Items from Ken's tour through South-West France
Notes on Meymac

At the end of June, this is a bit like a hot, dry Buxton or Bakewell (in the English Peak District), because of the similar local stone & very attractive. We looked in Bertrand de la Forsa's church (link to the family tree), still in excellent condition & in the Musée Archaeologie, where we told the girls the story, left my card & bought the town history book, regrettably in French, written in 1881 & patchily revised before 1950. Not much help in our family history matters. We learn that the church is XII century but with earlier elements still visible. Richard the Lion-heart, who justifiably has a very bad reputation in Aquitaine, appears to have done (performed?, committed?) a massacre here. It was pillaged in the Hundred Years War in 1350 & the following period was very miserable. This would have been Bertrand's time. Things looked up after this until the Wars of Religion in the XVI century, when the forests were fired & there were revolts against Henri IV & Louis XIII. To cap things, the Plague arrived in 1633.

The local, French-language web site is not helpful!