In the rock of Corn, a little higher up the river than the village, is the Grotto du Consulat, reached by a path along a narrow ledge. To this the villagers were wont to gather to elect their magistrates without interference from the Bastard of Albret. Within is a bench cut in the rock, and the roof is encrusted with stalactite formations like cauliflowers. Immediately above the village is a much larger cavern 72 feet high and 36 feet deep. It is vaulted like a dome, and tendrils of ivy and vine hang down draping the entrance. Violets grow in purple masses at the opening, and maiden-hair fern luxuriates within. At the extreme end, high up, to be reached only by a ladder of forty rungs, is another opening into a cave that runs far into the bowels of the Causse, to where the water falls in a cascade that now flows forth beneath the outer cave and supplies the village with drinking water and a place for washing linen. Hard by the great entrance is another cave situated high up, and called the Citadel, much smaller, access to which is obtained by a narrow track in the face of the rock, with notches cut in the limestone to receive the beams and struts that supported a wooden gallery which once provided easy access to the cave. I did not myself climb up and investigate the citadel, not having a steady head on the edge of a precipice, and what information I give was received from the curé, who seemed very much amused at my shirking the scramble, and thought that the Englishman of to-day must be very different from the Englishman of the fourteenth century who crawled about these cliffs like a lizard. According to him, the cave within shows signs of having been occupied, and has in it a squared and smoothed block of stone nine feet long, at which Perducat and his ruffians doubtless caroused, as at a table. [Illustration: CORN, LOT. Caves occupied by the Routiers. That above the large one was formerly reached by a gallery of wood. It contains the stone table at which the Routiers gambled and drank.] In the village of Corn is the picturesque château of the family of Beduer built after the abandonment of the place by the English. It is now occupied by poor families. A little farther down the valley is the castle of Roquefort, which was also annexed by the Captain. It is near the Church of S. Laurent, where was a village that was destroyed by the Company. The church itself was blown up later by the Huguenots. Roquefort is dominated by a precipice, at the foot of which lies a huge mass of rock that has broken off from the cliff, and on this rock a castle has been erected. It belonged to the family of Lascasas. One of these fell at Résinières in a duel with the Seigneur of Camboulet; but his adversary survived him only a few minutes, and both were buried on the spot with three stones at their heads and two at their feet. When the new road was being made their skeletons were found. The stones remain _in situ_.