Such streams of pilgrims crossed the country from various directions, moving towards the sanctuary in the Haut-Quercy, that inns or ‘halts’ were called into existence on the principal lines of route, and lanterns were set up at night for the guidance of the wanderers.  The last halt was close to Roc-Amadour, at a spot still called the Hospitalet.  Here were religious, who bound up the pilgrims’ bleeding feet, and provided them with food before they descended to the burg and completed the last part of their pilgrimage—­the ascent of the steps—­upon their knees.  The sportelle, or badge of Notre Dame de Roc-Amadour, ensured the wearer against interference or ill-treatment on his journey.  It is acknowledged that the English respected it even in time 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