The Perigord is divided into four regions; there is the Périgord Vert in the north, the green Perigord, named for the great oak forests and greenery, with its centre at the town of Nontron, famous for its knives. In the south is the Perigord Poupre, the purple, named for its red wines with its capital at Bergerac. To the west is the Perigord Blanc, or white Perigord, the country around the city of Perigueux and which takes its name from the white chalk of the cliffs and soil. And then there is the heart of the place, the Perigord Noir, the black Perigord, with its centre at Sarlat. Some say it is named after the dark forests of oak, chestnut and walnut, others claim it is named for the black diamond of the truffle, heart of so much of French cuisine.
There is an old saying and complex pun about Perigord that dates from medieval times, first inscribed in the Chapel des Cordeliers in Perigueux. It says:
Petra si ingratis cor amicis hostibus ensis
Hoec tria si fueris Petra-cor-ensis eris.
Roughly translated it means: Stone for nasty people, your heart for your friends, iron for your enemies; if you are these three, you’re a Perigourdin.
There is an old saying and complex pun about Perigord that dates from medieval times, first inscribed in the Chapel des Cordeliers in Perigueux. It says:
Petra si ingratis cor amicis hostibus ensis
Hoec tria si fueris Petra-cor-ensis eris.
Roughly translated it means: Stone for nasty people, your heart for your friends, iron for your enemies; if you are these three, you’re a Perigourdin.
The towns of Périgord
Each of the towns of the Perigord region has its distinctive charm. Sarlat is magical, a town whose centre was largely built in the 16th and 17th centuries and has changed little since. They could film another version of ‘The Three Musketeers’ here without changing anything except for a few modern shop windows. It stayed unchanged because of the surrounding swamps and malaria that put the town into a long decline with little new building until the use of DDT after World War Two tamed the mosquito.
Bergerac may be best known thanks to the fictional character created by the playwright Edmond Rostand in 1897, whose Cyrano de Bergerac was the poet and hero with the long, long nose. Cyrano sought to woo the lovely Roxanne for an inarticulate friend, but ended up falling for her himself. In the 1950 Hollywood movie, Jose Ferrer won an Oscar for his performance as Cyrano, and Gerard Depardieu played the role again in a 1990 movie. But there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, who was very proud of his long nose. A writer and soldier and noted duellist, he was a pioneer of science fiction, writing of space and time travel, and also of some celebrated polemics against Charles d’Assoucy, a writer and musician with who he seems to have a prolonged gay relationship that ended badly. While not being from this part of the world by birth, Cyrano fought alongside Gascons in the 17th century wars against the Dutch and adopted some of their aggressive, vainglorious but deeply honourable style. (D’Artagnan of The Three Musketeers was a Gascon.)
Perigueux was a pagan town before the Romans came, and its Tower of Vesuna is one of most remarkable remains of ancient Gaul. A pagan temple, some 90 ft high and 90ft in diameter, and angled to open to the rising sun, it was built to the goddess Vesuna by the local Petrocorii tribes from whom stems the term Perigord. Christians later claimed the opening in the wall was where the defeated devil was hurled through the wall by the valiant St Front, who converted the region to Christianity. When the Romans defeated the Petrocrorii, they built a stadium for 20,000 people (the Jardin des Arenes) where gladiators fought and Christians were martyred. The excavated Villa Pompeia and the Porte Normande on the Rue de Turenne were built by Rome, but the great legacy is now the fine modern museum.
The cathedral of Perigord is built in the Byzantine style with domes and cupolas and looks as if might be more at home in Istanbul. It was restored in the 19th century by the great architect Abanie, and became the model of the more famous Sacre-Coeur that overlooks Paris from the hill of Montmartre. There are bits of the old church that date from 1074 at the western end, and on either side are the two ‘confessionals’ that are even older.
Some of the oldest parts, including the tomb of St Front, were destroyed by the Protestants when they seized control of the city in 1575 during the religious Wars. They secretly crept into the city on a market day, disguised as peasants with swords concealed beneath their cloaks, and kept control of the place for six years. The local Lord, Henry of Navarre, was a Protestant who finally ended the religious wars by converting to Catholicism as the price of becoming King of France. “Paris is worth a mass,” he famously said, and was crowned at Chartres cathedral in 1594, but in the Perigord they prefer to recall his remark that with its great food and wine, the region was ‘paradise on earth.”
The old centre of the city has houses that date back to the 12th century, like the Maison des Dames de la Foy on the Rue des Fargues, which was the home of the English governor in the 14th century and also a Templar headquarters.
Bergerac may be best known thanks to the fictional character created by the playwright Edmond Rostand in 1897, whose Cyrano de Bergerac was the poet and hero with the long, long nose. Cyrano sought to woo the lovely Roxanne for an inarticulate friend, but ended up falling for her himself. In the 1950 Hollywood movie, Jose Ferrer won an Oscar for his performance as Cyrano, and Gerard Depardieu played the role again in a 1990 movie. But there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, who was very proud of his long nose. A writer and soldier and noted duellist, he was a pioneer of science fiction, writing of space and time travel, and also of some celebrated polemics against Charles d’Assoucy, a writer and musician with who he seems to have a prolonged gay relationship that ended badly. While not being from this part of the world by birth, Cyrano fought alongside Gascons in the 17th century wars against the Dutch and adopted some of their aggressive, vainglorious but deeply honourable style. (D’Artagnan of The Three Musketeers was a Gascon.)
Perigueux was a pagan town before the Romans came, and its Tower of Vesuna is one of most remarkable remains of ancient Gaul. A pagan temple, some 90 ft high and 90ft in diameter, and angled to open to the rising sun, it was built to the goddess Vesuna by the local Petrocorii tribes from whom stems the term Perigord. Christians later claimed the opening in the wall was where the defeated devil was hurled through the wall by the valiant St Front, who converted the region to Christianity. When the Romans defeated the Petrocrorii, they built a stadium for 20,000 people (the Jardin des Arenes) where gladiators fought and Christians were martyred. The excavated Villa Pompeia and the Porte Normande on the Rue de Turenne were built by Rome, but the great legacy is now the fine modern museum.
The cathedral of Perigord is built in the Byzantine style with domes and cupolas and looks as if might be more at home in Istanbul. It was restored in the 19th century by the great architect Abanie, and became the model of the more famous Sacre-Coeur that overlooks Paris from the hill of Montmartre. There are bits of the old church that date from 1074 at the western end, and on either side are the two ‘confessionals’ that are even older.
Some of the oldest parts, including the tomb of St Front, were destroyed by the Protestants when they seized control of the city in 1575 during the religious Wars. They secretly crept into the city on a market day, disguised as peasants with swords concealed beneath their cloaks, and kept control of the place for six years. The local Lord, Henry of Navarre, was a Protestant who finally ended the religious wars by converting to Catholicism as the price of becoming King of France. “Paris is worth a mass,” he famously said, and was crowned at Chartres cathedral in 1594, but in the Perigord they prefer to recall his remark that with its great food and wine, the region was ‘paradise on earth.”
The old centre of the city has houses that date back to the 12th century, like the Maison des Dames de la Foy on the Rue des Fargues, which was the home of the English governor in the 14th century and also a Templar headquarters.
