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A Shepherd of Bigorre .... facing 302 Chateau de Coarraze .... facing 308 Chateau de Lourdes facing 314 Cauterets facing 318 The Pont d'Orthez facing 338* The Walls of Navarreux . . . facing 346 B^arn and Navarre (Map) ..... 354 Kings of Basse - Navarre and Kings of France and Navarre (Diagram) 360 The Arms of Navarre 362 Arms of Henri IV of France and Navarre facing 368 The Basque Country (Map) . . . . . 372 The Game of Pelota facing 378 « Le Chevalet " . . . . . . facing 390 List of Illustrations xvii PAGE The Quaint Streets of Saint - Jean - Pied - de - Port facing 394 Arms of Bayonne 413 A Gateway of Bayonne .... facing 414 Biarritz and the Surrounding Country (Map) . 422 Biarritz facing 424 St. -Jean-de -Luz facing 430 Ile de Faisans (Map) 437 The Frontier at Hendaye (Map) .... 441 Maison Pierre Loti, Hendaye . . . facing 442 In Old Feuntabrabia .... facing 446 ^ePYRENEAN PROVINCES 9 ¥ v' Ek ^' )Eh ,,M r^ W, \a mi!>ri \^ ^-L )^W 'hJi 11.)!,!' maS 3J :^ i >'yv w /^^ 1^ , r^ ^ ^ sfe'^ r>^-' ■5^ VUjIr, Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces CHAPTER I A GENERAL SURVEY This book is no record of exploitation or discovery ; it is simply a review of many things seen and heard anent that marvellous and com- paratively little known region vaguely de- scribed as " the Pyrenees," of which the old French provinces (and before them the inde- pendent kingdoms, countships and dukedoms) of Beam, Navarre, Foix and Roussillon are the chief and most familiar. The region has been known as a touring ground for long years, and mountain climbers who have tired of the monotony of the Alps have found much here to quicken their jaded appetites. Besides this, there is a wealth of 1 2 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces historic fact and a quaintness of men and manners throughout all this wonderful coun- try of infinite variety, which has been little worked, as yet, by any but the guide-book makers, who deal with only the dryest of details and with little approach to complete- ness. The monuments of the region, the historic and ecclesiastical shrines, are numerous enough to warrant a very extended review, but they have only been hinted at once and again by travellers who have usually made the round of the resorts like Biarritz, Pau, Luchon and Lourdes their chief reason for coming here at all. Delightful as are these places, and a half a dozen others whose names are less familiar, the little known townlets with their historic sites — such as Mazeres, with its Chateau de Henri Quatre, Navarreux, Mauleon, Morlaas, Nay, and Bruges (peopled originally by Flam- ands) — make up an itinerary quite as impor- tant as one composed of the names of places writ large in the guide-books and in black type on the railway-maps. The region of the Pyrenees is most accessi- ble, granted it is off the regular beaten travel track. The tide of Mediterranean travel is A General Survey breaking hard upon its shores to-day; but few who are washed ashore by it go inland from Barcelona and Perpignan, and so on to the old-time little kingdoms of the Pyrenees. Fewer still among those who go to southern France, via Marseilles, ever think of turning westward instead of eastward — the attraction of Monte Carlo and its satellite resorts is too great. The same is true of those about to ' ^ do " the Spanish tour, which usually means Holy Week at Seville, a day in the Prado and another at the Alhambra and Grenada, Toledo of course, and back again north to Paris, or to take ship at G-ibraltar. En route they may have stopped at Biarritz, in France, or San Sebastian, in Spain, because it is the vogue just at present, but that is all. It was thus that we had known '' the Pyrenees." We knew P'au and its ancestral chateau of Henri Quatre; had had a look at Biarritz; had been to Lourdes, Luchon and Tarbes and even to Cauterets and Bigorre, and to Foix, Carcassonne and Toulouse, but those were reminiscences of days of railway travel. Since that time the automobile has come to make travel in out-of-the-way places easy, and instead of having to bargain for a sorry hack to take us through the Gorges de 4 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Pierre Lys, or from Perpignan to Prats-de- Mollo we found an even greater pleasure in finding our own way and setting our own pace. This is the way to best know a country not one's own, and whether we were contempla- ting the spot where Charlemagne and his fol- lowers met defeat at the hands of the Moun- taineers, or stood where the Romans erected their great trophee, high above Bellegarde, we were sure that we were always on the trail we would follow, and were not being driven hither and thither by a cocher who classed all strangers as " mere tourists," and pointed out a cavern with gigantic stalagmites or a profile rock as being the " chief sights " of his neighbourhood, when near by may have been a famous battle-ground or the chateau where was born the gallant Graston Phcebus. Really, tourists, using the word in its over- worked sense, are themselves responsible for much that is banal in the way of sights; they won't follow out their own predilections, but walk blindly in the trail of others whose tastes may not be their own. Travel by road, by diligence or omnibus, is more frequent all through the French depart- ments bordering on the Pyrenees than in any other part of France, save perhaps in A General Survey Dauphine and Savoie, and the linking up of various loose ends of railway by such a means is one of the delights of travel in these parts — if you don't happen to have an automobile handy. Beyond a mere appreciation of mediaeval architectural delights of chateaux, manoirs, and gentilhommieres of the region, this book includes some comments on the manner of living in those far-away times when chivalry flourished on this classically romantic ground. It treats, too, somewhat of men and manners of to-day, for here in this southwest corner of France much of modern life is but a reminiscence of that which has gone before. Many of the great spas of to-day, such as the Bagneres de Bigorre, Salies de Beam, Cauterets, Eaux-Bonnes, or Amelie les Bains, have a historic past, as well as a present vogue. They were known in some cases to the Romans, and were often frequented by the royalties of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and therein is another link which binds the present with the past. One feature of the region resulting from the alliance of the life of the princes, counts and seigneurs of the romantic past, with that 6 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces of the monks and prelates of those times is the religious architecture. Since the overlord or seigneur of a small district was often an amply endowed arch- bishop or bishop, or the lands round about be- longed by ancient right to some community of monkish brethren, it is but natural that mention of some of their more notable works and institutions should have found a place herein. Where such inclusion is made, it is always with the consideration of the part played in the stirring affairs of mediaeval times by some fat monk or courtly prelate, who was, if not a compeer, at least a companion of the lay lords and seigneurs. Not all the fascinating figures of history have been princes and counts; sometimes they were cardinal-archbishops, and when they were wealthy and powerful seigneurs as well they became at once principal characters on the stage. Often they have been as romantic and chivalrous (and as intriguing and as greedy) as the most dashing hero who ever wore cloak and doublet. Still another species of historical charac- ters and monuments is found plentifully be- sprinkled through the pages of the chronicles of the Pyrenean kingdoms and provinces, and A General Survey that is the class which includes warriors and their fortresses. A castle may well be legitimately considered as a fortress, and a chateau as a country house; the two are quite distinct one from the other, though often their functions have been combined. Throughout the Pyrenees are many little walled towns, fortifications, watch-towers and what not, architecturally as splendid, and as great, as the most glorious domestic establish- ment of Renaissance days. The cite of Carcas- sonne, more especially, is one of these. Carcas- sonne's chateau is as naught considered with- out the ramparts of the mediseval cite, but together, what a splendid historical souvenir they form! The most splendid, indeed, that still exists in Europe, or perhaps that ever did exist. Prats-de-Mollo and its walls, its tower, and the defending Fort Bellegarde ; Saint Bertrand de Comminges and its walls; or even the quaintly picturesque defences of Vauban at Bayonne, where one enters the city to-day through various gateway breaches in the walls, are all as reminiscent of the vivid life of the history-making past, as is Henri Quatre's 8 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces tortoise-shell cradle at Pan, or Gaston de Foix' ancestral chateau at Mazeres. Mostly it is the old order of things with which one comes into contact here, but the blend of the new and old is sometimes astonishing. Luchon and Pau and Tarbes and Lourdes, and many other places for that mat- ter, have over-progressed. This has been remarked before now ; the writer is not alone in his opinion. The equal of the charm of the Pyrenean country, its historic sites, its quaint peoples, and its scenic splendours does not exist in all France. It is a blend of French and Spanish manners and blood, lending a colour-scheme to life that is most enjoyable to the seeker after new delights. Before the Revolution, France was divided into fifty-two provinces, made up wholly from the petty states of feudal times. Of the southern provinces, seven in all, this book deals in part with Gascogne (capital Auch), the Comte de Foix (capital Foix), Roussillon (capital Perpignan), Haute-Languedoc (capital Toulouse), and Bas-Languedoc (capital Mont- pellier). Of the southwest provinces, a part of Guyenne (capital Bordeaux) is included, also A General Survey 9 Navarre (capital Saint- Jean-Pied-de-Port) and Beam (capital Pan). Besides these general divisions, there were many minor petits pays compressed within the greater, such as Armagnac, Comminges, the Condanois, the Pays-Entre-Deux-Mers, the Landes, etc. These, too, naturally come within the scope of this book. Finally, in the new order of things, the ancient provinces lost their nomenclature after the Revolution, and the Departement of the Landes (and three others) was carved out of Guyenne; the Departement of the Basses- Pyrenees absorbed Navarre, Beam and the Basque provinces ; Bigorre became the Hautes- Pyrenees; Foix became Ariege; Roussillon be- came the Pyrenees-Orientales, and Haute-Lan- guedoc and Bas-Languedoc gave Herault, Gard, Haute-Garonne and the Aude. For the most part all come within the scope of these pages, and together these modem departements form an unbreakable historical and topographical frontier link from the Atlantic to the Medi- terranean. This bird's-eye view of the Pyrenean provinces, then, is a sort of picturesque, in- formal report of things seen and facts gar- nered through more or less familiarity with the 10 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces region, its history, its institutions and its peo- ple. Chateaux and other historical monuments, agriculture and landscape, market-places and peasant life, all find a place here, inasmuch as all relate to one another, and all blend into that very nearly perfect whole which makes France so delightful to the traveller. Everywhere in this delightful region, whether on the mountain side or in the plains, the very atmosphere is charged with an ex- treme of life and colour, and both the physiognomy of landscape and the physiog- nomy of humanity is unfailing in its appeal to one's interest. Here there are no guide-book phrases in the speech of the people, no struggling lines of " conducted " tourists with a polyglot con- ductor, and no futile labelling of doubtful historic monuments; there are enough of un- doubted authenticity without this. Thoroughly tired and wearied of the prog- ress and super-civilization of the cities and towns of the well-worn roads, it becomes a real pleasure to seek out the by-paths of the old French provinces, and their historic and romantic associations, in their very crudities and fragments every whit as interesting as the A General Survey 11 better known stamping-grounds of the con- ventional tourist. The folk of the Pyrenees, in their faces and figures, in their speech and customs, are as varied as their histories. They are a bright, gay, careless folk, with ever a care and a kind word for the stranger, whether they are Catalan, Basque or Bearnais. Since the economic aspects of a country have somewhat to do with its history it is im- portant to recognize that throughout the Pyrenees the grazing and wine-growing in- dustries predominate among agricultural pur- suits. There is a very considerable raising of sheep and of horses and mules, and somewhat of beef, and there is some growing of grain, but in the main — outside of the sheep-grazing of the higher valleys — it is the wine-growing industry that gives the distinctive note of activity and prosperity to the lower slopes and plains. For the above mentioned reason it is perhaps well to recount here just what the wine industry and the wine-drinking of France amounts to. One may have a preference for Burgundy or Bordeaux, Champagne or Saumur, or even plain, plebeian beer, but it is a pity that the 12 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces great mass of wine-drinkers, outside of Con- tinental Europe, do not make their distinctions with more knowledge of wines when they say this or that is the best one, instead of making their estimate by the prices on the wine-card. Anglo-Saxons (English and Americans) are for the most part not connoisseurs in wine, be- cause they don't know the fundamental facts about wine-growing. For red wines the Bordeaux — less full- bodied and heavy — are very near rivals of the best Burgundies, and have more bouquet and more flavour. The Medocs are the best among Bordeaux wines. Chateau-Lafitte and Cha- teau-Latour are very rare in commerce and very high in price when found. They come from the commune of Pauillac. Chateau Mar- gaux, St. Estephe and St. Julien follow in the order named and are the leaders among the red wines of Bordeaux — when you get the real thing, which you don't at bargain store prices. The white wines of Bordeaux, the Graves, come from a rocky soil ; the Sauternes, with the vintage of Chateau d'Yquem, lead the list, with Barsac, Entre-Deux-Mers and St. Emi- lion following. There are innumerable second- class Bordeaux wines, but they need not be A General Survey 13 enumerated, for if one wants a name merely there are plenty of wine merchants who will sell him any of the foregoing beautifully bottled and labelled as the " real thing." Down towards the Pyrenees the wines change notably in colour, price and quality, and they are good wines too. Those of Bergerac and Quercy are rich, red wines sold mostly in the markets of Cahors ; and the wines of Toulouse, grown on the sunny hill-slopes between Toulouse and the frontier, are thick, alcoholic wines frequently blended with real Bordeaux — to give body, not flavour. The wines of Armagnac are mostly turned into eau de vie, and just as good eau de vie as that of Cognac, though without its flavour, and without its advertising, which is the chief reason why the two or three principal brands of cognac are called for at the wine-dealers. At Chalosse, in the Landes, between Bayonne and Bordeaux, are also grown wines made mostly into eau de vie. Beam produces a light coloured wine, a specialty of the country, and an acquired taste like olives and Gorgonzola cheese. From Beam, also, comes the famous cru de Jurangon, celebrated since the days of Henri Quatre, a simple, full-bodied, delicious-tasting, red wine. 14 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Thirteen departemients of modern France comprise largely the wine-growing region of the basin of the Garonne, included in the territory covered by this book. This region gives a wine crop of thirteen and a half mil- lions of hectolitres a year. In thirty years the production has augmented by sixty per cent., and still dealers very often sell a fabri- cated imitation of the genuine thing. Wine drinking is increasing as well as alcoholism, regardless of what the doctors try to prove. The wines of the Midi of France in general are famous, and have been for generations, to bons vivants. The soil, the climate and pretty much everything else is favourable to the vine, from the Spanish frontier in the Pyrenees to that of Italy in the Alpes-Maritimes. The wines of the Midi are of three sorts, each quite distinct from the others; the ordinary table wines, the cordials, and the wines for dis- tilling, or for blending. Within the topo- graphical confines of this book one dis- tinguishes all three of these groups, those of Roussillon, those of Languedoc, and those of Armagnac. The rocky soil of Roussillon, alone, for ex- ample (neighbouring Collioure, Banyuls and Rivesaltes), gives each of the three, and the A General Survey 15 heavy wines of the same region, for blending (most frequently with Bordeaux), are greatly in demand among expert wine-factors all over France. In the Departement de I'Aude, the wines of Lezignan and Ginestas are attached to this last group. The traffic in these wines is concentrated at Carcassonne and Narbonne. At Limoux there is a specialty known as Blan- quette de Limoux — a wine greatly esteemed, and almost as good an imitation of champagne as is that of Saumur. In Languedoc, in the Departement of Herault, and Grard, twelve millions of hectolitres are produced yearly of a heavy-bodied red wine, also largely used for fortifying other wines and used, naturally, in the neighbourhood, pure or mixed with water. This thinning out with water is almost necessary; the drinker who formerly got outside of three bottles of port before crawling under the table, would go to pieces long before he had consumed the same quantity of local wine unmixed with water at a Montpellier or Beziers table d'hote. At Cette, at Frontignan, and at Lunel are fabricated many '' foreign " wines, including the Malagas, the Maderes and the Xeres of commerce. Above all the Muscat de Fron- tignan is revered among its competitors, and 16 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces it's not a " foreign " wine either, but the jnice of dried grapes or raisins, — grape juice if you like, — a sweet, mild dessert wine, very, very popular with the ladies. There is a considerable crop of table raisins in the Midi, particularly at Montauban and in maritime Provence which, if not rivalling those of Malaga in looks, have certainly a more delicate flavour. Along with the wines of the Midi may well be coupled the olives. For oil those of the Bouches-du-Rhone are the best. They bring the highest prices in the foreign market, but along the easterly slopes of the Pyrenees, in Eoussillon, in the Aude, and in Herault and Gard they run a close second. The olives of France are not the fat, plump, '' queen " olives, sold usually in little glass jars, but a much smaller, greener, less meaty variety, but richer in oil and nutriment. The olive trees grow in long ranks and files, amid the vines or even cereals, very much trimmed (in goblet shape, so that the ripening sun may reach the inner branches) and are of small size. Their pale green, shimmering foliage holds the year round, but demands a warm sunny climate. The olive trees of the Midi of France — as far west as the Comte A General Survey 17 de Foix in the Pyrenees, and as far north as MonteHmar on the Rhone — are quite the most frequently noted characteristic of the landscape. The olive will not grow, however, above an altitude of four hundred metres. The foregoing pages outline in brief the chief characteristics of the present day aspect of the old Pyrenean French provinces of which Beam and Basse-Navarre, with the Comte de Foix were the heart and soul. The topographical aspect of the Pyrenees, their history, and as full a description of their inhabitants as need be given will be found in a section dedicated thereto. For the rest, the romantic stories of kings and counts, and of lords and ladies, and their feudal fortresses and Renaissance chateaux, with a mention of such structures of interest as naturally come within nearby vision will be found duly recorded further on. CHAPTER II FEUDAL FRANCE ITS PEOPLE AND ITS CHATEAUX It was not the Revolution alone that brought about a division of landed property in France. The Crusades, particularly that of Saint Bernard, accomplished the same thing, though perhaps to a lesser extent. The seigneurs were impoverished already by excesses of all kinds, and they sold parts of their lands to any who would buy, and on almost any terms. Some- times it was to a neighbouring, less powerful, seigneur ; sometimes to a rich bourgeois — literally a town-dweller, not simply one vulgarly rich — or even to an ecclesiastic ; and sometimes to that vague entity known as '' Ze peuple." The peasant proprietor was a factor in land control before the Revolution; the mere recollection of the fact that Louis-le- Hutin enfranchised the serfs demonstrates this. The serfdom of the middle ages, in some respects, did not differ from ancient slavery, and in the most stringent of feudal times there were numerous serfs, servants and labourers 18 Feudal France 19 attached to the seigneur's service. These he sold, gave away, exchanged, or bequeathed, and in these sales, children were often separated from their parents. The principal cause of enfranchisement was the necessity for help which sprang from the increase in the value of land. A sort of chivalric swindle under the name of '' the right of taking " was carried on among the lords, who endeavoured to get men away from one another and thus flight became the great resort of the dissatis- fied peasant. In order to get those belonging to others, and to keep his own, the proprietor, when enfranchising the serfs, benevolently gave them land. Thus grew up the peasant landowner, the seigneur keeping only more or less limited rights, but those onerous enough when he chose to put on the screw. In this way much of the land belonging to the nobles and clergy became the patrimony of the plebeians, and remained so, for they were at first forbidden to sell their lands to noble- men or clergy. Then came other kinds of intermediary leases, something between the distribution of the land under the feudal system and its temporary occupancy of to- day through the payment of rent. Such were 20 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces the '' domains " in Brittany, Anjou and else- where, held under the emphyteusis (long lease), which was really the right of sale, where the land, let out for an indefinite time and at a fixed rent, could be taken back by the landlord only on certain expensive terms. This was practically the death knell of feudal land tenure. Afterward came leases of fifty years, for life, or for '' three lifetimes," by which time the rights of the original noble owners had practically expired. Finally, all landowners found these systems disadvantageous. The landlord's share in the product of the soil (as a form of rent) con- tinually increased, while the condition of the farmer grew worse and worse. Since the Eevolution, the modern method of cultivation of land on a large scale constitutes an advance over anything previously con- ceived, just as the distribution of the land under the feudal regime constituted an advance over the system in vogue in earlier times. Times have changed in France since the days when the education of the masses was un- thought of. Then the cure or a monkish brother would get a few children together at in- determinate periods and teach them the catechism, a paternoster or a credo, and that Feudal France 21 was about all. Writing, arithmetic — much less the teaching of grammar — were deemed entirely unnecessary to the growing youth. Then (and the writer has seen the same thing during his last dozen years of French travel) it was a common sight to see the sign '■'■ Ecrivain Publique " hanging over, or be- side, many a doorway in a large town. The Renaissance overflow from Italy left a great impress on the art and literature of France, and all its bright array of independent principalities. The troubadours and minstrels of still earlier days had given way to the efforts and industry of royalty itself. Frangois Premier, and, for aught we know, all his followers, penned verses, painted pictures, and patronized authors and artists, until the very soil itself breathed an art atmosphere. Marguerite de Valois (1492-1549), the sister of Frangois Premier, was called the tenth muse even before she became Queen of Navarre, and when she produced her Boccoccio-like stories, afterwards known as the " Heptameron of the Queen of Navarre," enthusiasm for letters among the noblesse knew no bounds. The spirit of romance which went out from 22 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces the soft southland was tinged with a certain license and liberty which was wanting in the " Eomannt of the Rose " of Guillanme de Lorris, and like works, but it served to strike a passionate fire in the hearts of men which at least was bred of a noble sentiment. What the Eenaissance actually did for a French national architecture is a matter of doubt. But for its coming, France might have achieved a national scheme of building as an outgrowth of the Greek, Roman, and Saracen structures which had already been planted be- tween the Alps and the Pyrenees. The Gothic architecture of France comes nearer to being a national achievement than any other, but its application in its first form to a great extent was to ecclesiastical building. In domestic and civil architecture, and in walls and ramparts, there exists very good Gothic