Automobile travel; France -- Description and travel
His own brother, being betrayed into his hands, was confined in this
donjon frowning above us and that created war in all the province, in
which the Pope and the Church and State were involved. Count Guy did
not fear the anathema of the Church in the least, and locked his Bishop
brother up whenever he could catch him so that the journeys by force
of Robert between his ecclesiastical city of Clermont, glistening in
the sun over there, and this frowning fortress were frequent. War was
forever on between them save when they united in a Crusade, but that
was but a temporary interruption. Guy was finally summoned by the King
to appear before him and answer for his sack of the rich abbeys of
Marsat and Mozat. Refusing, war was declared against him by Church and
King.
Tournoël was considered impregnable with its lofty rampart, deep moat,
and many towers, the whole placed so high upon the mountain that only
the birds, one would think, could reach it. Three times the soldiers of
the King made attacks only to be repulsed. Disease broke out amongst
the royal forces and almost caused the siege to be abandoned. However,
during a sortie by the garrison, the sons of Count Guy were taken
prisoners, which finally caused a surrender of the fortress, and in the
little chapel where the old custodian has her altar to-day were found
all the stolen riches of the convents recently sacked.
Those were gay days in France when knights would rather fight than
eat, and bishops with great pleasure threw aside their copes for the
sword.
Here at Tournoël the castle was confiscated because of the felony of
its lord. It passed to the care of Comte Guy de Dampierre and his
successor restored it to Alphonse, Comte de Poitou, brother of St.
Louis, and it became an appendage of the land of Auvergne. During the
invasion of the English, Tournoël was several times attacked, but
always without success. Later on we find the hands of Louis XI. at
work, as ever, against the power of his nobles; in this case, by giving
a charter to that little town of Volvic yonder and exciting it to
rebellion against its high lords in Tournoël.
As the years drift past, the history of the castle is painted also with
the faces of many women, some good, mostly dissolute. During the reign
of Francis I. it was repaired and restored by the Maréchal de St. André
who had married its young _chatelaine_. Nothing was spared to make the
work monumental and durable, yet the castle has been a ruin now for
more than a hundred years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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