I had had more than enough of this duo before the night was through, and was out very early in the morning looking at the ancient town of Espalion, which witnessed both the victory and the defeat of British arms long ere the Maid of Domremy came to the rescue of the golden lilies.  Its capture took place soon after the Battle of Crecy.  The lords of Espalion were the Calmont d’Olt, who played an active part in the wars with the English.  The town deserves a prominent place among the many picturesque old burgs stamped with mediaeval character on the banks of the Lot.  One may stand upon its Gothic bridge of the thirteenth century and dream of the past without risk of being hustled by a crowd except on market days.  This venerable bridge must have been admirably built to have withstood all the floods which have smote it in the course of six centuries.  The great central arch is so much higher than the others that in crossing you go up a hill and then down one.  Close by on the river-bank is the sixteenth-century Hotel de Ville, a castle, partly built on a rock, in the gracefully-ornamental style of the French Renaissance, with turrets, mullioned windows, and a loggia.

Having crossed the river, I went in search of the chief architectural curiosity in or near Espalion—­that known as the Church of Pers, or the Chapel of St. Hilarion.  It is on the outskirts of the town, and stands in the old cemetery.  I had first to find a potter who kept the key, and I discovered him at length in a narrow street in the midst of his clay and the vessels of his handicraft.  He gave me the great key, and it was one that some fervent archaeologist might press reverentially to his heart, for the smith who forged it must have died centuries ago.  Entering the cemetery, I saw, surrounded by a multitude of closely-packed tombs and grave mounds, on which the long grass stood with the late summer flowers, a small Romanesque building that seemed to have sunk far into the soil, like the ancient lichen-covered slabs from which the inscriptions had been washed away by time’s inexorable and ever-wearing sea.  Perhaps the soil had risen about the walls.

This church of the twelfth century is built of red sandstone, the blocks being laid together without mortar.  On entering it such a dimness falls, with such a sacred silence; the air is so heavy with dampness and the odour of mildew, that you feel as if you were already in the vestibule of the Halls of Death, where darkness and stillness have never known the sound of a human voice or the blessed light of the sun.  The design of the building is that of a nave with transept and apse.  At each end of the transept is some curious cross-vaulting.  The columns have all very large capitals in proportion to the diameter and height; some are ornamented with plain acanthus leaves, others are carved with numerous small figures of men and animals, ideally uncouth and typical of the fantastic medley of Christian symbolism