indeed in France, but of a heavier, less flowery style than that of its highest develop- ment in churchly edifices. The Romanesque, and even the pointed-arch architecture (which, be it remembered, need not necessarily be Gothic) of southern and mid-France, with the Moorish and Saracenic interpolations found in the Pyrenees, was the typical civic, military and domestic manner of Feudal France 23 building before the era of the imitation of the debased Lombardic which came in the days of Charles VIII and Francois Premier. This variety spread swiftly all over France — and down the Rhine, and into England for that matter — and crowded out the sloping roof, the dainty colonnette and ribbed vaulting in favour of a heavier, but still ornate, barrel- vaulted and pillared, low-set edifice with most of the faults of the earlier Romanesque, and none of its excellences. The parts that architects and architecture played in the development of France were tremendous. Voltaire first promulgated this view, and his aphorisms are many; ** My fancy is to be an architect." " Mansard was one of the greatest architects known to France." '^ Architects were the ruin of Louis XIV." '' The Cathedral builders were sublime barbarians." Montesquieu was more senti- mental when he said : * ' Love is an architect who builds palaces on ruins if he pleases." The greatest architectural expression of a people has ever been in its Christian monu- ments, but references to the cathedrals, churches and chapels of the Pyrenean states have for the most part been regretfully omitted from these pages, giving place to fortresses, 24 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces chateaux, great bridges, towers, donjons, and such public monuments as have a special pur- port in keeping with the preconceived limits of a volume which deals largely with the romance of feudal times. Generally speaking, the architectural monu- ments of these parts are little known by the mass of travellers, except perhaps Henri Quatre's ancestral chateau at Pau, the famous walls of Carcassonne, and perhaps Bayonne's bridges or the Eglise St. Saturnin and the bizarre cathedral of St. Etienne at Toulouse. All of these are excellent of their kind; indeed perhaps they are superlative in their class ; but when one mentions Perpignan's Castillet, the Chateau de Puylaurens, the arcaded Gothic houses of Agde, Beziers' fortress-cathedral, the fortress-church of St. Bertrand de Com- minges or a score of other tributary monu- mental relics, something hitherto unthought of is generally disclosed. Almost the whole range of architectural dis- play is seen here between the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Gascony, and any rambling itinerary laid out between the two seas will discover as many structural and decorative novelties as will be found in any similar length of roadway in France. JJ'^aich-toiver in the Val d'Andorre Feudal France 25 Leaving the purely ecclesiastical edifices — cathedrals and great churches — out of the question, the entire Midi of France, and the French slopes and valleys of the Pyrenees in particular, abounds in architectural curiosities which are marvels to the student and lover of art. There are chateaux, chastels and chastillons, one differing from another by subtle dis- tinctions which only the expert can note. Then there are such feudal accessories as watch- towers, donjons and clochers, and great fortify- ing walls and gates and barbicans, and even entire fortified towns like Carcassonne and La Bastide. Surely the feudality, or rather its relics, cannot be better studied than here, — '' where the people held the longest aloof from the Crown." The watch-towers which flank many of the valleys of the Pyrenees are a great curiosity and quandary to archaeologists and historians. Formerly they flashed the news of wars or invasions from one outpost to another, much as does wireless telegraphy of to-day. Of these watch-towers, or tours telegrapMques, as the modern French historians call them, that of Castel-Biel, near Luchon, is the most famous. It rises on the peak of a tiny moun- 26 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces tain in the valley of the Pique and is a square structure of perhaps a dozen or fifteen feet on each side. Sixteen feet or so from the ground, on the northwest fagade, is an opening leading to the first floor. This tower is typical of its class, and is the most accessible to the hurried traveller. The feudal history of France is most inter- esting to recall in this late day when every man is for himself. Not all was oppression by any means, and the peasant landowner — as distinct from the vilain and serf — was a real person, and not a supposition, even before the Revolution; though Thomas Carlyle on his furzy Scotch moor didn't Imow it. Feudal France consisted of seventy thou- sand fiefs or rere-fiefs, of which three thou- sand gave their names to their seigneurs. All seigneurs who possessed three chdtellenies and a walled hamlet {ville close) had the right of administering justice without reference to a higher court. There were something more than seven thousand of these villes closes, within which, or on the lands belonging to the seigneurs thereof, were one million eight hundred and seventy-two thousand monuments, — churches, monasteries, abbeys, chateaux, castles, and royal or episcopal palaces. It Feudal France 27 was thus that religious, civic and military architecture grew side by side and, when new styles and modifications came in, certain inter- polations were forthwith incorporated in the more ancient fabrics, giving that melange of picturesque walls and roofs which makes France the best of all lands in which to study the architecture of mediaevalism. Among these mediaeval relics were interspersed others more ancient, — Roman and Greek basilicas, temples, baths, arenas, amphitheatres and aqueducts in great profusion, whose remains to-day are considerably more than mere fragments. The hereditary aristocracy of France, the rulers and the noblesse of the smaller king- doms, dukedoms and countships, were great builders, as befitted their state, and, being mostly great travellers and persons of wealth, they really surrounded themselves with many exotic forms of luxury which a more isolated or exclusive race would never have acquired. There is no possible doubt whatever but that it is the very mixture of styles and types that make the architecture of France so profoundly interesting even though one decries the fact that it is not national. One well recognized fact concerning France can hardly fail to be reiterated by any who 28 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces write of the manners and cnstoms and the arts of mediaeval times, and that is that the figures of population of those days bear quite similar resemblances to those of to-day. Historians of a hundred years back, even, estimated the total population of France in the fifteenth century as being very nearly the same as at the Eevolution, — perhaps thirty millions. To-day eight or perhaps ten millions more may be counted, but the increase is invariably in the great cities, Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Bor- deaux, Eouen, etc. Oloron and Orthez in Beam, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in Navarre, or Agde or Elne in Roussillon, remain at the same figure at which they have stood for cen- turies, unless, as is more often the case, they have actually fallen off in numbers. And still France is abnormally prosperous, collectively and individually, so far as old-world nations go. Originally the nobility in France was of four degrees : the noblesse of the blood royal, the Jiaute-nohlesse, the noblesse ordinaire and the noblesse who were made noble by patent of the ruling prince. All of these distinctions were hereditary, save, in some instances, the noblesse ordinaire. In the height of feudal glory there were Feudal France 29 accredited over four thousand families be- longing to the ancienne noblesse, and ninety thousand families nobles (descendant branches of the above houses) who could furnish a hun- dred thousand knightly combatants for any '' little war " that might be promulgated. Sometimes the family nanxe was noble and could be handed down, and sometimes not. Sometimes, too, inheritance was through the mother, not the father; this was known as the noblesse du ventre. A foreign noble natural- ized in France remained noble, and retained his highest title of right. The French nobles most often took their titles from their fiefs, and these, with the ex- ception of baronies and marquisats, were usually of Roman origin. The chief titles be- low the noblesse du sang royal were dues, barons, marquis, comtes, vicomtes, vidames, and chevaliers and each had their special armorial distinctions, some exceedingly simple, and some so elaborate with quarterings and blazonings as to be indefinable by any but a heraldic expert. The coats of arms of feudal France, or armoiries, as the French call them (a much better form of expression by the way), are a most interesting subject of study. Some of 30 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces these armoiries are really beautiful, some quaint and some enigmatic, as for instance those of the King of Navarre. The Revolutionary Assembly abolished such things in France, but Napoleon restored them all again, and created a new noblesse as well: " Aussitot maint esprit fecond en reveries, " Inventa le Mason avec les armoiries." sang the poet Boileau. Primarily armoiries were royal bequests, but in these days a pork-packer, an iron-founder or a cheese-maker concocts a trade-mark on heraldic lines and the thing has fallen flat. Fancy a pig sitting on a barrel top and flanked by two ears of corn, or a pyramid of cheeses overtopped by the motto " A full stomach maketh good health." Why it's almost as ridiculous as a crossed pick-axe, a shovel and a crow-bar would be for a navvy on a railway line! In the old days it was not often thus, though a similar ridiculous thing, which no one seemed to take the trouble to suppress, was found in the '' Armoiries des gueux." One of these showed two twists of tobacco en croix, with the following motto: " Dieu vous henisse! '' Feudal France 31 At the head of the list of French armoiries were those of domain or souverainete. Then followed several other distinct classes. " Armoiries de Pretention," where the pa- tronal rights over a city or a province were given the holders, even though the province was under the chief domination of a more powerful noble. " Armoiries de Concession," given for serv- ices by a sovereign prince — such as the armoiries belonging to Jeanne d'Arc. '' Armoiries de Patronage," in reality quar- terings added to an armoirie already existing. These were frequently additions to the blazon- ings of families or cities. Paris took on the arms of the King of France, the insistent Louis, by this right. '' Armoiries de Dignite," showing the distinction or dignities with which a person was endowed, and which were added to exist- ing family arms. " Armoiries de Famille," as their name indi- cates, distinguishing one noble family from another. This class was further divided into three others, " Substituees," " Succession," or '' Alliance," terms which explain themselves. '^ Armoiries de Convmunaute," distinctions 32 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces given to noble chapters of military bodies, corporations, societies and the like. Finally there was a class which belonged to warriors alone. At all times illustrious soldiers adopted a devise, or symbol, which they caused to be painted on their shields. These were only con- sidered as armoiries when they were inherited by one who had followed in the footsteps of his ancestors. This usage dates from the end of the ninth century, and it is from this period that armoiries, properly called, came into being. Feudal Flags a nd Banners The banners of the feudal sovereigns were, many of them, very splendid affairs, often bearing all their arms and quarterings. They were borne wherever their owners went, — in Feudal France 33 war, to the capital, and at their country houses. At all ceremonious functions the banners were ever near the persons of their sovereigns as a sign of suzerainty. The owner of a banner would often have it cut out of metal and placed on the gables of his house as a weather-vane, a custom which, in its adapted form, has endured through the ages to this day. In tournaments, the nobles had their banners attached to their lances, and made therewith always the sign of the cross before commencing their passes. Also their banners or banderoles were hung from the trumpets of the heralds of their house. Another variety of feudal standard, differing from either the hanniere or the pennon, was the gonfanon. This was borne only by hacheliers, vassals of an overlord. " N't a riche horn ni baron " Qui n'ait les lui son gonfanon." The feudal banner, the house flag of the feudal seigneurs, and borne by them in battle, was less splendid than the hanniere royale, which was hung from a window balcony to mark a kingly lodging-place. It was in fact only a small square of stuff hanging from a transversal baton. This distinguished, in 34 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces France, a certain grade of knights known as chevaliers-bannerets. These chevaliers had the privilege of exercising certain rights that other knights did not possess. To be created chevalier-banneret one had to be twenty-one years of age. If a chevalier was already a bachelier, a grade inferior to that of a banneret, to become a full blown chevalier he had only to cut the points from his standard — a pennon — when it and he became a ban- neret; that is to say, he had the right to carry a banner, or to possess a fief de banniere. There were three classes of fiefs in feudal France. First; the fief de banniere, which could furnish twenty-five combatants under a banner or flag of their own. Second; the fief de haubert, which could furnish a well-mounted horseman fully armed, accompanied by two or three varlets or valets. Third; the fief de simple ecuyer, whose sole offering was a single vassal, lightly armed. There was, too, a class of nobles without estates. They were known as seigneurs of a fief en Vair, or a fief volant, much like many courtesy titles so freely handed around to-day in some monarchies. A vassal was a dweller in a fief under the Feudal France 35 control of the seigneur. The word comes from the ancient Frankish gessell. The chevaliers, not the highest of noble ranks, but a fine title of distinction neverthe- less, bore one of four prefixes, don, sire, messire, or monseigneur. They could eat at the same table with the monarch, and they alone had the right to bear a banner-lance in war- fare, or wear a double coat of mail. In 1481, Louis XI began to abolish the bow and the lance in France, in so far as they applied to effective warfare. The first fire- arms had already appeared a century before, and though the coulevrines and canons a main were hardly efficient weapons, when compared with those of to-day, they were far more effect- ive than the bow and arrow at a distance, or the javelin, the pike and the lance near at hand. Then developed the arquehuse, literally a hand-cannon, clumsy and none too sure of aim, but a fearful death-dealer if it happened to hit. The feudal lords, the seigneurs and other nobles, had the right of levying taxes upon their followers. These taxes, or impots, took varying forms ; such as the obligation to grind their corn at the mills of the seigneur, paying a heavy proportion of the product therefor; 36 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces to press their grapes at his wine-press, and bake their bread in his ovens. At Montauban, in the G-aronne, one of these old seigneurial flour mills may still be seen. The seigneurs were not ostensibly '' in trade," but their con- trol of the little affairs of the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker virtually made them so. More definite taxes — demanded in cash when the peasants could pay, otherwise in kind — were the seigneurial taxes on fires ; on the right of trade (the sale of wine, bread or meat) ; the vingtaine, whereby the peasant gave up a twentieth of his produce to the seigneur; and such oddities as a tax on the first kiss of the newly married; bardage, a sort of turnpike road duty for the privilege of singing certain songs; and on all manner of foolish fancies. After the taxation by the seigneurs there came that by the clerics, who claimed their " ecclesiastical tenth," a tax which was levied in France just previous to the Revolution with more severity, even, than in Italy. Finally the people rose, and the French peasants delivered themselves all over the land to a riot of evil, as much an unlicensed tyranny as was the oppression of their feudal lords. One may thus realize the means which Feudal France 37 planted feudal France with great fortresses, chateaux and country houses, and the motives which caused their destruction to so large an extent. It was the tyranny of the master and the cruelty of the servant that finally culminated in the Kevolution. Not only the petty seigneurs had been the oppressors, but the Crown, represented by the figurehead of the Bourbon king in liis capital, put the pressure on the peasant folk still harder by releasing it on the nobles. The tax on the people, that great, vague, non-moving mass of the popula- tion, has ever produced the greatest revenue in France, as, presumably, it has elsewhere. In the days before the Revolution it was le peuple who paid, and it was the people who paid the enormous Franco-German war in- demnity in 1871. The feudality in France, in its oppressive sense, died long years before the Revolution, but the aristocracy still lives in spite of the efforts of the Assembly to crush it — the As- sembly and the mob who sang : " Ah ! ga ira, pa ira, pa ira, Les aristocrates a la lanterne ! Ah ! <;a ira, fa ira, pa ira, Les aristocrates on les pendra !" 38 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces And the French noblesse of to-day, the proud old French aristocracy, is not, on the whole, as bad as it has frequently been painted. They may, in the majority, be royalists, may be even Bonapartists, or Orleanists, instead of republicans, but surely there's no harm in that in these days when certain political parties look upon socialists as anarchists and free- traders as communists. The honour, power and profit derived by the noblesse in France all stopped with the Eevolu- tion. The National Assembly, however, re- fused to abolish titles. To do that body justice they saw full well that they could not take away that which did not exist as a tangible entity, and it is to their credit that they did not establish the new order of Knights of the Plough as they were petitioned to do. This would have been as fatal a step as can possibly be conceived, though for that matter a plough might just as well be a symbol of knighthood as a thistle, a jaratelle, a gold stick or a black rod. In France a whole seigneurie was slave to the seigneur. Under feudal rule the clergy (not the humble abbes and cures, but the bishops and archbishops) were frequently themselves overlords. They, at any rate, en- Feudal France 39 joyed as high pi-ivileges as any in the land, and if the Revolution benefited the lower clergy it robbed the higher churchmen. Just previous to the Revolution, the clergy had a revenue of one hundred and thirty mil- lion livres of which only forty-two million five hundred thousand livres accrued to the cures. The difference represents the loss to the " Seigneurs of the Church." With the Revolution the whole kingdom was in a blaze; famished mobs clamoured, if not always for bread, at least for an anticipated vengeance, and when they didn't actually kill they robbed and burned. This accounts for the comparative infrequency of the feudal chateaux in France in anything but a ruined state. Sometimes it is but a square of wall that remains, sometimes a mere gateway, some- times a donjon, and sometimes only a soli- tary tower. All these evidences are frequent enough in the provinces of the Pyrenees, from the more or less complete Chateaux of Foix and of Pau, to the ruins of Lourdes and Lourdat, and the more fragmentary remains of Ultrera, Ruscino and Coarraze. The mediaeval country house was a chateau; when it was protected by walls and moats it 40 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces became a castle or chateau-fort; a distinction to be remarked. The chateau of the middle ages was not only the successor of the Eoman stronghold, but it was a villa or place of residence as well ; when it was fortified it was a chastel. A castle might be habitable, and a chateau might be a species of stronghold, and thus the mediaeval country house might be either one thing or the other, but still the distinction will always be apparent if one will only go deeply enough into the history of any particular struc- ture. Light and air, which implies frequent windows, have always been desirable in all habitations of man, and only when the chateau bore the aspects of a fortification were window openings omitted. If it was an island castle, a moat-surrounded chateau, — as it frequently was in later Renaissance times, — windows and doors existed in profusion; but if it were a feudal fortress, such as one most frequently sees in the Pyrenees, openings at, or near, the ground-level were few and far between. Such windows as existed were mere narrow slits, like loop-holes, and the entrance doorway was really a fortified gate or port. Feudal France 41 frequently with a portcullis and sometimes with a pont-levis. The origin of the word chateau (castrum, castellum, castle) often served arbitrarily to designate a fortified habitation of a seigneur, or a citadel which protected a town. One must know something of their individual histories in order to place them correctly. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, chateaux in France multiplied almost to infinity, and became habitations in fact. In reality the middle ages saw two classes of great chateaux go up almost side by side, the feudal chateau of the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, and the frankly residential country houses of the Renaissance period which came after. For the real, true history of the feudal chateaux of France, one cannot do better than follow the hundred and fifty odd pages which Viollet-le-Duc devoted to the subject in his monumental " Dictionnaire Raisonee d' Archi- tecture." In the Midi, all the way from the Italian to the Spanish frontiers, are found the best ex- amples of the feudal chateaux, mere ruins though they be in many cases. In the extreme north of Normandy, at Les Andelys, Arques 42 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces and Falaise, at Pierrefonds and Coney, these military chateaux stand prominent too, but mid-France, in the valley of the Loire, in Touraine especially, is the home of the great Renaissance country house. The royal chateaux, the city dwellings and the country houses of the kings have perhaps the most interest for the traveller. Of this class are Chenonceaux and Amboise, Fontaine- bleau and St. Grermain, and, . within the scope of this book, the paternal chateau of Henri Quatre at Pan. It is not alone, however, these royal resi- dences that have the power to hold one's at- tention. There are others as great, as beautiful and as replete with historic events. In this class are the chateaux at Foix, at Carcassonne, at Lourdes, at Coarraze and a dozen other points in the Pyrenees, whose architectural splendours are often neglected for the routine sightseeing sanctioned and demanded by the conventional tourists. There are no vestiges of rural habitations in France erected by the kings of either of the first two races, though it is known that Chil- peric and Clotaire II had residences at Chelles, Compiegne, Nogent, Villers-Cotterets, and Creil, north of Paris. Feudal France 43 The pre-eminent builder of the great fortress chateaux of other days was Foulques Nerra, and his influence went wide and far. These establishments were useful and necessary, but they were hardly more than prison-like strong- holds, quite bare of the luxuries which a later generation came to regard as necessities. The refinements came in with Louis IX. The artisans and craftsmen became more and more ingenious and artistic, and the fine tastes and instincts of the French with respect to architecture soon came to find their equal ex- pression in furnishings and fitments. Hard, high seats and beds, which looked as though they had been brought from Kome in Caesar's time, gave way to more comfortable chairs and canopied beds, carpets were laid down where rushes were strewn before, and walls were hung with cloths and draperies where grim stone and plaster had previously sent a chill down the backs of lords and ladies. Thus developed the life in French chateaux from one of simple security and defence, to one of luxuri- ous ease and appointments. The sole medium of communication between many of the French provinces, at least so far as the masses were concerned, was the local / 44 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces patois. All who did not speak it were foreigners, just as are English, Americans or Germans of to-day. The peoples of the Eomance tongue stood in closer relation, per- haps, than other of the provincials of old, and the men of the Midi, whether they were Gas- cons from the valley of the Garonne, or Proven§aiix from the Bouches-du-Rhone were against the king and government as a com- mon enemy. The feudal lords were a gallant race on the whole; they didn't spend all their time making- war; they played houles and the jen-de-paume, and held court at their chateau, where min- strels sang, and knights made verses for their lady loves, and men and women amused them- selves much as country-house folk do to-day. The following, extracted from the book of accounts of one of the minor noblesse of Beam in the sixteenth