being nearly a hundred and fifty feet high. The castle was raised upon
a table of calcareous rock; but only the towers, a portion of the
outer wall built of enormous blocks of stone, and a ruined archway
marking the spot where the drawbridge once hung, remain to tell the
tale of the past.

That the Romans had fortified this height there is the strongest
evidence in the fact that the substructure of the rampart that once
surrounded the castle is of cubic stones laid together according to
the method so much practised by the Romans, and known as _opus
reticulatum_. Moreover, the coins, pottery, and arms found here seem
to afford conclusive proof that this remarkable hill was one of the
fortified positions of the Romans in Gaul.

The spot has its Christian legend, which is briefly this: In the
castle that crowned the height in the time of the Visigoth kings was
born St. Espérie, daughter of a Duke of Aquitaine. Being pressed to
marry, notwithstanding the vow she had made to consecrate her life to
God, she hid herself in a neighbouring forest for three months. She
was at length discovered by her enraged brother and lover, who cut off
her head. Like St. Denis, St. Espérie picked up her head, to the
unspeakable astonishment and dismay of her persecutors. They fled from
her, but she followed them as far as a little stream that flows into
the Bave at St. Céré. Espérie is a saint much venerated in the
Haut-Quercy. The church of St. Céré is dedicated to her, and the name
given to the town is supposed to be a corruption of Espérie.

From St. Céré I took the road to Castelnau-de-Bretenoux, returning for
some distance by the way I came. Inns being now very scarce in the
district, I decided to take my chance of lunch in a small village