seventeenth century, Domme was first taken by the English in 1346, but
not without the help of '_quelques traistres_.' From this stronghold they
harassed the surrounding country, 'while the armies of one and the other
party were in Normandy and Picardy, and that battle of Cressi (Crecy) was
fought to the disadvantage of the party of France. Towards the end of the
year a truce was accorded, but it was in no way observed in Perigord by the
English.'

The correct date of the capture of Domme appears to have been 1347. The men
who treasonably delivered up the place were afterwards hanged by the French
party when they regained possession of the stronghold. In 1369 the English
again invested the rock, this time under the command of Robert Knolles.
(Tarde, who spelt all English names as he had heard them pronounced in the
country, writes Robert Canole.) The place was then so well defended, and
success appeared so far off to the partisans of Edward III., that the siege
was raised in despair at the end of a month; and the annalist goes on to
say that the English then marched into the Quercy and took Roc-Amadour.
Domme, however, fell into the English power again; but in 1415 it was once
more in the hands of the French. Then we read that the seneschal sent
the crier into the public place to proclaim '_de par le Roy_' that every
inhabitant of Domme was forbidden to leave the town with the intention of
living elsewhere, under the penalty of having any property that he might
possess in the town confiscated. The motive of this ordinance is explained
as follows: 'The wars had already rendered the country so desolate, that at
Domme, where the ordinary number of inhabitants who were heads of families
was a thousand, there were now no more than a hundred and twenty. The
people who had left had abandoned everything, and gone to Spain or
elsewhere.'

From the bare and windy hill I went down again into the quiet valley,