century, is intimate and inter- esting. The master of this feudal household had a system of bookkeeping which modern chatelains might adopt with advantage. The items are curiously disposed. Francs Sous Deniers Pot de vinalgre 5 Livre de I'huile d'olive 6 Sac du sel 30 Aux pauvre 30 Feudal France 45 En Voyage' f Pour deux laquais et la mulette Au valet pour boire A Tarbes pour la couch6e de lundi Un relev6 pour la mulette Un fer pour la mulette Aux nomades Francs Sous Deniers 18 1 i 4 10 8 2 6 5 1 10 Evidently " la mulette " was a very neces- sary adjunct and required quite as much as its master. CHAPTER III THE PYRENEES — THEIR GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOG- RAPHY One of the great joys of the traveller is the placid contemplation of his momentary environ- ment. The visitor to Biarritz, Pan, Luchon, Foix or Carcassonne has ever before his eyes the massive Pyrenean bulwark between France and Spain; and the mere existence of this natural line of defence accounts to no small extent for the conditions of life, the style of building, and even the manners of the men who live within its shadow. The Pyrenees have ever formed an un- disputed frontier boundary line, though king- doms and dukedoms, buried within its fast- nesses or lying snugly enfolded in its gentle valleys, have fluctuated and changed owners so often that it is difficult for most people to define the limits of French .and Spanish Navarre or the country of the French and Spanish Basques. It is still more difficult when it comes to locating the little Pyrenean re- 46 The Pyrenees — Their Geography 47 public of Andorra, that tiniest of nations, a little sister of San Marino and Monaco. Some day the histories of these three miniature European " powers " (sic) should be made into a book. It would be most interesting reading and a novelty. Unlike the Alps, the Pyrenees lack a certain impressive grandeur, but they are more varied in their outline, and form a continuous chain from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, while their gently sloping green valleys smile more sweetly than anything of the kind in Switzer- land or Savoie. They possess character, of a certain grim kind to be sure, particularly in their higher passes, and a general air of sterility, which, however, is less apparent as one descends to lower levels. The very name of Pyrenees comes probably from the word hiren, meaning ^' high pastures," so this refutes the belief that they are not abundantly endowed with this form of nature's wealth. From east to west the chain of the Pyrenees has a length of four hundred and fifty kilometres, or, following the detours of the crests of the Hispano-Frangais frontier, per- haps six hundred. Between Pau and Hnesca their width, counting from one lowland plain to 48 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces another, is a trifle over a hundred and twenty kilometres, the slope being the most rapid on the northern, or French, side. The Pyrenees are less thickly wooded than the Savoian Alps, and there is very much less perpetual snow and fewer glaciers. In reality they are broken into two distinct parts by the Val d'Aran, forming the Pyrenees-Orientales and the Pyrenees-Occi- dentales. Of the detached mountain masses, the chief is the Canigou, lying almost by the Mediterranean shore, and a little northward of the main chain. Its highest peak is the Puigmal {puig or puy being the Languedo§ian word for peak), rising to nearly three thousand metres. For long the Canigou was supposed to be the loftiest peak of the Pyrenees, but the Pic du Midi exceeds it by a hundred metres. However, this well proportioned, isolated mass looks more pretentious than it really is, standing, as it does, quite away from the main chain. From its peak Marseilles can be seen — by a Marseillais, who will also fancy that he can hear the turmoil of the Cannebiere and detect the odour of the saffron in his beloved bouillabaise. At any rate one can certainly see as much of the earth's sur- The Pyrenees — Their Geography 49 t?> 50 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces face spread out before him here as from any other spot of which he has recollection. The Pyrenees-Occidentales abound in more numerous and better defined moimtains than the more easterly portion. Here are the famous Monts Maudits, with the Pic ,de Nethou, the highest of the Pyrenees (three thousand four hundred and four metres), with a summit plateau or belvedere perhaps twenty metres in length by five in width. The Vignemal (three thousand two hundred and ninety-eight metres) is the highest peak wholly on French soil and dominates the famous col, or pass, known as the Breche de Roland. The Pic du Midi, back of Bigorre, is justly the best known of all the crests of the Pyrenees. Its height is two thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven metres, and it is worthy of a special study, and a book all to itself. The observatory recently established here is one of the chefs-d'oeuvre of science. The astronomical, climatological and geogra- phical importance of this prominent peak was already marked out on the maps of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and its glory has been often sung in verse by Guil- laume Saluste, Sire du Bartas, gentilhomme Breclie de Roland The Pyrenees — Their Geography 51 Gascon ; and by Bernard Palissy, better known as a potter than as a poet. Towards the Gulf of Gascony the Pyrenees send oat their ramifications in much gentler slopes than on the Mediterranean side. Forests and pastures are more profuse and luxuriant, but the peaks are still of granite, as they mostly are throughout the range. Grouped along the flanks of the river Bidassoa this section of the chain is known to geographers as the ** Montagues du pays Basque." At the foot of these Basque Mountains passes the lowest level route between France and Spain, — that followed by the railway and the ** Route Internationale, Paris-Madrid." This easy and commodious passage of the Pyrenees has ever been the theatre of the chief struggles between the peoples of the Spanish peninsula and France. At Rongevaux the rear- guard of the army of Charlemagne — ' ' his paladins and peers ' ' — were destroyed in 778, and it was here that the French and Spanish fought in 1794 and 1813. The French slopes of the Pyrenees belong almost wholly to the basin or watershed of the Garonne, one of the four great waterways of France, the other three being the Loire, the Seine and the Rhone. In the upper valley of 52 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces the Garonne is the Plateau de Lannemazan. It lies in reality between the Garonne and the Adour. The Adour on the west and the Tech on the east, with their tributaries, play an important part in draining off the waters from the mountain sources, but they are entirely overshadowed by the Garonne, which, rising in Spain, in the Val d'Aran, flows six hundred and five kilometres before reaching salt water below Bordeaux, through its estuary the Gironde. Nearly five hundred kilometres of this length are navigable, and the economic value of this river to Agen, Montauban and Toulouse is very great. Between the Adour and the Gironde lies that weird morass-like region of the Landes, once peopled only by sheep-herders on stilts and by charcoal-burners, but now producing a quantity of resin and pine which is making the whole region prosperous and content. The source of the Garonne is at an altitude of nearly two thousand metres, and is virtually a cascade. Another tiny source, known as the Garonne-Oriental, swells the flood of the parent stream by flowing into it just below St. Gau- dens, the nearest " big town " of France to the Spanish frontier. The Ariege is the only really important The Pyrenees — Their G-eography 53 tributary entering the Garonne from the region of the Pyrenees. Its length is a hundred and fifty-seven kilometres, and its source is on the Pic Negre, at an altitude of two thousand metres, three kilometres from the frontier, but on French soil. It waters two important cities of the Comte de Foix, the capital Foix and Pamiers. On the west, the chain of the Pyrenees slopes gently down to the great bight, known so sadly to travellers by sea as the Bay of Biscay. From the mouth of the Gironde southward it is further designated as the Golfe de Gascogne. There is no perceptible indentation of the coast line to indicate this, but its waters bathe the sand dunes of the Landes, the Basque coasts, and the extreme northeastern boundary of Spain. The shore-line is straight, uniformly monot- onous and inhospitable, the great waves which roll in from the Atlantic beating up a soapy surf and long dikes of sand in weird, unlovely contours. For two hundred and forty kilome- tres, all along the shore-line of the Gironde and the Landes, this is applicable, the only relief being the basin of Archachon (Bordeaux' own special watering-place), the port of Bayonne, — at the mouth of the Adour, — the delightful 54 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces rocky picturesqueness inunediately around Biarritz, and Saint-Jean-de-Luz and its har- bour, and the estuary of the Bidassoa, that epoch-making river which, with the crest of the Pyrenees, marks the Franco-Espagnol fron- tier. The French coast line at the easterly ter- mination of the Pyrenees possesses an entirely different aspect from that of the west. Practi- cally there is no tide in the Mediterranean, and the gateway between France and Spain through the eastern Pyrenees is less gracious than that on the west. The Pyrenees-Ori- entales come plump down to the blue waters of the great inland sea just north of Cap Creus with little or no intimation of a slope. The frontier commences at Cap Cerbere, and at Port Vendres (the Portus-Veneris of the ancients) one finds one of the principal Mediterranean sea ports of France, and the nearest to the great French possessions in Africa. On Cap Creus in Spain, and on Cap Bear in France, at an elevation of something over two hundred metres, are two remarkable light- houses whose rays carry a distance of over forty kilometres seaward. The etangs, Saint Nazaire and Leucate, cut The Pyrenees — Their Geography 55 the coast line here, and three tiny rivers, whose sources are high up in the mountain valleys of the Tech, the Tet and the Aglay, flow into the sea before Cap Leucate, the boundary between old Languedoc and the Comte de Roussillon. Off-shore is the tempestuous Golfe des Lions, where the lion banners of the Arlesien ships floated in days gone by. The Aude, the Orb and the Herault mingle their waters with the Mediterranean here, and on the Montagne d'Agde rises another of those remarkable French lighthouses, this one throwing its light a matter of forty-five kilometres seawards. With Perpignan, Narbonne, Beziers and Agde behind, one draws slowly out from under the shadow of the Pyrenees until the soil flattens out into a powdery, dusty plain, with here and there a pond, or great bay, of soft, brackish water, whose principal value lies in its fecundity at producing mosquitoes. Aigues-Mortes cradles itself on the shores of one of these great inlets of the Mediterranean, and Saintes Maries on another. Little gulfs, canals, dwarf seaside pines, cypresses, olive trees and vineyards are the chief character- istics of the landscape, while inland the surface of the soil rolls away in gentle billows towards 56 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Nimes, Montpellier and St. Giles, with the flat plain of the Camargue lying between. Since the Christian era began, it is assumed that this coast line between the Pyrenees and the Ehone has advanced a matter of fourteen kilometres seaward, and since Aigues-Mortes, which now lies far inland, is known to be the port from which the sainted Louis set out on his Crusade, there is no gainsaying the state- ment. The immediate region surrounding Aigues-Mortes is a most fascinating one to visit, but would be a terrible place in which to be obliged to spend a life-time. Between Roussillon and Spain there are fifteen passes by which one may cross the chain of the Pyrenees, though indeed two only are practicable for wheeled traffic. The Col de Perthus is the chief one, and is traversed by the ancient "Eoute Royale" from Paris to Barcelona. There is a town by the same name, with a population of five hundred and a really good hotel. It's worth making the journey here just to see how a dull French village can sleep its time away. The passage is defended by the fine Fortress de Bellegarde. It was on the Col de Perthus that Pompey erected the famous " trophy," surmounted by his statue bearing the following legend : The Pyrenees — Their Geography 57 FROM THE ALPS TO THE ULTERIOR EX- TREMITY OF SPAIN, POMPEY HAS FORCED SUBMISSION TO THE ROMAN REPUBLIC FROM EIGHT HUNDRED AND SEVENTY -SIX CITIES AND TOWNS. Twenty years after, Caesar erected another tablet beside the former. No trace of either remains to-day, and there are only frontier boundary stones marking the territorial limits of France and Spain, which replace those torn down in the Revolution. Proceeding by the coast line, a difficult road 58 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces into Spain lies by the Col de Banyuls, just where the Pyrenees plunge beneath the Mediterranean, a mere shelf of a road. The cirques, or great amphitheatres of mountains, are a characteristic of the Pyrenees, and the Cirque de Gavarnie is the king of them all. It represents, very nearly, a sheer per- pendicular wall rising to a height of five hun- dred metres, and three thousand five hundred metres in circumference. Perpetual snow is an accompaniment of some of its gorges and neighbouring peaks, and twelve cascades tumble down its rock walls at various points. There is nothing quite so impressive in the world — outside Yosemite or the Yellowstone. Gavarnie, its cirque and its village, is the natural wonder of the Pyrenees, Said Victor Hugo: ''Grand nom, petit village." To explore the Cirque de Gavarnie is a passion with many; when you get in this state of mind you become what the touring Frenchman knows as a '' gavarniste," as an Alpine climber becomes an " alpiniste." As for the climate of the Pyrenees, it is, for a mountain region, soft and mild; not so mild as that of the French Eiviera perhaps, nor of Barcelona, nor San Sebastian in Spain, but on the whole not cold, and certainly more humid The Pyrenees — Their Geography 59 than in the Alpes-Maritimes, on the Cote d'Azur. Generally blowing from the northwest in winter, the wind accumulates great masses of cloud in the bight of the Golfe de Gascogne and sweeps them up against the barrier of the Pyrenees, there to be held in suspension until an exceedingly stiff wind blows them away or the sun bums them off. The French Riviera is cursed with the mistral, but it has the bless- ing of almost continual sunshine, while in the Pyrenees-Occidentales the wind is less strong as it comes only from the sea in the northwest, instead of from the north by the Rhone valley, and the " disagreeable months " (November, December and January) often bring damp and humid, if not frigidly cold weather with them. The rainfall is often as much as eight deci- metres per annum in the Landes, one metre in the Pyrenees proper, and a metre and a half in the Basque country. The average rainfall for France is approximately eight decimetres, per- haps thirty- two inches. In the Pyrenees the temperature is, nor- mally, neither very hot nor very cold. Perpi- gnan is the warmest in winter. Its average is 15° Centigrade (59° F.), about that of Nice, whilst that for France is 6° Centigrade (43° F.). 60 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces The climate of the Pyrenees comes within the climat Girondin, and the average for the year is 13° Centigrade. The dimat-maritime is a further division, and is considerably more elevated in degree. This comes from the western and northwestern winds off the sea, which, it may be remarked, almost invariably bring rain with them. At Montanban the saying is: '' Montagne claire, Bordeaux ob- scure, pluie a coup sur." In G^ascogne: '' Jamais pluie au print emps ne passe pour mauvais temps." At Bordeaux the average summer temperature is but 29° Centigrade, at Toulouse 21.5° Centigrade and Pau about the same, with a winter temperature often 4° or 5° below zero Centigrade. The general aspect of the region of the Pyrenees is one of the most varied and agreeable in all southern France. There is a grandeur and natural character about it that has not fallen before the march of twentieth century progress, save in the " resorts," such as Biarritz or Pau; and yet the primitiveness and savagery is not so uncomfortable as to make the traveller long for the super-civiliza- tion of great capitals. It is virgin in its beauty and varied wildness, and yet it is a soft, pleasant land where even the winter snows of The Pyrenees — Their Geography 61 the mountains seem less rigorous than the snow and cold of Savoie or Switzerland. On one side is the great bulwark of the Pyrenees, and on two others the dazzling waters of the ocean, while to the north the valley of the Garonne, west of the Cevennes, is not at all a frigid, austere, frost-bound region, save only in the very coldest '' snaps." The ranges of foothills in the Pyrenees divide the surface of the land into slopes and valleys every bit as charming as those of Switzerland, and yet oh! so different! And the fresh, limpid rivulets and rivers are real rivers, and not mere trickling brooks, whose colouring and transparency are the marvel of all who view. The majesty of the sea on either side, and of the mountains between, makes the very aspect of life luxurious and less hard than that in the more northerly Alpine climes, and above all the outlook on life is French, and not that money-grabbing Anglo- German-Swiss commercialism which the gen- uine traveller abhors. He sees less of that sort of thing here in the Pyrenees, even at Pau and Biarritz, than anywhere else in southern Europe. At Nice, Monte Carlo, Naples, Capri, along the Italian lakes, and everywhere in French, 62 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces German or Italian speaking Switzerland, one must pay! pay! pay! continually, and often for nothing. Here you pay for what you get, and then not always its full value, according to standards with which you have previously be- come familiar. The Pyrenees form quite the ideal mountain playground of Europe. The Basses-Pyrenees, made up from the coherent masses of Navarre, the Basque coun- try, Beam, and a part of Chalosse and the Landes, contains a superficial area of seven hundred and sixty-three thousand nine hundred and ninety French acres. Its name comes naturally enough from the western end of the Pyrenean mountain chain. Throughout, the department is watered by innumerable streams and rivulets, whose banks and beds are as reminiscent of romanticism as any waterways extant. The Adour is one of the '' picture-rivers " of the world; it joins the rustling, tumbling Nive, as it rushes down by Cambo from the Spanish valleys, and forms the port of Bayonne. The Gave de Pau commences in the high Pyrenees, in the wonderfully spectacular Cirque de Gavarnie, literally in a cascade falling nearly one thousand three hundred feet, perhaps the highest cascade known in the The Pyrenees — Their Geography 63 four quarters of the globe, or as the French say, " in the five parts of the world," which is more quaint if less literal. The Gave d'Oloron has its birth in the val- ley of the Aspe, and is a tributary of the Gave de Pau. It is what one might call pretty, but has little suggestion of the scenic splendour of the latter. The Bidassoa is one of the world's historic rivers. It forms the Atlantic frontier between France and Spain, and was the scene of Well- ington's celebrated '' Passage of the Bidas- soa " in 1813, also of a still more famous historical event which took place centuries be- fore on the He des Faisans. The Nivelle is a tiny stream which comes to light on Spanish soil, over the crest of the Pyrenees, and flows rapidly down to the sea at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, on the shores of the Gulf of Gascony. The Ministry for the Interior in France classes all these chief rivers as flottahle for certain classes of boats and barges through a portion of their length, and each of them as navigable for a few leagues from the sea. Four great '' Eoutes Nationales " cross the Basses-Pyrenees. They are the legitimate suc- cessors of the " Routes Royales " of 64 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces monarchial days. The " Route Royale de Paris a Madrid, par Vittoria et Burgos," the very same over which Oharles Quint travelled to Paris, via Amboise, as the guest of Frangois Premier, passes via Bayonne and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. It is a veritable historic highway throughout every league of its length. The climate of the Basses-Pyrenees is by no means as warm as its latitude would seem to bespeak, the snow-capped Pyrenees keeping the temperature somewhat low. Pan and Luchon in the interior (as well as Bayonne and Biar- ritz on the coast) seem, curiously enough, to be somewhat milder than the open country be- tween. The Pyrenees, though less overrun and less exploited than the Alps, are not an un- known world to be ventured into only by heroes and adventurers. They are what the French call a " new world " lively in aspect, infinitely varied, and as yet quite unspoiled, take them as a whole. This is a fact which makes the historical monuments and souvenirs of the region the more appealing in interest, particu- larly to one who has '' done " the conven- tionally overrun resorts of the Tyrol, Egypt or Norway ; and the country here is far more ac- cessible. Furthermore the comforts of modern travel, as regards palace hotels and sleeping- The Pyrenees — Their Geography 65 cars, if less highly developed, are more to be remarked. One lives bountifully throughout the whole of the French slopes of the Pyrenees, from a table well supplied with many exotic articles of food such as truffles, and salaisons of all sorts, fresh mountain lake trout, and those delightful croitchades and cassoulets, which in the more populous centres are only occasional, expensive luxuries. Both the valleys and the mountains are equally charming and characteristic. The low- landers and the mountaineers are two different species of man, but they both join hands in the admiration of, and devotion to their be- loved country. The soft, sloping valleys and the plains be- low, in the great watersheds of the Garonne, the Aude, the Nive, or the Adour, tell one story, and the terre dehout, as the French geographers call the mountains, quite another. The contrast and juxtaposition of these two topographical aspects, the varying manners and customs of the peoples, and the picturesque framing given to the chateaux and historic sites make an undeniably appealing ensemble which the writer thinks is not equalled else- where in travelled Europe. One of the chief characteristics of the chain 66 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces of the Pyrenees is that it possesses numerous passages or passes at very considerable eleva- tions, being outranked by surrounding peaks usually to the extent of a thousand metres only. These passes are not always practicable for wheeled traffic to be sure, but still they form a series of exits and entrances from and into Spain which are open to the dwellers in the high valleys of either country on foot or on donkey back. They are distinguished by various prefixes such as puerto, collada, passo, hourque, hourquette, breche, port, col, and passage, but one and all answer more or less specifically to the name of a mountain pass. The expression of ^' il y a des Pyrenees,'' has been paraphrased in latter days Si^ " il n'y a plus de Pyrenees." A Spanish aeronaut has recently crossed the crest of the range in a balloon, from Pau to Grenada — seven hun- dred and thirty kilometres as the birds fly. This intrepid sportsman, in his balloon " El Cierzo," crossed the divide in the dead of night, at an elevation varying between two thousand three hundred and two thousand nine hundred metres, somewhere between the Pic d'Anie and the Pic du Midi d'Ossau. In these days when automobiles beat express trains, The Pyrenees — Their Geography 67 and motor-boats beat steamships for speed, this crossing of the Pyrenees by balloon stands unique in the annals of sport. The crossing of the Pyrenees has already resolved itself into a momentous economic question. Half a dozen roads fit for carriage traffic, and two gateways by which pass the railways of the east and west coasts, are the sole practicable means of communication be- tween France and Spain. The chain of the Pyrenees from west to east presents nearly a uniform height; its sim- plicity and uniformity is remarkable. It is a veritable wall. To-day the Parisian journals are all printing scare-heads, reading, " Plus de Pyrenees '* and announcing railway projects which will bring Paris and Madrid within twenty hours of each other, and Paris and Algiers within forty. New tunnels, or ports, to the extent of five in place of two, are to be opened, and if balloons or air-ships don't come to supersede railways there will be a net-work of iron rails throughout the upper valleys of the Pyrenees as there are in Switzerland. The ville d'eaux, or watering-places, of the Pyrenees date from prehistoric times. At Ax-les-Thermes there has recently been dis- 68 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces covered a tank buried under three metres of alluvial soil, and dating from the bronze age. Old maps of these parts show that the baths and waters of the region were widely known in mediaeval times. It was not, however, until the reign of Louis XV that the *' stations " took on that popular development brought about by -PLIJSDE PYKENEES! /^^Cl N O FORTES OU VERTEX The Five Proposed Railways the sovereigns and their courts who frequented them. Not all of these can be indicated or described