CLIFF CASTLES
and nothing remained to be reaped, the Companies abandoned it for the Rouergue, the Gevaudan and the Limousin and Upper Auvergne. Thence the wretched peasants fled to the deserted limestone Causse of Quercy and occupied the abandoned villages and farms. They obtained but a short respite, for in 1407 the Companies returned to their former quarters. Charles VI. imposed a heavy tax on the whole kingdom to enable him to carry on the war against the English. But Quercy was wholly unable to meet the demands, and the King, in a letter dated the last day of February 1415, gives a graphic account of the condition to which the land had been reduced.
"Whereas, this land, at the time when it passed under the obedience of the King of England, was the richest and most populous in all the Duchy of Guyenne, and contained the finest cities, towns, and castles and fortresses in the said duchy, which were free and quit of all taxes and imposts, and with privileges conferred on them and confirmed by the King of France when they shook off the English yoke; and the said land of Quercy, after having returned to its legitimate sovereigns, has testified to them the greatest loyalty; yet have its inhabitants been grievously injured, assailed, beaten, robbed, pillaged, imprisoned, killed, maltreated by the English in divers ways, which enemies have since taken and occupied the greater part of the finest towns and fortresses of the land; on which account the land of Quercy has since continued in a condition of mortal warfare with the said enemies for the space of fifty-five years; and this carried on without aid from us, or from any one:—This unfortunate land has resisted to the utmost of its powers and is doing so still; and it has been surrounded for long by our said enemies, and is as it were destroyed and uninhabitable, and the greater number of its towns, castles, and strongholds have become desert and wild, covered with forest and scrub, inhabited by wild beasts,
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