by the Boulevard Gambetta, which runs from the Pont Louis Philippe on the south to within a short distance of the fortified wall of the 14th and 15th centuries enclosing the town on the north. To the east lies the old town, with its dark narrow streets and closely-packed houses; west of the Boulevard a newer quarter, with spacious squares and promenades, stretches to the bank of the river. Cahors communicates with the opposite shore by three bridges. One of these, the Pont Valentré to the west of the town, is the finest fortified bridge of the middle ages in France. It is a structure of the early 14th century, restored in the 19th century, and is defended at either end by high machicolated towers, another tower, less elaborate, surmounting the centre pier. The east bridge, the Pont Neuf, also dates from the 14th century. The cathedral of St Étienne stands in the heart of the old town. It dates from the 12th century, but was entirely restored in the 13th century. Its exterior, for the most part severe in appearance, is relieved by some fine sculpture, that of the north portal being especially remarkable. The nave, which is without aisles, is surmounted by two cupolas; its interior is whitewashed and plain in appearance, while the choir is decorated with medieval paintings. Adjoining the church to the south-east there are remains of a cloister built from 1494 to 1509. St Urcisse, the chief of the other ecclesiastical buildings, stands near the cathedral. Dating from the 12th and 13th centuries, it preserves Romanesque capitals recarved in the 14th century. The principal of the civil buildings is the palace of Pope John XXII., built at the beginning of the 14th century; a massive square tower is still standing, but the rest is in ruins. The residence of the seneschals of Quercy, a building of the 14th to the 17th centuries, known as the Logis du Roi, also remains. The chief of the old houses, of which there are many in Cahors, is one of the 15th century, known as the Maison d’Henri IV. Most of the state buildings are modern, with the exception of the prefecture which occupies the old episcopal palace, and the old convent and the Jesuit college in which the Lycée Gambetta is established. The Porte de Diane is a large archway of the Roman period, probably the entrance to the baths. Of the commemorative monuments, the finest is that erected in the Place d’Armes to Gambetta, who was a native of the town. There is also a statue of the poet Clément Marot, born at Cahors in 1496. Cahors is the seat of a bishopric, a prefect and a court of assizes. It has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. There are also training colleges, a lycée, a communal college for girls, an ecclesiastical seminary, a library, museum and hospital. The manufacture of farm implements, tanning, wool-spinning, metal-founding, distilling and the preparation of pâté de foie gras and other delicacies are carried on. Wine, nuts, oil of nuts, tobacco, truffles and plums are leading articles of commerce.
History.—Before the Roman conquest, Cahors, which grew up near the sacred fountain of Divona (now known as the Fontaine des Chartreux), was the capital of the Cadurci. Under the Romans it enjoyed a prosperity partly due to its manufacture of cloth and of mattresses, which were exported even to Rome. The first bishop of Cahors, St Genulfus, appears to have lived in the 3rd century. In the middle ages the town was the capital of Quercy, and its territory until after the Albigensian Crusade was a fief of the counts of Toulouse. The seigniorial rights, including that of coining money, belonged to the bishops. In the 13th century Cahors was a financial centre of much importance owing to its colony of Lombard bankers, and the name cahorsin consequently came to signify “banker” or “usurer.” At the beginning of the century a commune was organized in the town. Its constant opposition to the bishops drove them, in 1316, to come to an arrangement with the French king, by which the administration of the town was placed almost entirely in the hands of royal officers, king and bishop being co-seigneurs. This arrangement survived till the Revolution. In 1331 Pope John XXII., a native of Cahors, founded there a university, which afterwards numbered Jacques Cujas among its teachers and François Fénelon among its students. It flourished till 1751, when it was united to its rival the university of Toulouse. During the Hundred Years’ War, Cahors, like the rest of Quercy, consistently resisted the English occupation, from which it was relieved in 1428. In the 16th century it belonged to the viscounts of Béarn, but remained Catholic and rose against Henry of Navarre who took it by assault in 1580. On his accession Henry IV. punished the town by depriving it of its privileges as a wine-market; the loss of these was the chief cause of its decline.