here but the accompanying map indicates them and their locations plainly enough. Nearly every malady, real or imaginary (and there have been many imaginary ones here, that have undergone a cure), can be The Pyrenees — Their Geography 69 70 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces benefited by the waters of the Pyrenees. Only a specialist could prescribe though. In point of popularity as resorts the baths and springs of the Pyrenees rank about as follows: Eaux-Bonnes, Eaux-Chaudes, Cau- terets^ St. Sauveur, Bareges, Bagneres de Bigorte, Luchon, Salies de Beam, Ussat, Ax- les-Thermes, Vernet and Amelie les Bains. Whatever the efficacy of their waters may be, one and all may be classed as resorts where ' * all the attractions " — as the posters an- nounce — of similar places elsewhere may be found, — great and expensive hotels, tea shops, theatres, golf, tennis and ** the game." If the waters don't cure, one is sure to have been amused, if not edified. The watering- places of the Pyrenees may not possess estab- lishments or bath houses as grand or notorious as those of Vichy, Aix, or Homburg, and their attendant amusements of sport and high stakes and cards may not be the chief reason they are patronized, but all the same they are very popular little resorts, with as charming settings and delightful surroundings as any known. At Eaux-Bonnes there are four famous springs, and at Eaux-Chaudes are six of diverse temperatures, all of them exceedingly The Pyrenees — Their Geography 71 efficacious " cures " for rheumatism. At Cambo — a new-found retreat for French painters and literary folk — are two sources, one sulphurous and the other ferruginous. Mostly the waters of Cambo are drunk; for bathing purposes they are always heated. Napoleon first set the pace at Cambo, but its fame was a long while becoming widespread. In 1808 the emperor proposed to erect a military hospital here, and one hundred and fifty thousand francs were actually appro- priated for it, but the fall of the Empire ended that hope as it did many others. In the commune of Salies is a source, a fontaine, which gives a considerable supply of salt to be obtained through evaporation; also in the mountains neighbouring upon Saint-Jean-Pied- de-Port, and in the Arrondissement of Mauleon, are still other springs from which the extraction of salt is a profitable industry. In the borders of the blue Gave de Pau, in full view of the extended horizon on one side and the lowland plain on the other, one ap- preciates the characteristics of the Pyrenees at their very best. One recalls the gentle hills and vales of the He de France, the rude, granite slopes of Bretagne, the sublime peaks of the Savoian 72 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Alps, and all the rest of the topographic tableau of '' la belle France," but nothing seen before — nor to be seen later — excels the Pyrenees region for infinite variety. It is truly remarkable, from the grandeur of its sky-line to the winsomeness and softness of its valleys, peopled everywhere (always excepting the alien importations of the resorts) with a reminiscent civilization of the past, with little or no care for the super-refinements of more populous and progressve regions. The Pyrenees, as a whole, are still unspoiled for the serious-minded traveller. This is more than can be said of the Swiss Alps, the French Riviera, the German Rhine, or the byways of merry England. CHAPTER IV THE PYBENEES — THEIR HISTORY AND PEOPLES It may be a question as to who discovered the Pyrenees, but Louis XIV was the first ex- ploiter thereof — writing in a literal sense — when he made the famous remark " II y a des Pyrenees." Before that, and to a certain ex- tent even to-day, they may well be called the '^ Pyrenees inconnues," a terra incognita, as the old maps marked the great desert wastes of mid-Africa. The population of the entire region known as the Pyrenees Frangaises is as varied as any conglomerate population to be found elsewhere in France in an area of some- thing less than six hundred kilometres. The Pyrenees were ever a frontier battle- ground. At the commencement of the eleventh century things began to shape themselves north of the mountain chain, and modern France, through the feodalite, began to grow into a well-defined entity. Charles Martel it was, as much as any other, who made all this possible, and indeed he began 73 74 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces it when lie broke the Saracen power which had over-run all Spain and penetrated via the Pyre- nean gateways into Gaul. The Iberians who flooded southern Gaul, and even went so far afield as Ireland, came from the southwestern peninsula through the passes of the Pyrenees. They were of a southern race, in marked distinction to the Franks and Gauls. Settling south of the Garonne they became known in succeeding generations as Aquitains and spoke a local patois, different even from that of the Basques whom they somewhat re- sembled. The Vascons, or Gascons, were de- scendants of this same race, though perhaps developed through a mixture of other races. Amidst the succession of diverse domina- tions, one race alone came through the mill whole, unscathed and independent. These were the Basques who occupied that region best defined to-day as lying around either side of the extreme western frontier of France and Spain. A French savant's opinion of the status of this unique province and its people tells the story better than any improvisation that can be made. A certain M. Garat wrote in the mid-nineteenth century as follows: — '' Well sheltered in the gorges of the Pyre- The Basques of the Mountains Pyrenees — History and Peoples 75 nees, where the Gauls, the Francs and the Saracens had never attacked their liberties, the Basques have escaped any profound judg- ments of that race of historians and philos- ophers which have dissected most of the other peoples of Europe, Rome even dared not at- tempt to throttle the Basques and merge them into her absorbing civilization. All around them their neighbours have changed twenty times their speech, their customs and their laws, but the Basques still show their original characters and physiognomies, scarcely dimmed by the progress of the ages." Certainly they are as proud and noble a race as one remarks in a round of European travel. A Basque will always tell you if you ask him as to whether he is French or Spanish: '' Je ne suis pas Frangais, je suis Basque; je ne suis Espagnol, je suis Basque; ou, — tout simplement , je suis Jiomme." This is as one would expect to find it, but it is possible to come across an alien even in the country of the Basque. On interrogating a smiling peasant driving a yoke of cream-col- oured oxen, he replied: '' Mais je ne suis pa^ Basque; je suis Perigourdin — born at Bade- 76 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces fols, just by the old chateau of Bertrand de Born the troubadour." One may be pardoned for a reference to the cagots of the Basque country, a despised race of people not unlike the cretins of the Alps. As Littre defines them they are distinctly a " people of the Pyrenees." The race, as a numerous body, practically is extinct to-day. They lived in poor, mean cabins, far from the towns and under the protection of a seigneu- rial chateau or abbey. All intercourse with their neighbours was forbidden, and at church they occupied a space apart, had a special holy water font, and when served with blessed bread it was thrown at them as if they were dogs, and not offered graciously. This may have been uncharitable and un- christianlike, but the placing of separate holy water-basins in the churches was simply car- rying out the principle of no intercourse be- tween the Basques and the cagots, not even between those who had become, or professed to be Christians. '' The loyal hand of a Basque should touch nothing that had pre>- viously been touched by a cagot." From the Basque country, through the heart of the Pyrenees, circling Beam, Navarre and Pyrenees — History and Peoples 77 n-r~w I ll =^=^^^^^= '" Foix, to Roussillon is a far cry, and a vast change in speech and manners. Life in a Pyrenean village for a round of the seasons would probably cure most of the ills that flesh is heir to. It may be doubtful as to who was the real inventor of the simple life — unless it was Adam — but Jean Jacques Rousseau was astonished that people did not live more in the open air as a remedy against the too liberal taking of medicine. " Gouter la liberie sur la montagne im- mense! " This was the dream of the poet, but it may become the reality of any who choose to try it. One remarks a certain indif- ference among the mountaineers of the Pyre- nees for the conventions of life. The mountaineer of the Pyrenees would rather ride a donkey than a pure bred Arab or drive an automobile. He has no use for the proverb : — " Honourable is the riding of a horse to the rider, But the mule is a dishonour and a donkey a disgrace." "When one recalls the fact that there are comparatively few of the bovine race in the south of France, more particularly in Langue- doc and Provence, he understands why it is that one finds the cuisine a I'Miile d' olive 78 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces — and sometimes huile d'arachide, which is made from peanuts, and not bad at that, at least not unhealthful. In the Pyrenees proper, where the pastur- age is rich, cattle are more numerous, and nowhere, not even in the Allier or Poitou in mid-France, will one find finer cows or oxen. Little, sure-footed donkeys, with white-gray muzzles and crosses down their backs, and great cream-coloured oxen seem to do all the work that elsewhere is done by horses. There are ponies, too, — short-haired, tiny beasts, — in the Pyrenees, and in the summer months one sees a Basque or a Bearnais horse-dealer driving his live stock (ponies only) on the hoof all over France, and making sales by the way. The Mediterranean terminus of the Pyre- nees has quite different characteristics from that of the west. Here the mountains end in a great promontory which plunges precipi- tately into the Mediterranean between the Spanish province of Figneras and the rich garden-spot of Eoussillon, in France. French and Spanish manners, customs and speech are here much intermingled. On one side of the frontier they are very like those on the other; only the uniforms of the official- dom made up of douaniers, carabineros, gen- In a P\rciu'an Ilenmtagc Pyrenees — History and Peoples 79* darmes and soldiers differ. The type of face and figure is the same; the usual speech is the same; and dress varies but little, if at all. " Voild! la fraternite Franco-Espagnole. One ever-present reminder of two alien peo- ples throughout all Roussillon is the presence of the chateaux-forts, the walled towns, the watch-towers, and defences of this mountain frontier. The chief characteristics of Roussillon, from the seacoast plain up the mountain valleys to the passes, are the chateau ruins, towers and moss-grown hermitages, all relics of a day of vigorous, able workmen, who built, if not for eternity, at least for centuries. In the Pyre- nees-Orientales alone there are reckoned thirty- five abandoned hermitages, any one of which will awaken memories in the mind of a ro- mantic novelist which will supply him with more background material than he can use up in a dozen mediaeval romances. And if he takes one or more of these hallowed spots of the Pyrenees for a setting he will have some- thing quite as worthy as the overdone Ital- ian hilltop hermitage, and a good deal fresher in a colour sense. The strategic Pyrenean frontier, nearly six hundred kilometres, following the various 80 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces twistings and turnings, kas not varied in any particular since the treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. From Cap Cerbere on the Mediter- ranean it runs, via the crests of the Monts Alberes, up to Perthus, and then by the crests of the Pyrenees-Orientales, properly called, up to Puigmal; and traversing the Segre, crosses the Col de la Perche and passes the Pic Negre, separating France from the Val d'Andorre, crosses the G-aronne to attain the peaks of the Pyrenees-Occidentales, and so, via the Foret d'Iraty, and through the Pays Basque, finally comes to the banks of the Bidassoa, between Hendaye and Irun-Feuntarrabia. The Treaty of Verdun gave the territory of France as extending up to the Pyrenees and beyond (to include the Comte de Barcelone), but this limit in time was rearranged to stop at the mountain barrier. The graft didn't work ! Eoussillon remained for long in the pos- session of the house of Aragon, and its peo- ple were, in the main, closely related with the Catalans over the border, but the Treaty of the Pyrenees, in 1659, definitely acquired this fine wine-growing province for the French. The frontier of the Pyrenees is much better defended by natural means than that of the Alps. For four hundred kilometres of its Pyrenees — History and Peoples 81 length — quite two-thirds of its entirety — the passages and breaches are inaccessible to an army, or even to a carriage. From the times of Hannibal and Charle- magne up to the wars of the Empire only the extremities have been crossed for the inva- sion of alien territory. It is in these situa- tions that one finds the frontier fortresses of to-day; at Figueras and Gerone in Spain; in France at Bellegarde (Col de Perthus), Prats- de-MolIo, Mont Louis, Villefranche and Perpi- gnan, in the east; and at Portalet, Navar- rino, Saint- Jean-Pied-de-Port (guarding the Col de Eongevaux) and Bayonne in the west. Bayonne and Perpignan guard the only easily practicable routes (Paris-Madrid and Paris- Barcelona), Hannibal and Charlemagne are the two great names of early history identified with the Pyrenees. Hannibal exploited more than one popular scenic touring ground of to-day, and for a man who is judged only by his deeds — not by his personality, for no authentic por- trait of him exists, even in words — he cer- tainly was endowed with a profound foresight. Charlemagne, warrior, lawgiver and patron of letters, predominant figure of a gloomy age, met the greatest defeat of his career in the 82 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Pyrenees, at Bongevaux, when he advanced on Spain in 778. Close by the Cap Cerbere, where French and Spanish territory join, is the little town and pass of Banyuls. This Col de Banyuls was, in 1793, the witness of a supreme act of pa- triotism. The Spaniards were biding their time to invade France via Eoussillon, and made overtures to the people of the little vil- lage of Banyuls — famous to-day for its vins de liqueur and not much else, but at that time numbering less than a thousand souls — to join them and make the road easy. The pro- cureur du roi replied simply: '^ Les habitants de Banyuls etant frangais devaient tous mourir pour VJionneur et Vindependance de la France." Three thousand Spaniards thereupon at- tacked the entire forces of the little commune — men, women and children — but finding their efforts futile were forced to retire. This ended the *' Battle of Banyuls," one of the '' little -Wars " that historians have usually neglected, or overlooked, in favour of some- thing more spectacular. On the old " Route Royale " from Paris to Barcelona, via Perpignan, are two chefs- d'cEuvre of the mediasval bridge-builder, made Pyrenees — History and Peoples 83 before the days of steel rails and wire ropes and all their attendant ugliness. These are the Pont de Perpignan over the Basse, and the Pont de Ceret on the Tech, each of them spanning the stream by one single, graceful arch. The latter dates from 1336, and it is doubtful if the modern stone-mason could do his work as well as he who was responsible for this architectural treasure. One finds a bit of superstitious ignorance once and again, even in enlightened France of to-day. It was not far from here, on the road to the Col de Banyuls, that we were asked by a peasant from what country we came. He was told by way of a joke that we were Chinese. *' Est-ce loin? '' he asked. *' Deux cents li-eues! *' '' Diahle! c'est une bonne distance! " One suspects that he knew more than he was given credit for, and per- haps it was he that was doing the joking, for he said by way of parting: ''Ma foi, c'est hien triste d'etre si loin de votre mere." What a little land of contrasts the region of the Pyrenees is ! It is all things to all men. From the low-l^ang valleys and sea-coast plains, as one ascends into the upper regions, it is as if one went at once into another coun- try. Certainly no greater contrast is marked 84 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces in all France than that between the Hautes- Pyrenees and the Landes for instance. The Hautes-Pyrenees of to-day was for- merly made up of Bigorre, Armagnac and the extreme southerly portion of Gascogne, Caesar called the people Tarbelli, Bigerriones and Flussates, and Visigoths, Franks and Gascons prevailed over their destinies in turn. In the early feudal epoch Bigorre, '' the country of the four valleys," had its own counts, but was united with Beam in 1252, becoming a part of the patrimony which Henri Quatre brought ultimately to the crown of France. Antiquities before the middle ages are rare in these parts, in spite of the memories re- maining from Eoman times. Perhaps the greatest of these are the baths and springs at Cauterets, one of them being known as the Bains des Espagnoles and the other as the Bains de Cesar. These unquestionably were developed in Roman times. The chief architectural glory of the region is the ancient city of St. Bertrand, the capi- tal of Comminges, the ancient Lugdunum Con- venarum of Strabon and Pliny. Its fortifica- tions and its remarkable cathedral place it in A Mountaineer of the Pyrenees Pyrenees — History and Peoples 85 the ranks with Carcassonne, Aigues-Mortes and Beziers. The manners and customs of the Bigordans of the towns (not to be confounded with the Bigoudens of Brittany) have succumbed some- what to the importation of outside ideas by the masses who throng their baths and springs, but nevertheless their main characteristics stand out plainly. Quite different from the Bearnais are the Bigordans, and, somewhat uncharitably, the lat- ter have a proverb which given in their own tongue is as follows: — '' Bearnes faus et courtes." Neighbourly jealousy accounts for this. The Bearnais are morose, steady and commercial, the Bigordans lively, bright and active, and their sociability is famed afar. In the open country throughout the Pyre- nees, there are three classes of inhabitants, those of the mountains and high valleys, those of the slopes, and those of the plains. The first are hard-working and active, but often ignorant and superstitious; the second are more gay, less frugal and better livers than the mountaineers; and those of the plains are often downright lazy and indolent. The men- dicant race, of which old writers told, has apparently disappeared. There are practi- 86 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces cally no beggars in France except gypsies, and there is no mistaking a gypsy for any other species. In general one can say that the inhabitants of the high Pyrenees are a simple, good and generous people, and far less given to excess than many others of the heterogeneous mass which make up the population of modern France. Simple and commodious and made of the wool of the country are the general characteristics of the costumes of these parts, as indeed they are of most mountain regions. But the distinct- ive feature, with the men as with the women, is the topknot coiffure. In the plains, the men wear the pancake-like heret, and in the high valleys a sort of a woollen bonnet — something like a Phrygian cap. With the women it is a sort of a hood of red woollen stuff, black-bordered and exceedingly pictur- esque. '' C'est un joli cadre pour le visage d'une jolie femme," said a fat commercial traveller, with an eye for pretty women, whom the writer met at a Tarbes table d'hote. A writer of another century, presumably untravelled, in describing the folk of the Pyre- nees remarked: '' The Highlanders of the Pyrenees put one in mind of Scotland; they Pyrenees — History and Peoples 87 have round, flat caps and loose breeches." Never mind the breeches, but the beret of the Basque is no more like the tam-o'-shanter of the Scot than is an anchovy like a herring. An English traveller once remarked on the peculiar manner of transport in these parts in emphatic fashion. '' With more sense than John Bull, the Pyrenean carter knows how to build and load his wagon to the best advan- tage," he said. He referred to the great carts for transporting wine casks and barrels, built with the hind wheels much higher than the front ones. It's a simple mechanical exposi- tion of the principle that a wagon so built goes up-hill much easier. Here in the Hautes-Pyrenees they speak the speech of Languedoc, with variations, idioms and bizarre interpolations, which may be Span- ish, but sound like Arabic. At any rate it's a beautiful, lisping patois, not at all like the speech of Paris, " twanged through the nose," as the men of the Midi said of it when they went up to the capital in Revolutionary times " to help capture the king's castle." The great literary light of the region was Despourrins, a poet of the eighteenth century, whose verses have found a permanent place in French literature, and whose rhymes were 88 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces chanted as were those of the troubadours of centuries before. To just how great an extent the patois dif- fers from the French tongue the following verse of Despourrins will show : — " Aci, debat aqueste peyre, Repaiise lou plus gran de touts lou medecis, Qui de poii d'esta chens besis, En a remplit lou cimetyre. " Tci, sous cette pierre, Repose le plus grand de tons les m^dicins, Qui de peur d'§tre sans voisins En a rempli le cimetiere." A humourist also was this great poet! Throughout the Pyrenean provinces, and along the shores of the Mediterranean, from Catalonia to the Bouches-du-Rhone are found the Gitanos, or the French Gypsies, who do not differ greatly from others of their tribe wherever found. This perhaps is accounted for by the fact that the shrines of their patron saint • — Sara, the servant of the ' ' Three Maries " exiled from Judea, and who settled at Les Saintes Marie s-de-la-Mer — was lo- cated near the mouth of the Rhone. This same shrine is a place of pilgrimage for the gypsies of all the world, and on the twenty-fourth of Pyrenees — History and Peoples 89 May one may see sights here such as can be equalled nowhere else. Not many travellers' itineraries have ever included a visit to this humble and lonesome little fishing village of the Bouches-du-Rhone, judging from the infre- quency with which one meets written accounts. Gypsy bands are numerous all through the Departements of the south of France, espe- cially in Herault and the Pyrenees-Orientales. Like most of their kind they are usually horse- traders, and perhaps horse-stealers, for their ideas of honesty and probity are not those of other men. They sometimes practise as sort of quack horse-doctors and horse and dog clippers, etc., and the women either make baskets, or, more frequently, simply beg, or *' tire les cartes " and tell fortunes. They sing and dance and do many other things hon- est and dishonest to make a livelihood. Their world's belongings are few and their wants are not great. For the most part their possessions consist only of their personal belongings, a horse, a donkey or a mule, their caravan, or roulotte, and a gold or silver chain or two, ear- rings in their ears, and a knife — of course a knife, for the vagabond gypsy doesn't fight with fire-arms. The further one goes into the French valleys 90 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces of the Pyrenees the more one sees the real Gi- tanos of Spam, or at least of Spanish ancestry. Like all gypsy folk, they have no fixed abode, but roam and roam and roam, though never far away from their accustomed haunts. They mul- tiply, but are seldom cross-bred out of their race. It's an idyllic life that the Gitano and the Romany-Chiel leads, or at least the poet would have us think so. " Upon the road to Romany It's- stay, friend, stay ! There's lots o' love and lots o' time To linger on the way ; Poppies for the twilight, Roses for the noon, It's happy goes as lucky goes To Romany in June." But as the Frenchman puts it, " look to the other side of the coin." Brigandage is the original profession of the gypsy, though to-day the only stealing which they do is done stealthily, and not in the plain hold-up fashion. They profess a profound re- gard for the Catholic religion, but they practise other rites in secret, and form what one versed in French Catholicism would call a '* culte par- ticuliere." It is known that they baptize their Pyrenees — History and Peoples 91 92 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces newly-born children as often as possible — of course each time in a different place — in order that they may solicit alms in each case. Down- right begging is forbidden in France, but for such a purpose the law is lenient. They are gross feeders, the Gitanos, and a fowl '^ a little high " has no terrors for them; they have even been known to eat sea-gulls, which no white man has ever had the temerity to taste. It has been said that they will eat cats and dogs and even rats, but this is doubt- less another version of the Chinese fable. At any rate a mere heating of their viands in a saucepan — not by any stretch of the imagina- tion can it be called cooking — is enough for them, and what their dishes lack in cooking is made up by liberal additions of salt, pepper, piment (which is tobacco or something like it), and saffron. As to type, the French Gitanos are of that olive-brown complexion, with the glossy black hair, usually associated with the stage gypsy, rather small in stature, but well set up, strong and robust, fine