A fortress on such a site could only serve to focus the attention of any army with designs on Périgord, and the castle's history is a litany of sieges and battles over it: taken in 1214 by Simon de Montfort, it was razed to the ground; rebuilt, it was subsequently destroyed on three further occasions (once in the Hundred Years War, once under Louis XI and once under Henri IV), and reconstructed every time. Its somewhat quaint air is the result of 19C remodelling.