of war. At the Great Pardon of Roc-Amadour, in 1546, so great
was the crowd of pilgrims, who had come from all parts, that many
persons were suffocated. The innkeepers' tents gave the surrounding
country the appearance of a vast camp. Sixteen years later, when
Roc-Amadour fell into the hands of the Huguenots, and the religious
buildings were pillaged and partly destroyed, the pilgrimage received
a blow from which it never quite recovered. It ceased completely at
the Revolution, but has since been revived, and some thousand genuine
pilgrims, chiefly of the peasant class, now visit Roc-Amadour every
year.

For nearly 300 years the history of the Quercy and Roc-Amadour was
intimately associated with that of England. Henry II. did not at first
claim the Quercy as a part of Eleanor's actual possessions in
Aquitaine; but he claimed homage from the Count of Toulouse, who was
then suzerain of the Count of Quercy. Homage being refused, Henry
invaded the county, captured Cahors, where he left Becket with a
garrison, and thence proceeded to reduce the other strongholds.
Roc-Amadour appears to have offered little if any resistance. The
Quercy was formally made over to the English in 1191 by the treaty
signed by Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur-de-Lion; but the aged
Raymond V. of Toulouse protested, and the Quercynois still more
loudly. These descendants of the Cadurci found it very difficult to
submit to English rule. Unlike the Gascons, who became thoroughly
English during those three centuries, and were so loath to change
their rulers again that they fought for the King of England to the
last, the Quercynois were never reconciled to the Plantagenets, but
were ever ready to seize an opportunity of rebelling against them. It
is well known that Richard Coeur-de-Lion lost his life at the hand of
a nobleman of the Quercy. While Guyenne was distracted by the family
quarrel of the first Plantagenets, the troubadour Bertrand de Born by
his gift of words so stirred up the patriotic and martial ardour of
the Aquitanians that a league was formed against the English, which
included Talleyrand, Count of Perigord, Guilhem (or Fortanier) de
Gourdon, a powerful lord of the Quercy, De Montfort, the Viscounts of
Turenne and Ventadour. These nobles swore upon the Gospels to remain
united and faithful to the cause of Aquitaine; but Richard, partly by
feats of war and partly by diplomacy, in which it is said the argument
of money had no inconsider