poor labourers and men of servile class; and these are kept night and
day harassed by watching against enemies, and yet are compelled to buy
them off with _patis_ and pensions, so that the greater portion of
their substance is consumed in this way;--therefore, &c."

[ILLUSTRATION: LE DEFILE DES ANGLAIS, LOT. A fortress of the English
commanding the road to Cahors. Several chambers are excavated out of
the rock.]

In 1450 the English were driven out of Guyenne, but a fresh attempt to
recover it was made, that ended in the defeat and death of Talbot, in
1453. The Companies had then to dissolve. Out of a thousand churches in
Quercy but four hundred were in condition for the celebration of divine
service; many had been converted into fortresses. Most of the little
towns in Upper Quercy had lost the major portion of their inhabitants;
the villages were void of inhabitants. None knew who were the heirs to
the deserted houses and untilled fields.

[Footnote: "Agros atque Lares proprios, habitandaque fana
Apres reliquit, et rapacibus lupis,
Ire, pedes quocunque ferent,"

--HORACE, _Epod. Od._, 16.]

An emigration from Limousin and the Rouergue was called for to repeople
the waste places. Grammat, that had been a thriving town, in 1460 was
left with only five inhabitants, Lavergne with but three. Lhern, once a
flourishing place, was absolutely desert, the fields covered with
briars and thorns, not one house tenanted, and in the church a she-wolf
had littered her cubs.