until a few years ago, then fell into the hands of a vulgar
speculator, who detached all the carvings that could be removed
without difficulty, and sold them in Paris. The noble staircase and
all its delicate sculpture remain, but these only add to the regret
that one feels for what is no longer there. Had the Commission of
Historic Monuments placed the Château de Montal upon its list, it
would probably have escaped spoliation, although, in the case of
private property, the State has no power to prevent destruction,
however grievous the national loss.

I entered St. Céré at sundown. This bright little town lies in the
midst of fertility. It is on the banks of the Bave, and at the foot of
a hill that rises abruptly from the plain, and is capped by two towers
of a ruined feudal stronghold, which show against the horizon far into
the Quercy, the Corrèze, and the Cantal. Some of the old streets have
quite a mediaeval air, with their half-wood houses with stories
projecting upon the floor-joists, and others of a grander origin with
turrets resting on encorbelments. I had the luck to find a good
old-fashioned inn here, and to pass the evening in very pleasant
company.

The next morning I climbed to the top of the neighbouring hill to have
a closer view of those towers which had been my landmarks on the
previous day, passing through the little village of St.
Laurent-les-Tours, which lies immediately under the old fortress after
the manner of so many others of feudal origin. The towers are
rectangular _donjons_ of the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, one