eyes and features and, with respect to the young women and girls (who marry young), often of an astonishing beauty. In the course of a very few years the beauty of the women pales considerably, owing, no Pyrenees — History and Peoples 93 doubt, to their hard life, but among the men their fine physique and lively emotional fea- tures endure until well past the half-century. The gypsies are supposedly a joyful, ami- able race ; sometimes they are and sometimes they are not; but looking at them all round it is not difficult to apply the verses of Be- ranger, beginning: " Sorciers, bateleurs ou filous Reste immonde D'un ancien monde Gais Boh^miens, d'ou venez-vouB." One other class of residents in the Pyrenees must be mentioned here, and that is the family of Ursus and their descendants. The bears of the Pyrenees are of two sorts ; the dignified Ours des Pyrenees is a versatile and accomplished creature. Sometimes he is a carnivorous beast, and sometimes he is a vegetarian pure and simple — one of the kind which will not even eat eggs. The latter species is more mischievous than his terrible brother, for he forages stealthily in the night and eats wheat, buckwheat, maize, and any other break- fast-food, prepared or semi-prepared, he finds handy. The carnivorous breed wage war against cat- 94 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces tie and sheep, or did when they were more nu- merous, so that all live stock were obliged to be enclosed at night. Curiously enough, both species are fattest in winter, when conditions of life are supposed to be the hardest. There are wolves, too, in the Pyrenees, but they are not frequently met with. A bear will not attack a wolf, but a number of wolves together will attack a bear. CHAPTEE V ROUSSILLOlSr AND THE CATALANS ^ffUfih '-It. . I\piJS3lIL0I\I EoussiLLON is a curious province. '' Kous- sillon is a bow with two strings," say the in- habitants. The workers in the vineyards of other days are becoming fishermen, and the fishermen are becoming vineyard workers. The arts of Neptune and the wiles of Bacchus have however conspired to give a prosperity to Roussillon which many more celebrated provinces lack. The Eoussillon of other days, a feudal power 96 96 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces in its time, with its counts and nobles, has become but a Departement of latter-day France. The first historical epochs of Roussillon are but obscurely outlined, but they began when Hanni- bal freed the Pyrenees in 536, and in time the Komans became masters here, as elsewhere in Gaul. Then there came three hundred years of Visi- goth rule, which brought the Saracens, and, in 760, Pepin claimed Roussillon for France. Then began the domination of the counts. First they were but delegates of the king, but in time they usurped royal authority and be- came rulers in their own right. Eoussillon had its own particular counts, but in a way they bowed down to the king of Ara- gon, though indeed the kings of France up to Louis IX considered themselves suzerains. By the Treaty of Corbeil Louis IX renounced this fief in 1258 to his brother king of Aragon. At the death of James I of Aragon his states were divided among his children, and Roussillon came to the kings of Majorca. Wars within and without now caused an era of bloodshed. Jean II, attacked by the men of Navarre and of Catalonia, demanded aid of Louis XI, who sent seven hundred lances and men, and three hundred thousand gold crown pieces, which Roussillon and the Catalans 97 latter the men of Roussillon were obliged to repay when the war was over. Jean II, Comte de Roussillon, hedged and demanded delay, and in due course was obliged to pawn his count- ship as security. This the Roussillonnais re- sented and revolt followed, when Louis XI with- out more ado went up against Perpignan and besieged it on two occasions before he could collect the sum total of his bill. Charles VIII, returning from his Italian travels, in a generous frame of mind, gave back the province to the king of Aragon without de- manding anything in return. Ferdinand of Aragon became in time king of Spain, by his marriage with Isabella, and Roussillon came again directly under Spanish domination. Meantime the geographical position of Rous- sillon was such that it must either become a part of France or a buffer-state, or duelling ground, where both races might fight out their quarrels. Neither Francois I nor Louis XIII thought of anything but to acquire the prov- ince for France, and so it became a battle- ground where a continuous campaign went on for years, until, in fact, the Grand Conde, after many engagements, finally entered Perpignan and brought about the famous Treaty of the Pyrenees, signed on the He des Faisans at the 98 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces other extremity of the great frontier mountain chain. The antique monuments of Roussillon are not many; principally they are the Roman baths at Arles-sur-Tech, the tomb of Constant, son of Constantine, at Elne, and an old Mohammedan or Moorish mosque, afterwards serving as a Christian church, at Planes. The ancient city of Ruscino, the chief Roman set- tlement, has practically disappeared, a tower, called the Tor de Castel-Rossello, only remain- ing. Impetuosity of manner, freedom in their so- cial relations, and a certain egotism have ever been the distinctive traits of the Roussillonnais. It was so in the olden times, and the traveller of to-day will have no difficulty in finding the same qualities. Pierre de Marca first discov- ered, and wrote of these traits in 1655, and his observations still hold good. Long contact with Spain and Catalonia has naturally left its impress on Roussillon, both with respect to men and manners. The Span- ish tone is disappearing in the towns, but in the open country it is as marked as ever. There one finds bull-fights, cock-fights, and wild, abandoned dancing, not to say guitar twanging, and incessant cigarette rolling and smoking, — — — . .^B^ Catalans of Roussillon Roussillon and the Catalans 99 and all sorts of moral contradictions — albeit there is no very immoral sentiment or motive. These things are observed alike of the Rous- sillonnais and the Catalonians, just over the border. The bull-fight is the chief joy and pride of the people. The labourer will leave his fields, the merchant his shop, and the craftsman his atelier to make one of an audience in the arena. Not in Spain itself, at Barcelona, Bilboa, Se- ville or Madrid is a bull-fight throng more critical or insistent than at Perpignan. He loves immensely well to dance, too, the Roussillonnais, and he often carries it to excess. It is his national amusement, as is that of the Italian the singing of serenades beneath your window. On all great gala occasions through- out Roussillon a place is set apart for dancing, usually on the bare or paved ground in the open air, not only in the country villages but in the towns and cities as well. The dances are most original. Ordinarily the men will dance by themselves, a species of muscular activity which they call '' lo bail." A contrepas finally brings in a mixture of women, the whole forming a melange of all the gyrations of a dervish, the swirls of the Spanish LOFC* 100 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces dancing girl and the quicksteps of a Virginia reel. The music of these dances is equally bizarre. A flute called lo flaviol, a tamhorin, a hautboy, prima and tenor^ and a cornemeuse, or bor- rassa, usually compose the orchestra, and the music is more agreeable than might be sup- posed. In Eoussillon the religious fetes and cere- monies are conducted in much the flowery, os- tentatious manner that they are in Spain, and not at all after the manner of the simple, devout fetes and pardons of Bretagne. The Fete de Jeudi-Saint, and the Fete-Dieu in Eoussillon are gorgeous indeed; sanctuaries become as theatres and tapers and incense and gay vest- ments and chants make the pageants as much pagan as they are Christian. The coiffure of the women of Eoussillon is a handkerchief hanging as a veil on the back of the head, and fastened by the ends beneath the chin, with a knot of black ribbon at each temple. Their waist line is tightly drawn, and their bodice is usually laced down the front like those of the German or Tyrolean peasant maid. A short skirt, in ample and multifarious pleats, and coloured stockings finish off a costume as ;^laneke Mc Manas v(out!t/icn- '• '^ mod y The JVomen of Rous sill on Roussillon and the Catalans 101 unlike anything else seen in France as it is like those of Catalonia in Spain. The great Spanish cloak, or capuchon, is also an indispensable article of dress for the men as well as for the women. The men wear a tall, red, liberty-cap sort of a bonnet, its top-knot hanging down to the shoulder — always to the left. A short vest and wide bodied pantaloons, joined together with yards of red sash, wound many times tightly around the waist, complete the men's costume, all except their shoes, which are of a special variety known as spardilles, or espa- drilles, another Spanish affectation. The speech of Roussillon used to be Catalan, and now of course it is French ; but in the coun- try the older generations are apt to know much Catalan-Spanish and little French. Just what variety of speech the Catalan tongue was has ever been a discussion with the word makers. It was not Spanish exactly as known to-day, and has been called roman vulgaire, rustique, and provincial, and many of its words and phrases are supposed to have come down from the barbarians or the Arabs. In 1371 the Catalan tongue already had a poetic art, a dictionary of rhymes, and a gram- mar, and many inscriptions on ancient monu- 102 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces ments in these parts (eightli, ninth and tenth centuries) were in that tongue. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Catalan tongue possessed a written civil and maritime law, thus showing it was no bastard. A fatality pursued everything Catalan how- ever; its speech became Spanish, and its na- tionality was swallowed up in that of Castille. At any rate, as the saying goes in Eoussillon, — and no one will dispute it, — " one must be a Catalan to understand Catalan." The Pays-de-Fenouillet, of which St. Paul was the former capital, lies in the valley of the Agly. Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet is the pres- ent commercial capital of the region, if the title of commercial capital can be appropriately be- stowed upon a small town of two thousand in- habitants. The old province, however, was swallowed up by Eoussillon, which in turn has become the Departement of the Pyrenees-Ori- entales. The feudality of these parts centred around the Chateau de Fenouillet, now a miserable ruin on the road to Carcassonne, a few kilo- metres distant. There are some ruined, but still traceable, city walls at Saint-Paul-de-Fe- nouillet, but nothing else to suggest its one-time importance, save its fourteenth-century church, Roussillon and the Catalans 103 and the great tower of its ancient chapter- house. Nearer Perpignan is Latour-de-France, the frontier town before Richelieu was able to an- nex Roussillon to his master's crown. Latour-de-France also has the debris of a chateau to suggest its former greatness, but its small population of perhaps twelve hundred persons think only of the culture of the vine and the olive and have little fancy for historical monuments. Here, and at Estagel, on the Perpignan road, the Catalan tongue is still to be heard in all its silvery picturesqueness. Estagel is what the French call '' une jolie petite ville; " it has that wonderful background of the Pyrenees, a frame of olive-orchards and vineyards, two thousand inhabitants, the Hotel Gary, a most excellent, though unpretentious, little hotel, and the birthplace of Frangois Arago as its chief sight. Besides this, it has a fine old city gate and a great clock-tower which is a reminder of the Belfry of Bruges. The wines of the neighbourhood, the macaheu and the malvoisie are famous. North of Estagel, manners and customs and the patois change. Everything becomes Lan- guedocian. In France the creation of the mod- 104 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces em departments, replacing the ancient prov- inces, has not levelled or changed ethnological distinctions in the least. The low-lying, but rude, crests of the Cor- bieres cut out the view northward from the valley of the Agly. The whole region round- about is strewn with memories of feudal times, a chateau here, a tower there, but nothing of great note. The Chateau de Queribus, or all that is left of it, a great octagonal thirteenth- century donjon, still guards the route toward Limoux and Carcassonne, at a height of nearly seven hundred metres. In the old days this route formed a way in and out of Roussillon, but now it has grown into disuse. Cucugnan is only found on the maps of the Etat-Major, in the Post-Office Guide, and in Daudet's '^ Lettres de Mon Moulin." We our- selves merely recognized it as a familiar name. The " Cure de Cucugnan " was one of Dau- det's heroes, and belonged to these parts. The Provengal literary folks have claimed him to be of Avignon; though it is hard to see why when Daudet specifically wrote C-u-c-u-g-n-a-n. Nevertheless, even if they did object to Dau- det's slander of Tarascon, the Provengaux are willing enough to appropriate all he did as be- longing to them. Roussillon and the Catalans 105 The Catalan water, or wine, bottle, called the porro, is everywhere in evidence in Roussillon. Perhaps it is a Mediterranean specialty, for the Sicilians and the Maltese use the same thing. It's a curious affair, something like an alchemist's alembic, and you drink from its nozzle, holding it above the level of your mouth and letting the wine trickle down your throat in as ample a stream as pleases your fancy. Those who have become accustomed to it, will drink their wine no other way, claiming it is never so sweet as when drunk from the porro. " Du miel delaye dans un rayon de soleil." " Boire la vie et la sante quand on le boit c'est le vin ideal" Apparently every Catalan peasant's house- hold has one of these curious glass bottles with its long tapering spout, and when a Catalan drinks from it, pouring a stream of wine di- rectly into his mouth, he makes a '' study " and a '' picture " at the same time. A variation of the same thing is the gourd or leathern bottle of the mountaineer. It is difficult to carry a glass bottle such as the porro around on donkey back, and so the thing is made of leather. The neck of this is of wood, 106 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces and a stopper pierced with a fine hole screws into it. It comes in all sizes, holding from a bottleful to ten litres. The most common is a two-litre one. "When you want to drink you hold the leather bag high in the air and pour a thin stream of wine into your mouth. The art is to stop neatly with a jerk, and not spill a drop. One can acquire the art, and it will be found an exceedingly practical way to carry drink. It is a curious, little-known corner of Eu- rope, where France and Spain join, at the east- ern extremity of the Pyrenees, at Cap Cerbere. One read in classic legend will find some re- semblance between Cap Cerbere and the terri- ble beast with three heads who guarded the gates of hell. There may be some justification for this, as Pomponius Mela, a Latin geogra- pher, bom however in Andalusia, wrote of a Cervaria locus, which he designated as the finis GallicB. Then, through evolution, we have Cervaria, which in turn becomes the Catalan village of Cerveia. This is the attitude of the historians. The etymologists put it in this wise: Cervaria — meaning a wooded valley peopled with cerfs (stags). The reader may take his choice. At any rate the Catalan Cerbere, known to- Roussillon and the Catalans 107 day only as the frontier French station on the line to Barcelona, has become an unlovely rail- way junction, of little appeal except in the story of its past. In the twelfth century the place had already attained to prominence, and its feudal seigneur, named Rabedos, built a public edifice for civic pride, and a church which he dedicated to San Salvador. In 1361 Guillem de Pau, a noble of the rank of donzell, and a member of a family famous for its exploits against the Moors, became Seigneur de Cerbere, and the one act of his life which puts him on record as a feudal lord of parts is a charter signed by him giving the fishing rights offshore from Collioure, for the distance of ten leagues, to one Pierre Huguet — for a price. Thus is recorded a very early instance of official sinning. One certainly can- not sell that which he has not got ; even mari- time tribunals of to-day don't recognize any- thing beyond the '' three mile limit." The seigneurs of Pau, who were Baillis de Cerbere, came thus to have a hand in the con- duct of affairs in the Mediterranean, though their own bailiwick was nearer the Atlantic coast. At this time there were nine vassal 108 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces chiefs of families who owed allegiance to the head. After the fourteenth century this fron- tier territory belonged, for a time, to the Sei- gneurs des Abelles, their name coming from another little feudal estate half hidden in one of the Mediterranean valleys of the Pyrenees. The chapel of Cerbere, founded by Rabedos in the twelfth century, had fallen in ruins by the end of the fourteenth century, but many pious legacies left to it were conceded to the clercs heneficiaires, a body of men in holy or- ders who had influence enough in the courts of justice to be able to claim as their own cer- tain '* goods of the church." Louis XIV cut short these clerical benefits, however, and gave them — by what right is quite vague — to his mareclial, Joseph de Rocabruna. Some two centuries ago Cerbere possessed something approaching the dignity of a chateau- fortress. An act of the 25th May, 1700, refers to the Chateau de Caroig, perhaps the Quer-Roig. The name now applies, however, only to a mass of ruins on the summit of a near-by mountain of the same name. Not every one in the neigh- bourhood admits this, some preferring to be- lieve that the same heap of stones was once Roussillon and the Catalans 109 a signal tower by which a warning fire was built to tell of the approach of the Saracens or the pirates of Barbary. It might well have been both watch-tower and chateau. CHAPTER VI FKOM PEKPIGNAN TO THE SPANISH FRONTIEE Once Perpignan was a fortified town of the first class, but now, save for its old Citadelle and the Castillet, its warlike aspect has dis- appeared. One of Gny de Maupassant's heroes, having been asked his impressions of Algiers, replied, '^ Alger est une ville hlanche! " If it had been Perpignan of which he was speaking, he would have said: '' Perpignan est une ville rouge! '* 110 Prom Perpignan to Spanish Frontier HI for red is the dominant colour note of the en- tire city, from the red brick Castillet to the sidewalks in front of the cafes. Colour, how- ever, is not the only thing that astonishes one at Perpignan ; the tramontane, that cruel north- west wind, as cruel almost as the " mistral " of Provence, blows at times so fiercely that one wonders that one brick upon another stands in place on the grand old Castillet tower. The brick fortifications of Perpignan are, or were, wonderful constructions, following, in form and system, the ancient Roman manner. It was a sacrilege to strip from the lovely city of Perpignan its triple ramparts and Cita- delle, leaving only the bare walls of the Cas- tillet, the sole remainder of its strength of old. Perpignan 's walls have disappeared, but still one realizes full well what an important stra- tegic point it is, guarding, as it does, the east- ern gateway into Spain. All the cities of the Midi possess some char- acteristic by which they are best known. Tou- louse has its Capitole, Nimes its Arena, Aries its Alyscamps, Pau its Chateau, and Perpignan its Castillet. Built entirely of rosj^-red brick, its battle- mented walls rise beside the Quai de la Basse to-day as proudly as they ever did, though 112 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces shorn of their supporting ramparts, save the Porte Notre Dame adjoining. That fortunately has been spared. Above this Porte Notre Dame is a figure of the Madonna, which, as well as the gate, dates from the period when the kings of Aragon retook possession of the eph- emeral Royaume de Majorque, of which Per- pignan was the capital, — a glory, by the way, which endured less than seventy years, but which has left a noticeable trace in all things relating to the history of the region. In the tenth century Perpignan was known only as " Villa Perpiniani," indeed it so re- mained until it was conquered by Louis XIII, when it became definitely French. Bloody war, celebrated sieges, ravages by the pest, an earth- quake or two, and incendiaries without num- ber could not raze the city which in time be- came one of the great frontier strongholds of France. The Place de la Loge, the great cafe centre of Perpignan, is unique among the smaller cities of France. Here is animation at all hours of the day — and night, a perpetual going and coming of all the world, a veritable Rialto or a Rue de la Paix. It is the business centre of the city, and also the centre of its pleasures, a veritable forum. Cafes are all about; even Porte Xotrc Daiiw and the Castillct. Per pig nan From Perpignan to Spanish Frontier 113 the grand old Loge de Mer, a dehcious construc- tion of the fourteenth century, is a cafe. What a charming structure this Loge is ! Its fourteenth-century constructive elements have been further beautified with late flowering Gothic of a century and a half later, and its great bronze lamps suggest a symbolism which stands for eternity, or at any rate bespeaks the solidity of Perpignan for all time. Beside the Loge is the Hotel de Ville, with its round-arched doorways and windows, iron- barred in real mediaeval fashion, with dainty colonnettes between. Next is the ancient Palais de Justice, adjoin- ing the Hotel de Ville. It has a battery of mul- lioned twin windows of narrow aperture, and is in perfect keeping with the mediaeval trinity of which it is a part. The cathedral of St. Jean is another of Per- pignan 's historical monuments, but it is far from lovely at first glance, an atrocious fac^ade having been added by some ** restorer " in recent times with more suitable ideas for build- ing fortresses than churches. The tower of the cathedral is modern and, taken as a whole, is undeniably effective with its iron cage and bell-rack. The original tower 114 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces fell two centuries ago during an extra violent blow of the tramontane. Passing centuries have changed Perpignan but, little, and aside from the boulevards and malls the streets are narrow and tortuous and almost devoid of sidewalks. There are innu- merable little bijou houses of Gothic or Ee- naissance times, and in one narrow street, called quaintly Main de Fer, one sees a real, unspoiled bit of the sixteenth century. One curious house, now occupied by the Cercle de 1 'Union, dates from 1508, and was erected for one Sancho or Xanxo. Its interior, so far as its entrance hall and stairway are concerned, remains as it was when first built. The Rue Pere Pigne has a legend connected with it which is worth recounting. The Pere Pigne, or Pigna, as his name was in Catalan- Spanish days, was a cattle-herder in the upper valley of the Tet, beside the village of Llagone. "Weary of his lonely life he whispered to the rocks and rills his desire for a less rude calling elsewhere, and the river took him up in its arms and washed him incontinently down on to the lowland plain of Roussillon, and, by some occult means or other, suggested to the old man that his mission in life was to found From Perpignan to Spanish Frontier 115 there a fertile, prosperous city. Tims Perpi- gnan came to be founded. There may be doubts as to the authenticity of the story, but there was enough of reality attached to it to have led the city fathers to name a street after the hero of the adventure. Since the demolishment of its walls Per- pignan has lost much of its mediaeval charac- ter, but nothing can take away the life and gaiety of its streets and boulevards, its shops, its hotels and cafes. Perpignan comes very near being the liveliest little capital of old France existing under the modern republic of to-day. The population is cosmopolitan, like that of Marseilles, and every aspect of it is pictur- esque. The vegetable sellers, the fruit mer- chants, the water and ice purveyors, all dark- eyed Catalan girls, are delightful in face, fig- ure and carriage. Their baggy white coiffes set off their dark complexions and jet black hair. The men of this race are more seri- ous when they are at business (they are gay enough at other times) and you may see twenty red onion or garlic dealers and never see a smile, whereas an orange seller, a woman or girl, always has her mouth open in a laugh and her headdress is always bobbing about; 116 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces nothing about her is passive and life to her is a dream, though it is serious business to the men. The taste of the Catalans of Perpignan for bright colouring in their dress is akin to that of their brothers and sisters in Spain. The fact that both slopes of the Eastern Pyrenees were under the same domination up to the reign of Louis XIII may account for this. The Citadelle of Perpignan is closed to the general tourist. None may enter without per- mission from the military authorities, and that, for a stranger, is difficult to obtain. The great gateway to the Citadelle is a marvel of orig- inality with its four archaic caryatides. Within is the site of the ancient palace of the kings of Majorca, but the primitive fragments have been rebuilt into the later works of Louis XI, Charles V and Vauban until to-day it is but a species of fortress, and not at all like a great domestic establishment such as one usually rec- ognizes by the name of palace. The ]5glise de la Real, beside the Citadelle, was built in the fourteenth century and is cele- brated for the council held here in 1408 by the Anti-Pope, Pierre de Luna. There are some bibliographical gems in Per- pignan 's Bibliotheque which would make a new- From Perpignan to Spanish Frontier 117 world collector envious. There are numerous rare incunabula? and precious manuscripts, the most notable being the " Missel de I'Abbaye d 'Aries en Vallespir " (Xllth century) and the ** Missel de la Confrere," illustrated with min- iatures (XVth century), worthy, each of them, to be ranked with King Rene's ** Book of Hours " at Aix so far as mere beauty goes. The habituated French traveller connects rilettes with Tours, the Cannebiere with Mar- seilles, Les Lices with Aries, and, with Per- pignan, the platanes — great plane - trees, planted in a double line and forming one of the most remarkable promenades, just beyond the Castillet, that one has ever seen. It is a Prado, a Corso, and a Rambla all in one. The Carnival de Perpignan is as brilliant a fete as one may see in any Spanish or Italian city, where such celebrations are classic, and this Allee des Platanes is then at its gayest. Another of the specialties of Perpignan is the micocoulier, or '' bois de Perpignan/' some- thing better suited for making whip handles than any other wood known. Each French city has its special industry; it may elsewhere be berets, sabots, truffles, pork-pies or sausages, but here it is whips. Perpignan has given two great men to the 118 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces world, Jean Blanca and Hyacinthe Eigaud. Jean Blanca, Bourgeois de Perpignan, was first consul of the city when Louis XI besieged it in 1475. His son had been captured by the be- siegers and word was sent that he would be put to death if the gates were not opened forth- with. The courageous consul replied simply that the ties of blood and paternal love are not great enough to make one a traitor to his God, his king and his native land. His son was, in consequence, massacred beneath his very eyes. Hyacinthe Eigaud was a celebrated painter, born at Perpignan in the eighteenth century. His talents were so great that he was known as the Van Dyck frangais. Canet is a sort of seaside overflow of Per- pignan, a dozen kilometres away on the shores of the Mediterranean. On the way one passes the scant, clumsy remains of the old twelfth- century Chateau Eoussillon, now remodelled into a little ill-assorted cluster of houses, a chapel and a storehouse. The circular tower, really a svelt and admirable pile, is all that remains of the chateau of other days, the last vestige of the dignity that once was Euscino's, the ancient capital of the Comte de Eoussillon. At Canet itself there are imposing ruins, sit- 118 Old Navarre and the - > m^ Provinces world, Jean Blanca aud Hya^'iatlie Rigaud. Jean Blanca, Bourgeois de Perpignan. was first consul of tbe city when Louis XI besieged it in 1475 His sou bad been captured by the be- sir;^ vord was sent that he would be y>ut: >.. M .Jii it" the gates were not opened forth- --"'■ '"rse courageous consul replied simply lies of blood and paternal love are not ough to make one a traitor to his God, ing and his native land. His son was, ;!. consequence, massacred beneath his very *^^'^^* /IT"^'^^^^ ROUS5ILLON HyacM bc Blguiid waa a ce lebrated painter, bom at Perpignan in the eighteenth century. His talents were so great that he was known as the Van Dyck frangais. Canet is a sort of seaside overflow of Per- pignan, a dozen kilometres away on the shores of the Mediterranean. On the way one passes the scant, clumsy remains of the old twelfth- centp^'v fiiaf.'