In passing through Quercy we are struck by the constant succession of old castles bearing some historic name like that of Turenne. Among others is Castelnau de Bretenoux, associated with Henry II. of England, on a lofty eminence on the left shore of the Dordogne, overlooking one of the most beautiful valleys of France, which is said to have inspired Fénelon with his description of the island of Calypso. A few years since this vast château was one of the finest specimens of feudal architecture in France. Its embattled walls and massive towers; the long gallery, with its carvings and gildings, where the fair ladies of the time of Louis Treize used to promenade in their satins and rich Mechlin laces, admiring themselves in the rare Venetian mirrors; the spacious cellars with their arches; the vaulted stables, and the vast courts with their immense wells, have been greatly injured by fire and now wear an aspect of desolation melancholy to behold. Galid de Genouilhac, a lord of this house, who was grand écuyer in the time of Francis I., and would have saved his royal master the defeat of Pavia had his advice been listened to, was disgraced for presuming to admire the queen, and, retiring to this castle, he built a church, on which he graved the words still to be seen: _J’aime fort une_. “Roc Amadour!” cried the guard, as he opened the door of our compartment, disturbing our historic recollections. We looked out. There was nothing to correspond with so poetical a name. No village; no church. Nothing but a forlorn station-house on a desolate plain. Behind it we found an omnibus waiting to catch up any stray pilgrim, and we availed ourselves of so opportune a vehicle, rude as it was. We could not have asked for anything more penitential, so there was no occasion for scruples. It leisurely took us a few miles to the west, and finally dropped us mercifully in the middle of the road before a rough wayside inn that had a huge leafy bough suspended over the door to proclaim that poor wine only needed the larger bush. We were not tempted to enter. The driver pointed out the way, and left us to our instinct and the pilgrim’s staff. There was nothing to be seen but the same dreary expanse. But we soon came to a chapel in the centre of a graveyard, where once stood a hospice with kind inmates to wash the bleeding feet of the pilgrim. Then we began to descend diagonally along the side of a tremendous chasm that suddenly opened before us, passing by a straggling line of poor rock-built huts, till we came to the archway of an old gate, once fortified, that stands at the entrance of a village. This was Roc Amadour.