sarlat to paris.

Maybe via Bordeaux?

It looks as though there is a bus to Le Buisson where you can get a train to Libourne; the train continues to Bordeaux, where you can catch a fast train to Paris. These are pretty pokey connections to Bordeaux Is there some reason you want to go to Libourne? The title of your post says you want to get to Paris, which is in the other direction. I'd rather have a car while in the Dordogne, to get about and see things, and drive to the train, probably Angouleme, but maybe Brive. If I did not have a car I would take the SNCF bus to Brive and catch the train to Paris from there. If I wanted to go to Liborne that would be another reason to have a car.

If there is no particular reason to go to Libourne, you can take a bus from Sarlat to Soulliac and then TGV to Paris Austerlitz. Details on dbahn site.

the only reason that libourne is an option is that is what the "search" engines and rail europe give as a way out of the dordogne valley. Is there other options that will quickly get us to paris. where will turn the car in?

Although it would be in the "wrong" direction, you could head south from Sarlat toward Cahors or Toulouse, seeing the Lot River Valley along the way, and taking the train to Paris from either. You could also return the car at the Toulouse airport and fly Easyjet to Paris.

Google dbahn. That is where I got the details for TGV to Paris from Soulliac (via bus from Sarlat). I have found the Rail Europe site totally useless. Dbahn site will give you all the information you need. I used the dbahn site for all our rail travel bookings recently through Germany and France. You could drive to Bordeaux, leave car and hop on TGV to Paris.
Can you not drop it off in Sarlat. What about Brive?

there is a train from bordeaux to paris it takes about 4hrs. how do you get into sarlat? with a rental car? if that's the case you can return the car to the train station (the rental car shop is next to the train station).

Just found out that we have less options now. We leave Mon 04/25.. Easter Monday and the car stores are closed.
Sarlat closed. Souilliac closed. Libourne closed.... bad planning on our part. So it appears that our only option is driving to bordeaux (2.5 hrs, car store open) from sarlat and taking tgv to paris. Any other suggestions?

You know you can drive from Sarlat to Paris in less than five hours, right?

we will have driven down from amboise(via limoges) only 3 days earlier, so we thought that would be too much driving. is it?