-ii Tf.,i>^si'1< ^- irw remodelled into of houses, a chapel and a storehouse. The circular tower, really a svelt and admirable pile, is all that remains of the chMeau of other days, the last vestige of the dignity that once was Ruscino's, the ancient capital of the Comte de Roussillon. At Canet itself there are imposing ruins, sit- From Perpignan to Spanish Frontier 119 ting hard by the sea, of centuries of regal splen- dour, though now they rank only as an attrac- tion of the humble little village of Roussillon. The belfry of Canet's humble church looks like a little brother of that of '' Perpignan-le- Rouge " and points plainly to the fact that styles in architecture are as distinctly local as are fashions in footwear. Canet to-day is a watering place for the peo- ple of Perpignan, but in the past it was vener- ated by the holy hermits and monks of Rous- sillon for much the same attractions that it to-day possesses. Saint Galdric, patron of the Abbey of Saint Martin du Canigou, and, later. Saints Abdon and Sennen were frequenters of the spot. Rivesaltes, practically a suburb of Perpi- gnan, a dozen kilometres north, is approached by as awful a road as one will find in France. The town will not suggest much or appeal greatly to the passing traveller, unless indeed he stops there for a little refreshment and has a glass of muscat, that sweet, sticky^ liquor which might well be called simply raisin juice. It is a '^ sperialifc du pays/' and really should be tasted, though it may be had an;^"where in the neighbourhood. It is a wine celebrated throughout France. 120 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces At Salces, on the Route Nationale, just be- yond Narbonne and Rivesaltes, is an old forti- fication built by Charles V on one of his ambi- tious pilgrimages across France, A great square of masonry, with a donjon tower in the middle and with walls of great thickness, it looks formidable enough, but modern Krupp or Creusot cannon would doubtless make short work of it. A dozen kilometres to the south of Perpi- gnan is Elne, an ancient cathedral town. From afar one admires the sky line of the town and a nearer acquaintance but increases one's pleas- ure and edification. The Phoenicians, or the Iberians, founded the city, perhaps, five hundred years before the beginning of the Christian era, and Hannibal in his passage of the Pyrenees rested here. An- other fiive hundred years and it had a Roman emperor for its guardian, and Constantine, who would have made it great and wealthy, sur- rounded it with ramparts and built a donjon castle, of which unfortunately not a vestige remains. Ages came and went, and the city dwindled in size, and the church grew poor with it, until at last, in 1601, Pope Clement VIII (a French Pope, by the way) authorized its bishop to From Perpignan to Spanish Frontier 121 move to Perpignan, where indeed the see has been established ever since. Of the past feudal greatness of Elne only a fragmentary rampart and the fortified Portes de Collioure and Perpignan remain. The rest must be taken on faith. Nevertheless, Elne is a place to be omitted from no man's itinerary in these parts. The great wealth and beauty of Elne's ca- thedral cannot be recounted here. They would require a monograph to themselves. Little by little much has been taken from it, however, until only the glorious fabric remains. To cite an example, its great High Altar, made of beaten silver and gold, was, under the will of the canons of the church themselves, in the time of Louis XV, sent to the mint at Perpi- gnan and coined up into good current ecus for the benefit of some one, history does not state whom. From the beautiful cloister, in the main a tenth-century work, and the largest and most beautiful in the Pyrenees, one steps out on a little pen-on when another ravishing Mediter- ranean panorama unfolds itself. There are others as fine; that from the platform of the chateau at Carcassonne; from the terrace at Pau; or from the citadel-fortress church at 122 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Beziers. This at Elne, however, is the equal of any. Below are the plains of Eoussillon and Vallespir, red and green and gold like a tapis d' Orient, with the Alberes mountains for a background, while away in the distance, in a soft glimmering haze of a blue horizon, is the Mediterranean. It is all truly beautiful. In the direction of the Spanish frontier Ar- geles-sur-Mer comes next. It has historic value and its inhabitants number three thousand, though few recognize this, or have even heard its name. As a matter of fact, it might have become one of the great maritime cities of the eastern slope of the Pyrenees except that fickle fate ruled otherwise. The name of Argeles-sur-Mer figured first in a document of Lothaire, King of France, in 981 ; and, three centuries later, it was the meet- ing-place between the kings of Majorca and Aragon and the princes of Eoussillon, when, at the instigation of Philippe le Bel, an expir- ing treaty was to be renewed. The city at that time belonged to the Roy- aume de Majorque, and Pierre IV of Aragon, in the Chateau d'Amauros, defended it through a mighty siege. Five hundred metres above the sea, and to be seen to-day, was also the Tour des Pujols, From Perpignan to Spanish Frontier 123 another fortification of the watch-tower or block-house variety, frequently seen through- out the Pyrenees. At the taking of Roussillon by Louis XI, Argeles-sur-Mer was in turn in possession of the King of Aragon and the King of France. Under Louis XIII the city surrendered with no resistance to the Marechal de la Meilleraye; and later fell again to the Spaniards, becoming truly French in 1646. It was a Ville Roy ale with a right of vote in the Catalonian parliament, and enjoyed great privileges up to the Revolution, a fact which is plainly demonstrated by the archives of the city preserved at the local Mairie. In 1793 the Spanish flag again flew from its walls; but the brave Dugommier, the real sa- viour of this part of the Midi of France in revo- lutionary times, regained the city for the French for all time. Five kilometres south of Argeles-sur-Mer is Collioure, the ancient Port Illiberries, the sea- port of Elne. It is one of the most curiously interesting of all the coast towns of Roussillon. Here one sees the best of the Catalan types of Roussillon, gentle maidens, coiffe on head, carrying water jugs with all the grace that nature gave them, and rough, hardy, red- 124 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces capped sailors as salty in their looks and talk as the sea itself. Collionre is not a grande ville. Even now it is a mere fishing port, and no one thinks of doing more than passing through its gates and out again. Nevertheless its historic interest endures. From the fact that Roman coins and pottery have been found here, its bygone posi- tion has been established as one of prominence. In the seventh century it was in the hands of the Visigoths and three centuries later Lo- thaire, King of France, gave permission to Wifred, Gomte de Roussillon et d'Empories, to develop and exploit the ancient settlement anew. Here, in 1280, Guillaume de Puig d'Orphila founded a Dominican convent; and it is the ]6glise de Gollioure of to-day, sitting snugly by the entrance to the little port, that formed the church of the old conventual establishment, In 1415 the Anti-Pope Benoit XIII, Pierre de Luna, took ship here, frightened from France by the menaces of Sigismond. Louis XI, when he sought to reduce Eoussillon, would have treated Gollioure hardly, but so earnest and skilful was its defence that it escaped the indig- nities thrust upon Elne and Perpignan. The kings of Spain for a time dominated the city, 3HUOIJJO Id ■-s^.v Old i^avarre and Vn^- ""^ \q Provinces capped sailors as salty in their looks and talk aa the sea itself. Collioure is nut a grande iiUr- Even now it is a mere iif^iiing port, and no one thinks of doing more than passing through its gates and out again. Nevertheless its historic interest endures From the fact that Roman coins and pott •; iiave been found here, its bygone posi- tioii : as been established as one of prominence. T i the seventh century it was in the hands of ;J ( Visigoths and three centuries later Lo- tliaire, King of France, gave permission to Wifred, Comte de Roussillon et d'Empories, to develop an0E§^^^^e ancient settlement anew. Here, in 1280, Guillaume de Puig d'Orphila founded a Dominican convent; and it is the figlise de Collioure of to-day, sitting snugly by the <• it ranee to the little port, that formed the chn: 'h of the ' Mtablishment, Tn 1415 the Anti-( ; 11 T. Pierre de TiUna, took -Irp here "rl from France by the menan^s of Sip ouis XI, when he sought to reduce !>ou«slllon, would have treated Collioure hardjy, but so earnest and skilful was its defence thai it escaped the indig- nities thrust upon Eine and Perpignan. The kings of Spain for a time dominated the city, Prom Perpignan to Spanish Frontier 125 and during their rule the fortress known to-day as the Fort St. Elne was constructed. One of the red-letter incidents of Collioure was the shipwreck off its harbour of the In- fanta of Spain, as she was en route by sea from Barcelona to Naples in 1584. A galley slave carried the noble lady on his shoulders as he swam to shore. News of the adventure came to the Bishop of Elne who was also plain Jean Teres, a Catalan and governor of the province; and he caused the unfortunate lady to be brought to the episcopal palace for fur- ther care. In return the princess used her in- fluence at court and had the prelate made Arch- bishop of Tarragona, viceroy of Catalonia, and counsellor to the king of Spain. Of the for gat who really saved the lady, the chroni- clers are blank. One may hope that he obtained some recompense, or at least liberty. There are numerous fine old Gothic and Ee- naissance houses here, with carved statues in niches, hanging lamps, great bronze knockers, and iron hinges, interesting enough to incite the enw of a curio-collector. Collioure has a great fete on the sixteenth of August of each year, the Fete de Saint Vincent. There is much processioning going and coming from the sea in ships and gaily 126 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces decorated boats, and after all fireworks on the water. The religions significance of it all is lost in the general rejoicing; but it's a most impressive sight nevertheless. Oollionre is also famous for its fishing. The sardines and anchovies taken offshore from. Collioure are famous all over France and Rus- sia where gastronomy is an art. Two classic excursions are to be made from Collioure ; one is to the hermitage of Notre Dame de Consola- tion, and the other to the Abbey of Valbonne. The first is simply a ruined hermitage seated on a little verdure-clad plateau high above the vineyards and olive orchards of the plain; but it is remarkably attractive, and it takes no great wealth of imagination to people the court- yard with the holy men of other days. Now its ruined, gray walls are set off with lichens, vines and rose-trees ; and it is as quiet and peaceful a retreat from the world and its nerve-racking conventions as may be found. The Abbey of Valbonne is practically the counterpart of Notre Dame de Consolation so far as unworldliness goes. It was founded in 1242, but left practically deserted from the fif- teenth century, after the invasion of Roussillon by Louis XI. The Tour Massane, a great guar- dian watch-tower, dominates the ruins and .' /,«/,' Chateau J'Ultrera From Perpignan to Spanish Frontier 127 marks the spot where Yolande, a queen of Ara- gon, lies buried. Inland from Collioure, perhaps five kilome- tres in a bee line, but a dozen or more by a sinuous mountain path, high up almost on the crest of the Alberes, is the chateau fort of Ultrera. Its name alone, without further de- scription, indicates its picturesqueness, prob- ably derived from the castrum vuUurarium, or nest of vultures of Eoman times. What the history of this stronghold may have been in later mediaeval times no one knows ; but it was a Roman outpost in the year 1073 and later a Visigoth stronghold. It was a fortress guard- ing the route to and from Spain via Narbonne, Salies, Ruscino, Elne, Saint Andre, Pave and so on to the Col de la Carbossiere. Now this road is only a mule track and all the consid- erable traffic between the two countries passes via the Col de Perthus to the westward. The peak upon which sits Ultrera culminates at a height of five hundred and seventeen me- tres, and rises abruptly from the seashore plain in most spectacular fashion. The ruins are but ruins to be sure, but the grim suggestion of what they once stood for is very evident. En route from Perpignan or Collioure one passes the Ermitage de Notre Dame de Chateau, for- 128 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces merly a place of pious pilgrimage, and where travellers may still find refreshment. Banynls-snr-Mer is the last French station on the railway leading into Spain. At Banyuls even a keen observer of men and things would find it hard, if he had been plumped down here in the middle of the night, to tell, on awaking in the morning, whether he was in Spain, Italy or Africa. The country round about is a blend of all three; with, perhaps, a little of Greece. It possesses a delicious climate and a flora al- most as sub-tropical and as varied as that of Madeira. No shadow hangs over Banyuls-sur-Mer. The sea scintillates at its very doors; and, opposite, lie the gracious plains and valleys which reach to the crowning crests of the Pyre- nees in the southwest. It is an ancient bourg, and its history recurs again and again in that of Eoussillon. Turn by turn one reads in the pages of its chroniclers the names of the Comtes d 'Empories-Roussillon, and the Kois de Ma- jorque et d'Aragon. Lothaire and the then reigning Comte d'Em- pories came to an arrangement in the tenth cen- tury whereby the hill above the town was to be fortified by the building of a chateau or mas. This was done; but the seaport never pros- From Perpignan to Spanish Frontier 129 pered greatly until the union of France and Roussillon, when its people, whose chief source of prosperity had been a contraband trade, took their proper place in the affairs of the day. The National Convention subsequently for- mulated a decree that the " Banyulais ay ant bien merite de la patrie," and ordered that an obelisk be erected commemorative of the capit- ulation of the Spaniards. For long years this none too lovely monument was unbuilt,^ '' Banyuls est si loin de Paris/' said the hab- itant in explanation — but to-day it stands in all its ugliness on the quay by the waterside. CHAPTER VII THE CANIGOU AND ANDOEEA There is a section of the Pyrenees that may well be called " the unknown Pyrenees." The main chain has been travelled, explored and exploited for long years, but the Canigou, ly- ing between the rivers Tet and Tech, has only come to be known since half a dozen years ago when the French Alps Club built a chalet- hotel on the plateau of Cortalets. This is at an altitude of 2,200 metres, from which point it is a two hour and a half climb to the summit. All the beauties of the main chain of the Pyrenees are here in this side-long spur just before it plunges its forefoot into the blue waters of the Mediterranean. It is majestic, and full of sweet flowering valleys stretching off northward and eastward. Unless one would conquer the Andes or the Himalayas he will find the Canigou, Puig, Campiardos, or Puig- mal, from eight to ten thousand feet in height, all he will care to undertake without embracing mountaineering as a profession. 130 The Canigou and Andorra 131 The great charm of the Canigou is its com- paratively isolated grandeur; for the moun- tains slope down nearly to sea level, before they rise again and form the main chain. A makeshift road runs up as far as the Club's chalet, but walking or mule back are the only practicable means of approach. To-day it is all primitive and unspoiled, but some one in the neighbourhood has been to Switzerland and learned the rudiments of '' exploitation " and every little while threatens a funicular railway — and a tea room. In the chalet are twenty-five beds ready for occupancy, at prices ranging from a franc and a half to two francs and a half in summer. In winter the establishment is closed; but those venturesome spirits who would undertake the climb may get a key to the snow-buried door at Perpignan. One may dispute the fact that Canigou is as fine as Mont Blanc, Mount McKinley or Popo- catepetl, but its three thousand majestic metres of tree-grown height are quite as pleasing and varied in their outline as any other peak on earth. The Savoyard says: " Ce n'est tout de meme pas le Mont Blanc avec ses 4,800 metres/' and 132 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces you admit it, but one doesn't size up a moun- tain for its mere mathematical valuation. The Canigou stands out by itself, and that is why its majesty is so impressive. This is also true of Mont Ventoux in Provence, but how many tourists of the personally conducted or- der realize there are any mountains in Europe save the Alps and its kingly Mont Blanc — which they fondly but falsely believe is in Swit- zerland. High above, as the pilgrims of to-day wind their way among the moss-grown rocks of the mountainside, rises the antique Eomano-By- zantine tower and ruins of the old Abbey of Saint Martin. Built perilously on a rocky peak, the abbey is a regular eagle's nest in fact and fancy. In grandiose melancholy it sits and regards the sweeping plains of Eoussillon as it did nearly a thousand years ago. The storms of winter, and the ravages incident to time have used it rather badly. It has been desecrated and pil- laged, too, but all this has been stopped; and the abbey church has, with restoration and care, again taken its place among the noble religious monuments of France. At the beginning of the eleventh century the Comte de Cerdagne and Conflent, and his wife The Pilgrimage to St. Martin The Canigou and Andorra 133 Guifred, gave this eerie site, at an altitude of considerably more than a thousand metres above the sea, to a community of Benedictine monks for the purpose of founding a monas- tery. Ten years later the Bishop Oliba, of Vic-d'Osona in Catalonia, consecrated the church and put it under the patronage of Saint Martin; and a Bull of Pope Sergius IV, dated 1011 and preserved in the Musee at Perpignan, confirmed the act and granted the institution the privilege of being known as a mitred abbey, bestowing on its governor the canonical title. It is this antique monastery which rises to-day from its ruins. It has been sadly robbed in times past of columns, capitals and keystones, and many a neighbouring farm-house bears evidence of having, in part, been built up from its ruins. The yearly Catalan pilgrimage to St. Martin de Canigou and the services held in the ruined old abbey are two remarkably impressive sights. The soft, dulcet Catalan speech seems to lend itself readily to the mother tongue of Latin in all its purity. A Spanish poet of some generations ago, Jacinto Verdaguer — called the Mistral-espagnol — wrote a wonderfully vivid epic, ** Canigou," with, naturally, the old abbev in the centre of the stage. 134 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces In Verdaguer's charming poem, written in the Catalan tongue, the old abbey tower is made to moan: — " Campanes ja no tinch " — " Bells I have no longer." This is no longer true, for in 1904 the omnific ' ' Eveque de Cani- gou " (really the Bishop of Perpignan) caused to be hung in the old crenelated tower a new peal, and to-day there rings forth from the campanile such reverberating melody as has not been known for centuries: '' Campanes ja tinch " — ^^ I have my hell; Oliba has come to life again; he has brought them back to me." The present Bishop of Perpignan, Monsei- gneur de Carsalade du Pont, in recent years took steps to acquire proprietorship in the abbey church, that it might be safe from fur- ther depredations, and solicited donations throughout his diocese of Perpignan and Cata- lonia for the enterprise. In 1902, this prelate and his " faithful " from all the Catalan country, in Spain as well as France, made the Fete de Saint Martin (11th November) memorable. To give a poetic and sentimental importance to this occasion the bishop invited the " Consistoire " of the ^' Jeux Floraux " of Barcelona to hold their forty-fourth celebration here at the same time. On a golden November sunlit day, amid The Canigou and Andorra 135 the ring of mountains all resplendent with a brilliant autumn verdure, this grandest of all Fetes of St. Martin was held. In the midst of the throng were the Bishop of Perpignan in his pontifical robes, and the mitred Abbe de la Trappe — a venerable monk with snowy beard and vestments. At the head of the pro- cession floated the reconstituted banner of the Comte Guifred, bearing the inscription '' Ckti- fre par la gracia de Dieu Comte de Cerdanya y de Conflent." The local clergy from all over Roussillon and Catalonia were in line, and thousands of lay pilgrims besides. At the church, when the procession finally arrived, was celebrated a Pontifical Mass. At the conclusion of this religious ceremony the Catalans of Barcelona took possession of the old basilica and the '* fete litter aire " com- menced. The emotion throughout both celebrations was profound, and at the end there broke out seemingly interminable applause and shouts of *' Vive la Catalogue! " " Vive le Roussillon/* " Vive Barcelone! " " Vive Perpignan! *' Back of the Canigou, between it and the main chain of the Pyrenees, is the smiling valley of the Tech and Vallespir. The route from Perpignan into Spain passes 136 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces by Le Boulou, on the Tech. If one is en route to Barcelona, and is not an automobilist, let him make his way to Le Boulou, which is really an incipient watering-place, and take the dili- gence up over the Col de Perthus and down into Spain on the other side. The hasty trav- ellers may prefer the " Paris-Barcelone Ex- press," but they will know not the joy of travel, and the entrance into Spain through the cut of Cerbere is most unlovely. France has fortified the Col de Perthus, but Spain only guards her interests by her cara- hiniers and douaniers. The little bourg of Per- thus consists of but one long main street, formed in reality by the " Route Internatio- nale, ' ' of which one end is French and the other, the Calle Mayor, is Spanish. Above the village is Fort Bellegarde. It looks imposing, but if guns could get near enough it would doubtless fall in short order. It was built by Vauban under Louis XIV, in 1679, on a mamelon nearly fifteen hundred feet above the pass, and its situation is most com- manding. To the west was another gateway into Spain, once more frequented than the Col de Perthus, but it has been made imprac- ticable by the military strategists as a part of the game of war. The Canigou and Andorra 137 Just beyond Le Boulou is Ceret, a little town at an elevation of a couple of hundred metres above the sea. Ceret 's bridge has been attributed to the Romans, and to the devil. The round loophole, on either side of the great arch, is supposed to have been a malicious afterthought of the engineers who built the bridge to head off the evil influences of the devil who set them to the task. The application is difficult to follow, and the legend might as well apply to the eyes painted on the bows of a Chinese junk. As a matter of record the bridge was built in 1321, by whom will perhaps never be known. Amelie-les-Bains is ten kilometres higher up in the valley of Tech, and has become a thermal station of repute, due entirely to the impetus first given to it by the spouse of France's '' Cit- izen King " in 1840, whose name it bears. Bagneres-de-Luchon, or more familiarly Lu- chon, is called the queen of Pyrenean watering- places. If this is so Amelie-les-Bains is cer- tainly the princess, with its picturesque ring of mountain background, and its guardian sentinel the Canigou rising immediately in front. It enjoys a climate the softest in all the Pyrenees, a sky exempt of all the vicissitudes of the sea- sons, and a winter without freezing. 