CAIATIA (mod. Caiazzo), an ancient city of Campania, on the right bank of the Volturnus, 11 m. N.E. of Capua, on the road between it and Telesia. It was already in the hands of the Romans in 306 B.C., and since in the 3rd century B.C. it issued copper coins with a Latin legend it must have had the civitas sine suffragio. In the Social War it rebelled from Rome, and its territory was added to that of Capua by Sulla. In the imperial period, however, we find it once more a municipium. Caiatia has remains of Cyclopean walls, and under the Piazza del Mercato is a large Roman cistern, which still provides a good water supply. The episcopal see was founded in A.D. 966. The place is frequently confused with Calatia (q.v.).
CAIETAE PORTUS (mod. Gaeta), an ancient harbour of Latium adiectum, Italy, in the territory of Formiae, from which it is 5 m. S.W. The name (originally Αἰήτη) is generally derived from the nurse of Aeneas. The harbour, owing to its fine anchorage, was much in use, but the place was never a separate town, but always dependent on Formiae. Livy mentions a temple of Apollo. The coast of the Gulf not only between Caietae Portus and Formiae, but E. of the latter also, as far as the modern Monte Scauri, was a favourite summer resort (see Formia). Cicero may have had villas both at Portus Caietae and at Formiae[1] proper, and the emperors certainly possessed property at both places. After the destruction of Formiae in A.D. 847 it became one of the most important seaports of central Italy (see Gaeta). In the town are scanty remains of an amphitheatre and theatre: near the church of La Trinità, higher up, are remains of a large reservoir. There are also traces of an aqueduct. The promontory (548 ft.) is crowned by the tomb of Munatius Plancus, founder of Lugudunum (mod. Lyons), who died after 22 B.C. It is a circular structure of blocks of travertine 160 ft. high and 180 ft. in diameter. Further inland is the so-called tomb of L. Atratinus, about 100 ft. in diameter. Caietae Portus was no doubt connected with the Via Appia (which passed through Formiae) by a deverticulum. There seems also to have been a road running W.N.W. along the precipitous coast to Speluncae (mod. Sperlonga).
See E. Gesualdo Osservazioni critiche sopra la storia della Via Appia di Pratilli p. 7 (Naples, 1754). (T. As.)
CAILLIÉ (or Caillé), RENÉ AUGUSTE (1799–1838), French explorer, was born at Mauzé, Poitou, in 1799, the son of a baker. The reading of Robinson Crusoe kindled in him a love of travel and adventure, and at the age of sixteen he made a voyage to Senegal whence he went to Guadeloupe. Returning to Senegal in 1818 he made a journey to Bondu to carry supplies to a British expedition then in that country. Ill with fever he was obliged to go back to France, but in 1824 was again in Senegal with the fixed idea of penetrating to Timbuktu. He spent eight months with the Brakna “Moors” living north of Senegal river, learning Arabic and being taught, as a convert, the laws and customs of Islam. He laid his project of reaching Timbuktu before the governor of Senegal, but receiving no encouragement went to Sierra Leone where the British authorities made him superintendent of an indigo plantation. Having saved £80 he joined a Mandingo caravan going inland. He was dressed as a Mussulman, and gave out that he was an Arab from Egypt who had been carried off by the French to Senegal and was desirous of regaining his own country. Starting from Kakundi near Boké on the Rio Nunez on 19th of April 1827, he travelled east along the hills of Futa Jallon, passing the head streams of the Senegal and crossing the Upper Niger at Kurussa. Still going east he came to the Kong highlands, where at a place called Timé he was detained five months by illness. Resuming his journey
- ↑ The two places are sufficiently close for the one villa to have borne both names; but Mommsen (Corp. Inscrip. Lat. x., Berlin, 1883, p. 603) prefers to differentiate them.
