In yet earlier times, Simon de Montfort had frequently tried to take it,
without success; and four years after S. Bartholomew, Lesdiguieres met
with a like repulse.[91] The same story of sieges and battles might be
told of almost every village and defile of the valley. Thus, Saillans,
the third stage, was taken by the Protestant leader Mirabel, and the
Catholic Gordes, in 1574, and its fortifications were razed by the Duc
de Mayenne in 1581. Pontaix, again, a remarkable place, with a vaulted
street and fortified houses overhanging the river, which here fills up
the whole valley and leaves room only for the road and the narrow
village-town, was the scene of an obstinate and murderous fight between
the Marquis de Gordes on one side, and Lesdiguieres and Dupuy-Montbrun
on the other, when the latter was captured, and shortly after beheaded
at Grenoble.
The town of Die, _Dea Vocontiorum_, lies in a broad part of the valley.
It claims to be not _Dea Vocontiorum_ only, but also _Augusta
Vocontiorum_, thereby apparently defrauding the village of Aouste, near
Crest, of the earliest form of its name.
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