138 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Just north of Amelie-les-Bains is the little village of Palada. It sits halfway up the moun- tainside, beneath the protection of a once for- midable chateau, to-day in ruins, its gray green stones crumbling before the north wind which blows here in the winter months with a sever- ity that blows knots from their holes, — at least this is the local description of it, though the writer has never experienced the like. The inhabitants of the poor little village of Palada got hot-headed in 1871, when Paris was under the Commune, and had a little affair of their own on the same order. The whole valley of the Tech, being a near neighbour of Spain, has that hybrid French- Spanish aspect which gives a distinctive shade of life and colour to everything about. The red cap of the Catalan is as often seen as the blue hat of the Languedooian. At Arles-sur-Tech, not for a moment to be confounded with Arles-en-Provence, is a re- markable series of architectural monuments, as well as a charming old church which dates back to the twelfth century, and a Poman sar- cophagus which mysteriously fills itself with water, and performs miracles on the thirtieth of each July. Within the church are the relics of the Christian martyrs, Abdon and Sennen, The Canigou and Andorra 139 brought from Rome in the ninth century. The charming little mountain town is at once an historic and a religious shrine. High up in the valley of the Tech is Prats- de-Mollo, with its guardian fortress of La- garde high above on the flank of a hill. This tiny fortress looks hardly more than a block- house to-day, but in its time it was ranked as one of the best works of Vauban. To keep it company, one notes the contrasting ruins of the feudal Chateau de Peille hard by. The town itself is fortified by a surrounding rampart, still well preserved, with great gates and pepper-box towers well distributed around its circumference. In olden times these ram- parts held off the besieging kings of Aragon, but to-day they would quickly succumb to mod- ern guns and ammunition. Along with its bygone attractions Prats de Mollo is trying hard to become a resort, and there are hotels of a modernity and excellence which are surprising for a small town of twenty- five hundred inhabitants, so far off the beaten track. In spite of this no amount of improve- ments and up-to-date ideas will ever eradicate the medieval aspect of the place, unless the walls themselves are razed. Its churches, too, are practically fortresses, like those of its 140 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces neighbour Aries, and the whole aspect of the region is warlike. The principal church, which dominates the city with its great Roman tower, is a remark- able construction in more ways than one. It is a veritable church militant, for from its great crenelated tower one may pass by an under- ground vaulted gallery to and from Fort La- garde, There is no such view to be had up and down the valley and off towards the Spanish frontier as from its platform. The interior is most curious; more Spanish than French in its profuse application of gold and tinsel. A gigantic r Stable of the time of Louis XIV is the chief artistic accessory within. There is no carriage road from Prats into Spain, but a mule track leads to the Spanish village of Camprodon. In a little corner of the Pyrenees, between Vallespir and the valley of the Tech — where lie Ceret, Aries and Prats-de-Mollo — and the valley of the Tet, around the western flank of the Canigou, is the Cerdagne, a little district of other days, known to-day only to travellers to or from Perpignan or Quillan into Andorra, via TTospitalet or Bourg-Madame. Yauban for- tified the Col de la Perche on the Spanish bor- der to protect the three districts ceded to Louis The Canigou and Andorra 141 XIII by Spain — Cerdagne, Capcir and Con- flent. Almost the whole of the Cerdagne is moun- tains and valleys; and until one reaches the valley of the Tet, at Villefranche or Prades, one is surrounded by a silent strangeness which is conducive to the thought of high ideals and the worship of nature, but drearily lonesome to one who likes to study men and manners. This is about the wildest, ruggedest, and least spoiled corner of France to-day. Nothing else in the Pyrenees or the Alps can quite approach it for solitude. Villefranche — Conflent and Barcelonnette in the Basses-Alpes might be sisters, so like are they in their make-up and surroundings. Each have great fortresses with parapets of brick, and great stairways of ninety steps lead- ing up from the lower town. The surrounding houses — half-fortified, narrow-windowed, and bellicose-looking — stand as grim and silent to- day as if they feared imminent invasion. Far away in the historic past Villefranche was founded by a Comte de Cerdagne who sur- rounded himself with a little band of adven- turers who were willing to turn their hand to fighting, smuggling or any other profitable business. 142 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Vauban took this old foundation and sur- rounded it with walls anew, and gave the pres- ent formidable aspect to the place, building its ramparts of the red marble or porphyry ex- tracted from the neighbouring mountains. Its naturally protected position, set deep in a rocky gorge, gave added strength to the fortress. Louis XIV, in one of his irrational moments, built a chateau here and proposed living in it, but fate ruled otherwise. About the only con- nection of the king with it was when he chained up four women in a dungeon. The chains and rings in the walls may be seen to-day. Villefranche, its fortifications and its cha- teau are admirable examples of the way of doing things in Roussillon between the tenth and fourteenth centuries ; and the town is typ- ically characteristic of a feudal bourg, albeit it has no very splendid or magnificent appoint- ments. Prades, just east of Villefranche, dates its years from the foundation of Charles-le- Chauve in 844, and has a fourteenth and fif- teenth century chateau (in ruins) affection- ately referred to by the habitant as ' ' La Reine Marguerite.^' Assiduous research fails how- ever to connect either Marguerite de France Villefranche The Canigou and Andorra 143 or Marguerite de Navarre with it or its his- tory. Near Villefranche is the little paradise of Vernet. It contains both a new and an old town, each distinct one from the other, but forming together a delightful retreat. It has a chateau, too, which is something a good deal better than a ruin, though it was dismantled in the seven- teenth century. Vernet has a regular population of twelve hundred, and frequently as many more vis- itors. This is what makes the remarkable com- bination of the new and the old. The ancient town is built in amphitheatre form on a rocky hillside above which rises the parish church and the chateau which, since its partial demoli- tion, has lately been restored. The new Ver- net, the thermal resort, dates from 1879, when it first began to be exploited as a watering- place, and took the name of Vernet-les-Bains for use in the guide books and railway time- tables. Naturally this modern-built town with its hotels, its casino and its bath houses, is less lovely and winsome than its older sister on the hill. There are twelve springs here, nnd some of them were known to the Romans in the tenth century. On towards the frontier and the mountain 144 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces road into the tiny Pyrenean state of Andorra is Mont Louis. Just before Mont Louis, on the main road leading out from Perpignan, one passes below the walls of the highest fortress in France. Within a couple of kilometres of Mont Louis, at the little village of Planes, is one of the most curious churches in France. It is what is known as a '' round churchj" and there are not many like it in or out of France, if one excepts the baptistries at Pisa and Eavenna, and at Aix-en-Provence, and Charlemagne's church at Aix-la-Chapelle. This ifiglise de Planes is more like a mosque than a church in its out- lines, and its circular walls with its curious mission-like bell-tower (surely built by some Spanish padre) present a ground plan and a sky line exceedingly bizarre. Beyond Mont Louis and close under the shadow of Spain is Bourg-Madame. A pecul- iar interest attaches to Bourg-Madame by reason of the fact that it is a typical Franco- Spanish frontier town, a mixture of men and manners of the two nations. It sits on one side of the tiny river Sevre, which marks the frontier at this point, a river so narrow that a plank could bridge it, and the comings and goings of French and Spanish travellers across The Canigou and Andorra 145 this diminutive bridge will suggest many things to a writer of romantic fiction. Bourg- Madame is a good locale for a novel, and plenty of plots can be had ready-made if one will but gossip with the French and Spanish gendarmes hanging about, or the driver of the diligence who makes the daily round between Bourg-Madame and Puigcerda in Spain. In 1905 there was held a great fete at Bourg- Madame and Puigcerda, in celebration of the anniversary of the signing of the Franco-Span- ish Convention of 1904, relative to the Trans- Pyrenean railways. It was all very practical and there was very little romance about it though it was a veritable fete day for all the mountaineers. The mayors from both the French and Span- ish sides of the frontier, and the municipal councillors and other prominent persons from Barcelona met at the baths of Escalde, at an altitude of fourteen hundred metres. M. Del- casse, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, described the various stages of Franco-Spanish relations leading up to the convention as to the Trans-Pyrenean railways, which he hoped to see rapidly constructed. He said that while in office he had done all in his power to unite France and Spain. " He drank to his dear 146 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces friends of Spain, to tlie noble Spanish nation, to its young sovereign, who had only to show himself to the public to win universal sympa- thy, to the gracious queen, daughter of a great country, the friend of France, who never tired of formulating good wishes for the prosperity and grandeur of valiant Spain." After the fetes on the French side, the party crossed the frontier and continued this international fes- tival at Puigcerda. The fetes ended long after midnight, after a gala performance at the the- atre, at which the Marseillaise and the Spanish national air were enthusiastically cheered. The French highroad turns northwest at Bourg-Madame, and via Porta and Porte and the Tour de Carol — perhaps a relic of the Moors, but more likely a reminder of Charle- magne, who chased them from these parts — one comes to Hospitalet, from which point one enters Andorra by crossing the main chain of the Pyrenees at the Col de Puymorins. '' A beggarly village," wrote a traveller of Hospitalet, just previous to the Revolution, '* with a shack of an inn that made me almost shrink. Some cutthroat figures were eating black bread, and their faces looked so much like galley-slaves that I thought I heard their The Canigou and Andorra 147 chains rattle. I looked at their legs, but found them free." There's good material here for a novel of adventure, or was a hundred years ago, but now the still humble inn of Hospitalet is quiet and peaceful. The little republic of Andorra, hidden away in the fastnesses of the Pyrenees between France and Spain, its allegiance divided be- tween the Bishop of Urgel in Spain and the French Government, is a relic of mediaevalism which will probably never fall before the swift advance of twentieth century ideas of progress. At least it will never be over-run by automo- biles. From French or Spanish territory this little unknown land is to be reached by what is called a " route carrossable," but the road is so bad that the sure-footed little donkeys of the Pyre- nees are bv far the best means of locomotion 148 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces unless one would go up on foot, a matter of twenty kilometres or more from Hospitalet in Spanish or Porte in French territory. This is a good place to remark that the donkeys of the Pyrenees largely come from Spain, but curiously enough the donkeys and mules of Spain are mostly bred in the Vendee, just south of the Loire, in France. The political status of Andorra is most pecul- iar, but since it has endured without interrup- tion (and this in spite of wars and rumours of war) for six centuries, it seems to be all that is necessary. A relic of the Middle Ages, Andorra- Viella, the city, and its six thousand inhabitants live in their lonesome retirement much as they did in feudal times, except for the fact that an oc- casional newspaper smuggled in from France or Spain gives a new topic of conversation. This paternal governmental arrangement which cares for the welfare of the people of Andorra, the city and the province, is the out- come of a treaty signed by Pierre d'Urg and Eoger-Bernard, the third Comte de Foix, giv- ing each other reciprocal rights. There's noth- ing very strange about this; it was common custom in the Middle Ages for lay and ecclesi- astical seigneurs to make such compacts, but The Canigou and Andorra 149 the marvel is that it has endured so well with governments rising and falling all about, and grafters and pretenders and dictators ruling every bailiwick in which they can get a foot- hold. Feudal government may have had some bad features, but certainly the republics and democracies of to-day, to say nothing of abso- lute monarchies, have some, too. The ways of access between France and An- dorra are numerous enough; but of the eight only two — and those not all the way — are really practicable for wheeled traffic. The others are mere trails, or mule-paths. The people of Andorra, as might be inferred, are all ardent Catholics; and for a tiny coun- try like this to have a religious seminary, as that at Urgel, is remarkable of itself. Public instruction is of late making head- way, but half a century ago the shepherd and labouring population — perhaps nine-tenths of the whole — had little learning or indeed need for it. Their manners and customs are simple and severe and little has changed in modern life from that of their great-great-great-grand- fathers. Each family has a sort of a chief or official head, and the eldest son always looks for a wife among the families of Ins own class. Seldom, 150 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces if ever, does the married son quit the paternal roof, so large households are the rule. In a family where there are only girls the eldest is the heir, and she may only marry with a cadet of another family by his joining his name with hers. Perhaps it is this that originally set the fashion for h;^T3henated names. The Andorrans are generally robust and well built; the maladies of more populous regions are practically unknown among them. This speaks much for the simple life! Costumes and dress are rough and simple and of heavy woollens, clipped from the sheep and woven on the spot. Public officers, the few representatives of officialdom who exist, alone make any pretence at following the fash- ions. The women occupy a very subordinate position in public affairs. They may not be present at receptions and functions and not even at mass when it is said by the bishop. Crime is infrequent, and simple, light punish- ments alone are inflicted. Things are not so uncivilized in Andorra as one might think ! In need all men may be called upon to serve as soldiers, and each head of a family must have a rifle and ball at hand at all times. In other words, he must be able to protect himself The Canigou and Andorra 151 against marauders. This does away with the necessity of a large standing police force. Commerce and industry are free of all taxa- tion in Andorra, and customs dues apply on but few articles. For this reason there is not a very heavy tax on a people who are mostly cultivators and graziers. There is little manufacturing industry, as might be supposed, and what is made — save by hand and in single examples — is of the most simple character. *' Made in Germany " or '' Fabrique en Belgique " are the marks one sees on most of the common manufactured articles. '' Those terrible Germans ! " is a trite, but true saying. The Andorrans are a simple, proud, gullible people, who live to-day in the past, of the past and for the past; " Les vallees et souveraine- tes de VAndorre '' are to them to-day just what they always were — a little world of their own. CHAPTEE Vin THE HIGH VALLEY OF THE AUDE The Aude, rising close under the crest of the Pyrenees, flows down to the Mediterranean be- tween Narbonne and Beziers. It is one of the daintiest mountain streams imaginable as it flows down through the Gorges de St. Georges and by Axat and Quillan to Carcassonne, and the following simple lines by Auguste Baluffe describe it well. « Dans le fond des bleus horizons, Les villages ont des maisons Toutes blanches, Que Ton apergoit a tr avers Les bois, formant des rideaux verts De leurs branches." At Carcassonne the Aude joins that natural waterway of the Pyrenees, the Garonne, through the Canal du Midi. This great Canal-de-Deux- Mers, as it is often called, connecting with the Garonne at Toulouse, joins the Mediterranean at the Golfe des Lions, with the Atlantic at the Golfe de Gascogne, and serves in its course Car- 162 The High Valley of the Aude 153 cassonne, Narbonne and Beziers. The Canal du Midi was one of the marvels of its time when built (1668), though it has since been super- seded by many others. It was one of the first masterpieces of the French engineers, and may have been the inspiration of De Lesseps in later years. Boileau in his ''Epitre au Eoi," said: — « J'entends d^ja fremir les deux mers 6tonn6es De voir leurs flots unis au pied de Pyr6n6es." South of Carcassonne and Limoux, just over '' the mountains blue " of which the old peas- ant sang, is St. Hilaire, the market town of a canton of eight hundred inhabitants. It is more than that. It is a mediaeval shrine of the first rank ; for it is the site of an abbey founded in the fifth or sixth century. This abbey was under the direct protection of Charlemagne in 780, and he bestowed upon it " lettres de sauve- garde, which all were bound to respect. The monastery was secularized in 1748, but its thir- teenth-century church, half Romanesque and half Gothic, will ever remain as one of the best preserved relics of its age. For some inex- plicable reason its carved and cut stone is un- worn by the ravages of weather, and is as fresh and sharp in its outlines as if newly cut. 154 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Within is the tomb of St. Hilaire, the first bishop of Carcassonne. The sculpture of the tomb is of the ninth century, and it is well to know that the same thing seen in the Musee Cluny at Paris is but a reproduction. The original still remains here. The fourteenth- century cloister is a wonderful work of its kind, and this too in a region where this most artistic work abounds. One's entrance into Quillan by road is apt to be exciting. The automobile is no novelty in these days; but to run afoul of a five kilo- metre procession of peasant folk with all their traps, coming and going to a market town keeps one down to a walking pace. On the particular occasion when the author and artist passed this way, all the animals bought and sold that day at the cattle fair of Quillan seemed to be coming from the town. The little men who had them in tow were in- invariably good-natured, but everybody had a hard time in preventing horses, cows and sheep from bolting and dogs from getting run over. Finally we arrived; and a more well-appre- ciated haven we have never found. The town itself is quaint, picturesque and quite different from the tiny bourgs of the Pyrenees. It is in fact quite a city in miniature. Though Quillan ,-' J^ J) i ')l^\ f -.) , ^S?- ^ ', J >w. jjn, .'! ./J> -I. A' ' 4; ^.s^^'^/tt (JiiiU'itit Jc' Pity/diircns The High Valley of the Aude 155 is almost a metropolis, everybody goes to bed by ten o'clock, when the lights of the cafes go out, leaving the stranger to stroll by the river and watch the moon rise over the Aude with the ever present curtain of the Pyrenees loom- ing in the distance. It is all very peaceful and romantic, for which reason it may be presumed one comes to such a little old-world corner of Europe. And yet Quillan is a gay, live, little town, though it has not much in the way of sights to attract one. Still it is a delightful idling-place, and a good point from which to reach the chateau of Puylaurens out on the Perpignan road. Puylaurens has as eerie a site as any com- bination of walls and roofs that one has ever seen. It perches high on a peak overlooking the valley of the Boulzane ; and for seven cen- turies has looked down on the comings and goings of legions of men, women and children, and beasts of burden that bring up supplies to this sky-scraping height. To-day the chateau well deserves the name of ruin, but if it were not a ruin, and was inhabited, as it was cen- turies ago, no one would be content with any means of arriving at its porte-cochere but a funiruJaire or an express elevator. The roads about Quillan present some of the 156 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces most remarkable and stiffest grades one will find in the Pyrenees. The antomobilist doesn't fear mountain roads as a usnal thing. They are freqnently unich better graded than the sudden unexpected inclines with which one meets very often in a comparatively flat coun- try; nevertheless there is a ten kilometre hair- pin hill to climb out of Quillan on the road to Axat which will try the hauling powers of any automobile yet put on the road, and the pa- tience of the most dawdling traveller who lin- gers by the way. It is tlie quick turns, the laccfs, the " hairpins," that make it difficult and dangerous, whether one goes up or down; and, when it is stated that slow-moving oxen, two abreast, and often four to a cart, are met with at every turn, hauling hundred-foot logs down the mountain, the real danger may well be conceived. Axat, the gateway to the Haute- Vallee is a dozen or more kilometres above Quillan, tlirough the marvellous Gorges de Pierre Lys. This is a canyon which rivals description. The magnificent roadway which runs close up under the haunches of the towering rocks be- side the river Aude is a work originally under- taken in the eighteenth century by the Abbe Felix Arnaud, Cure of St. Martin-Lys, a tiny The High Valley of the Aude 157 village which one passes en route. The Abbe Arnaud who planned to cut this remarkable bit of roadway through the Gorges du Pierre-Lys, formerly a mere trail along which only smug- glers, brigands and army deserters had hitherto dared penetrate, and who to-day has the dis- tinction of a statue in the Place at Quillan, was certainly a good engineer. It is to be presumed he was as good a churchman. The Aude flows boldly down between two great beaks of mountains, and here, overhang- ing the torrent, the gentle abbe planned that a great roadway should be cut, by the frequent aid of tunnels and galleries and " corniches." And it was cut — as it was planned — in a most masterful manner. One of the rock-cut tunnels is called the '^ Trou du Cure," and above its portal are graven the following lines : — « Arr8te, voyageurs ! Le Maitre des humains A fait descendre ici la force et la lumiere. n a dit au Pasteur : Accomplis mon desaein, Et le Pasteur des monts a bris6 la barriere." Surely this is a more noble monument to the A'bbe Amaud than that in marble at Quillan. The actual " Gorge " is not more than fifteen hundred metres in length, but even this im- presses itself more profoundly by reason of 158 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces the great height of the rock walls on either side of the gushing river. At Saint Martin-Lys, midway between Quillan and Axat, is the chnrch where the Abbe Arnaud served a long and useful life as the pastor of his mountain flock. Axat, at the upper end of the Gorge, will become a mountain summer resort of the very first rank if a boom ever strikes it ; but at pres- ent it is simply a delightful little, unspoiled Pyrenean town, where one eats brook trout and ortolans in the dainty little Hotel Saurel-Labat, and is lulled to sleep by the purling waters of the Aude directly beneath his windows. This quiet little town has a population of three hundred, and is blessed with an electric supply so abundant and so cheap, apparently, that the good lady who runs the all-satisfying little hotel does not think it worth while to turn off the lamps even in the daytime. This is not remarkable when one considers that the elec- tricity is a home-made product of the power of the swift flowing Aude, which rushes by Axat's dooryards at five kilometres an hour. Two kilometres above the town are the Gorges de St. Georges, also with a superb road- way burrowed out of the rock. Here is the Savarre and the Basque Provinces 'ieiglit of the rock walls on either side ishing river. At Saint Martin-Lys, between Quillan and Axat, is the rti'uicii where the Abbe Arnaud served a long and useful life as the pastor of his mountain flock. Axat, at the upper end of the Gorge, will become a mountain summer resort of the very first rank if a boom ever strikes it : but at pres- ent it is simply a delightful little, unspoiled Pyrenean town, where one eats brook trout and ortolans in the dgaci^>Jfttle Hotel Saurel-Labat, and is lulled tci^Sreep-by the purling waters of the Aude directly beneath his windows. This quiet little town has a population of three hundred, and is blessed with an electric supply so abundant and so cheap, apparently, that the good lady wlio runs the all-satisfying little hotel does not think it worth while to turn off the lampf even in the daytime. This is not remarkable when one considers that the elec- tricity is n home -made product of the power of the swift flowing Aude, which rushes by Axat's dooryards at five kilometres an hour. Two kilometres above the town are the Gorges de St. Georges, also with a superb road- way burrowed out of the rock. Here is the The High Valley of the Aude 159 gigantic usine-hydro-electrique of 6,000 horse- power obtained from a three-hundred-foot fall of water. That such things could be, here in this unheard of little corner of the Pyrenees, is far from the minds of most European trav- ellers who know only the falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen. Axat has a ruined chateau on the height above the town which is a wonderful ruin although it has no recorded history. To imagine its romance, however, is not a difficult procedure if you know the Pyrenees and their history. Its attractions are indeed many; but it would be a paradise for artists who did not want to go far from their inn to search their subjects. There are in addition a quaint old thirteenth - century church, a magnificently arched stone bridge, and innumerable twist- ing vaulted passages high aloft near the cha- teau. Away above Axat is the plateau region known as the Capcir. thought to be the ancient bed of a mountain lake. It is closed on all sides by a great fringe of mountains, and is comparatively thickly inhabited because of its particularly good pasture lands; and has the reputntion of being the coldest inhabited region in France, though it may well divide this hon- 160 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces our with the Alpine valleys of the Tarentaise in Savoie. One passes from the Capcir into the Cerdagne lying to the eastward by the Col de Casteillon. CHAPTER IX THE WALLS OF CAECASSONNE Never was there an architectural glory like that of Carcassonne. Most mediaeval fortified bourgs have been transformed out of all sem- blance to their former selves, but not so Car- cassonne. It lives to-day as in the past, trans- formed or restored to be sure, but still the very ideal of a walled city of the Middle Ages. The stress and cares of commerce and the super-civilization of these latter days have built up a new and ugly commercial city be- yond the walls, leaving La Cite a lonely dull place where the very spirit of medisevalism stalks the streets and passages, and the ghosts of a past time people the chateau, the donjon, and the surrounding buildings which once shel- tered counts and prelates and chevaliers and courtly ladies. The old cathedral, too, dedi- cated to St. Nazaire. ns pure a Gothic gem as may be found outside Sainte Chapelle in Paris, is as much of the past as if it existed only in memory, for services are now carried on in a 161 162 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces great, gaunt church in the lower town, leaving this magnificent structure unpeopled and alone. Carcassonne, as seen from the low-ljdng plain of the valley of the Aude, makes a most charm- ing inotif for a picture. In the purple back- ground are the Pyrenees, setting off the cren- elated battlements of walls, towers and donjon in genuine fairy-land fashion. It is almost too ethereal to be true, as seen through the dim mist of an early May morning. '' A wonderful dia- dem of chiselled stone set in the forehead of the Pyrenees," an imaginative Frenchman called it. It would not be wise to attempt to improve on this metaphor. This world's wonder — for it is a world's wonder, though not usually included in the magic seven — has enchanted author, poet, painter, historian and architect. Wlio indeed could help giving it the homage due, once hav- ing read Viollet-le-Duc's description in his " Dictionnaire Eaisonee d 'Architecture," or Nadaud's lines beginning: — " Je n'ai jamais vii Carcassonne." Five thousand people from all over the world pass its barbican in a year, and yet how few one recalls among his acquaintances who have ever been there. The Walls of Carcassonne 163 It began to dawn upon the French away back in 1835, at the instigation of Prosper Merimee, that they had within their frontiers the most wonderfully impressive walled city still above ground. It was the work of fifty years to clear its streets and ramparts of a conglomerate mass of parasite structures which had been built into the old fabric, and to reconstruct the roofings and copings of walls and houses to an approximation of what they must once have been. Carcassonne is not very accessible to the casual tourist to southern France who thinks to laze away a dull November or January at Pau, Biarritz, or even on the Riviera. It is not in the least inaccessible, but it is not on the direct line to anywhere, unless one is en route from Bordeaux to Marseilles, or is making a Pyrenean trip. At any rate it is the best value for the money that one will get by going a couple of hundred kilometres out of his way in the whole circuit of France. By all means study the map, gentle reader, and see if you can't figure it out somehow so that yon may get to Carcassonne. Carcassonne, the present city, dates from the days of the good Snint Louis, but all interest lies with its elder sister. La Cite, a bouquet of 164 Ol d Navarre and the Basque Provinces walls and towers, just across the eight-hundred- year-old bridge over the Aude. Close to the feudal city, across the Pont- Vieux, was the barbican, a work completed under Saint Louis. It gave immediate access to the city of antiquity, and defended the ap- proaches to the chateau after the manner of an outpost, which it really was. This one learns from the old plans, but the barbican itself disappeared in 1816. Carcassonne was a most ejffective stronghold and guarded two great routes which passed directly through it, one the Route de Spain, and the other running from Toulouse to the Mediterranean, the same that scorching auto- The Walls of Carcassonne 165 mobilists " let out " on to-day as they go from one gaming-table at Monte Carlo to another at Biarritz. The Romans first made Carcassonne a strong- hold; then, from the fifth to the eighth cen- turies, came the Visigoths. The Saracens held it for twenty-five years and their traces are visible to-day. After the Saracens it came to Charlemagne, and at his death to the Vicomtes de Carcassonne, independent masters of a neighbouring region, who owed allegiance to nobody. This was the commencement of the French dynasty of Trencavel, and the early years of the eleventh century saw the court of Carcassonne brilliant with troubadours, minstrels and Cours d' Amour. The Cours d' Amour of Adelaide, wife of Roger Trencavel, and niece of the king of France, were famous throughout the Midi. The followers in her train — minstrels, troubadours and lords and ladies — were many, and no one knew or heard of the fair chatelaine of Carcassonne without being attracted to her. Simon de Montfort pillaged Carcassonne when raiding the country round about, but meanwhile the old Cite was growing in strength and importance, and many were the sieges it underwent which had no effect whatever on its 166 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces walls of stone. All epochs are writ large in this momiment of mediaevalism. Until the conquest of Roussillon, Carcassonne's fortress held its proud position as a frontier stronghold; then, during long centuries, it was all but abandoned, and the modern city grew and prospered in a matter-of-fact way, though never approaching in the least detail the architectural magnifi- cence of its hill-top sister. The military arts of the Middle Ages are as well exemplified at Carcassonne as can any- where be seen out of books and engravings. The entrance is strongly protected by many twistings and turnings of walled alleys, pro- ducing a veritable maze. The Porte d'Aude is the chief entrance, and is accessible only to those on foot. Verily, the walls seem to close behind the visitor as he makes his way to the topmost height, up the narrow cobble-paved lanes. Four great gates, one within another, and four walls have to be passed before one is properly within the outer defences. To enter the Cite there is yet another encircling wall to be passed. Carcassonne is practically a double fortress; the distance around the outer walls is a kilo- metre and a half and the inner wall is a full kilometre in circumference. Between these The JJdlh of Carcassonne The Walls of Carcassonne 167 fortifying ramparts unroll the narrow ribbons of roadway which a foe would find impossible to pass. Finally, within the last line of defence, on the tiny wall-surrounded plateau, rises the old Chateau de Trencavel, its high coiffed towers rising into the azure sky of the Midi in most spectacular fashion. On the crest of the inner wall is a little footpath, known in warlike times as the chemin de ronde, punctuated by forty- eight towers. From such an unobstructed bal- cony a marvellous surrounding panorama un- rolls itself; at one's feet lie the plain and the river; further off can be seen the mountains and sometimes the silver haze shimmering over the Mediterranean fifty miles away. Centu- ries of civilization are at one 's hand and within one's view. A curious tower — one of the forty-eight — spans the two outer walls. It is known as the Tour l']ilveque and possesses a very beautiful glass window. Here Viollet-le-Duc established his bureau when engaged on the reconstruction of this great work. Almost opposite, quite on the other side of the Cite, is the Porte Narbonnaise, the only way bv which a carriage may enter. One rises gently to the plateau, after first passing this 1 OS Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces monumental gateway, wliicli is tianked by two towers. Over the Forte Narbounaise is a rude stone ligTire of Dame Oareas, the titular god- dess of the city. Quaint and curious this figure is, but possessed of absolutely no artistic as- pect. Below it are the simple words, " Sum Carcas." The Tour Bernard, just to tlie right of the Porte Narbonnaise, is a median-al curiosity. The records tell that it has served as a chicken- coop, a dog-kennel, a pigeon k^ft, and as the habitation of the guardian wlio had cliarge of the gate. Here in the walls of this great tower may still be seen solid stone shot firmly im- bedded where they first struck. The next tower, the Tour de Benazet, was the arsenal, and the Tour Notre Pa me, above tlie Porte de Eodez, was the scene of more than one '^ in- quisitorial " burning of Christians. The second line of defence and its towers is quite as curiously interesting as the first. From within, the Porte Narbonnaise was protected in a remarkable manner, the Chateau Narbonnaise commanding with its own barbi- can and walls every foot of the way from the gate to the chateau proper. Besides, there were iron chains stretched across the passage, low vaulted corridors, wolf -traps (or something The Walls of Carcassonne 169 very like them) set in the ground, and loop- holes in the roofs overhead for pouring down boiling oil or melted lead on the heads of any invaders who might finally have got so far as this. The chateau itself, so safely ensconced within the surrounding walls of the Cite, follows the common feudal usage as to its construction. Its outer walls are strengthened and defended by a series of turrets, and contain within a cour d'honneur, the place of reunion for the armour-knights and the contestants in the Courts of Love. On the ground floor of this dainty bit of mediaevalism — which looks livable even to-day — were the seigneurial apartments, the chapel and various domestic offices. Beneath were vast stores and magazines. A smaller court- yard was at the rear, leading to the fencing- school and the kitchens, two important acces- sories of a feudal chateau which seem always to go side by side. On the first and second floors were the lodg- ings of the vicomtes and their suites. The great donjon contained a circular chamber where were held great solemnities such as the signing of treaties, marriage acts and the like. To the west of the cour d'honneur were the 170 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces barracks of the garrison. All the parapher- nalia and machinery of a great mediaeval court were here perfectly disposed. Verily, no such story-telling feudal chateau exists as that of the Chateau de Narbonnais of the Trencavels in the old Cite of Carcassonne. The Place du Chateau, immediately in front, was a general meeting-place, while a little to the left in a smaller square has always been the well of bubbling spring-water which on more than one occasion saved the dwellers within from dying of thirst. Perhaps, as at Pompeii, there are great treasures here still buried underground, but diligent search has found nothing but a few arrowheads or spear heads, some pieces of money (money was even coined here) and a few fragments of broken copper and pottery utensils. Finally, to sum up the opinion of one and all who have viewed Carcassonne, there is not a city in all Europe more nearly complete in ancient constructions, or in better preserva- tion, than this old medioeval Cite. Centuries of history have left indelible records in stone, and they have been defiled less than in any other mediaeval monument of such a magnitude. Gustave Nadaud's lines on Carcassonne come The Walls of Carcassonne 171 very near to being the finest topographical verses ever penned. Certainly there is no finer expression of truth and sentiment with regard to any architectural monument existing than the simple realism of the speech of the old peas- ant of Limoux : — " ' I'm sixty years ; I'm getting old ; I've done hard work through all my life, Though yet could never grasp and hold My heart's desire through all my strife. I knovF quite -well that here below All one's desires are granted none; My wish will ne'er fulfilment know, I never have seen Carcassonne." " ' They say that all the days are there As Sunday is throughout the week: New dress, and robes all white and fair Unending holidays bespeak.' «'0 ! God, O ! God, O ! pardon me. If this my prayer should'st Thou offend I Things still too great for us we'd see In youth or near one's long life end. My wife once and my son Aignan, As far have travelled as Narbonne, My grandson has seen Perpignan, But I have not seen Carcassonne.' " What emotion, what devotion these lines ex- press, and what a picture they paint of the simple faiths and hopes of man. He never did 172 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces see Carcassonne, this old peasant of Limoux; the following lines tell why : — " Thus did complain once near Limoux A peasant hard bowed down with age. I said to him, < My friend, we'll go Together on this pilgrimage.' We started with the morning tide ; But God forgive. \We'd hardly gone Our road half over, ere he died. He never did see Carcassonne." In August, 1898, a great fete and illumination was given in the old Cite d,e Carcassonne. All the illustrious LanguedoQians alive, it would seem, were there, including the Cadets de Gas- cogne, among them Armand Sylvestre, D'Es- parbes, Jean Rameau, Emil Pouvillon, Benja- min Constant, Eugene Falguiere, Mercier, Jean- Paul Laurens, et als. All the artifice of the modern pyrotechnist made of the old city, at night, a reproduction of what it must have been in times of war and stress. It was the most splendid fireworks ex- hibition the world has seen since Nero fiddled away at burning Rome. '' La Cite Rouge/' Sylvestre called it. '' Oh, Vimpression inoubli- able! Oh! le splendide tableau! It luas so perfectly beautiful, so completely magnificent! I have seen the Kremlin thus illuminated; I The Walls of Carcassonne 173 have seen old Nuremberg under the same con- ditions, hut I declare upon my honour never have I seen so beautiful a sight as the illumina- tions of Carcassonne." One view of the Cite not often had is from the Montagne Noire, where, from its supreme height of twelve hundred metres (the Pic de Nore) there is to be seen such a bird's-eye view as was never conceived by the imagination. On the horizon are the blue peaks of the Pyrenees cutting the sky with astonishing clearness; to the eastward is the Mediterranean ; and north- wards are the Cevennes; while immediately below is a wide-spread plain peopled here and there with tiny villages and farms all cluster- ing around the solid walls of Carcassonne — the Ville of to-day and the Cite of the past. Over the blue hills, southward from Carcas- sonne, lies Limoux. Limoux is famous for three things, its twelfth-century church, its fif- teenth-century bridge and its " hlanquette de Limoux," less ancient, but quite as enduring. If one's hunger is ripe, he samples the last first, at the table d'hote at the Hotel du Pigeon. '' Blanquette de Limoux " is simply an ordi- narily good white, sparkling wine, no better than Saumur, but much better than the hocks which have lately become popular in England, 174 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces and much, much better than American cham- pagne. The town itself is charming, and the immediate environs, the peasants ' cottages and the vineyards, recall those verses of Nadaud's about that old son of the soil who prayed each year that he might make the journey over the hills to Carcassonne (it is only twenty-four kilometres) and refresh his old eyes with a sight of that glorious mediaeval monument. North of Carcassonne, between the city and the peak of the Montague Noire, is the old cha- teau of Lastours, a ruined glory of the days when only a hill-top situation and heavy walls meant safety and long life. CHAPTER X THE COUNTS OF FOIX The Comte de Foix and its civilization goes back to prehistoric, Gallic and Roman times. This much we know, but what the detailed events of these periods were, we know not. Archaeology alone, by means of remaining mon- uments in stone, must supply that which history omits. The primitives of the stone age lived mostly in caverns, but here they lived in some species of rude huts or houses. This at any rate is the supposition. With the Romans came civic importance ; and fortified towns and cities sprang up here and there of which existing remains, as at St. Lizier, tell a plain story. The principal historical events of the early years of the Middle Ages were religious in mo- tive. "Written records are few, however, and are mostly legendary accounts. Dynasties of great families began to be founded in the ninth century; and each region took on different manners nnd customs. The fouserans, a dis- memberment of Comminges, became practically 175 176 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Gascon; while Foix cast off from Toulouse, had its own development. Victor Balaguer, the poet, expresses this better than most historians when he says: '' Provence et Pyrenees, s'ecrie- t-il, portent le deuil du monde latin. Le jour ou tomberent ceucc de Foix tomha aiissi la Pro- vence." The resistance of the counts in the famous wars of the Albigeois only provoked the incur- sion of the troops of the cruel Simon de Mont- fort. The Comte de Foix fell back finally on his strong chateau; and, on the sixteenth of June, 1229, in the presence of the papal legate, representative of the king of France, Eoger- Bernard II made his submission without re- serve. In 1272, under Comte Roger-Bernard III, the Chateau de Foix underwent a siege at the hands of Philippe-le-Hardi ; and, at the end of three days, seeing the preponderance of numbers against him, and being doubtful of his allies, he surrendered. By marriage with Mar- guerite de Moncade, daughter of the Vicomte de Beam, he inherited the two important fiefs of Catalogue and Boarn et Bigorre, thus pre- paring the way for possession of the throne of Navarro, By the thirteenth century the great feudal families of the Midi were dwindling in The Counts of Foix 177 numbers, and it was this marriage of a Comte de Foix with the heiress of Beam which caused practically the extinction of one. The modern department of the Ariege, of which the ancient Comte de Foix formed the chief part, possesses few historical monuments dating before the Middle Ages, There are nu- merous residential chateaux scattered about, and the most splendid of them all is at Foix itself. Fine old churches and monasteries, and quaint old houses are numerous; yet it is a region less exploited by tourists than any other in France. Not all these historic shrines remain to-day unspoiled and untouched. Many of them were destroyed in the Revolution, but their sites and their ruins remain. The mountain slopes of this region are thickly strewn with watch-tow- ers and observatories; and though all but fallen to the ground they form a series of con- necting historical links which only have to be recognized to be read. The towers or chateaux of Quie, Tarascon-sur-Ariege, Gudanne, Lour- dat and Vic-Dessos are almost unknown to most travellers. They deserve to become bet- ter known, however, especially Lourdat, one of the most spectacularly endowed chateau ruins extant. 178 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces The fourteenth century was the most bril- liant in the history of Foix. These were the days of Gaston Phoebus; and the description of his reception of Charles VI of France at Mazeres, as given by the chroniclers, indicates an incomparable splendour and magnificence. Gaston Phoebus, like Henri de Beam, was what might be called a good liver. Here is how he spent his day — when he was not warring or building castles. He rose at noon and after a mass he dined. Usually there were a great number of dishes; and, on really great occa- sions, as on a fete or festin, the incredible num- ber of two hundred and fifty. These princes of the Pyrenees loved good cheer, and their usage was to surcharge the tables and themselves with the good things until the results were uncom- fortable. Gaston's two sons, Yvain and Gra- tain, usually stood behind him at table, and the youngest son, another Gaston, first tried all the dishes before his august father ate of them. He was weak and sickly, a '^ mild and melan- choly figure," and no wonder! The feasting terminated, Gaston and his court would pass into the Salle de Parlement, '' where many things were debated," as the chroniclers put it. Soon entered the minstrels and trouba- dours, while in the courts there were trials of The Counts of Foix 179 -a =^ skill between tke nobles of one house and an- other, stone throwing, throwing the spear, and the jeu de paume. The count — " toujours magnifique '' (no chronicler of the time neglects to mention that fact) — distributed rewards to the victors. After this there was more eating, or at least more drinking. When he was not sleeping or eating or amus- ing himself, or conducting such affairs as he could not well depute to another, such as the planning and building of castles, Gaston occu- pied himself, like many other princes of his time, with belles-lettres and poesy. He had four secretaires to do his writing; and it is possible that they may have written much which is attributed to him, if the art of employ- ing literary " ghosts " was known in that day. He composed chansons, ballades, rondeaux and virelais, and insisted on reading them aloud himself, forbidding any one to make a comment on them. How many another author would like to have the same prerogative! Gaston Phoebus de Foix, so named because of his classic beauty, was undoubtedly a great author in his day. This bold warrior wrote a book on the manners and usage of hunting in medifTval times, entitled the ^' Miroir de Phoe- bus; " and, while it might not pass muster 180 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces among the masterpieces of later French litera- ture, it was a notable work for its time and literally a mirror of contemporary men and manners in the hunting field. Gaston de Foix was another gallant noble. He died at the age of twenty-four at the Battle of Eavenna in 1512. Jacques Fournier, who became Pope Benoit XII, also came from Foix. The honour of being the most celebrated of the Counts of Foix may well be divided by Gaston Phcpbus (1343-1390) and Henri Quatre (1553-1610). The latter was the last of the famous counts of the province; and he it was who united it with the royal domain of France, thus sinking its identity for ever, though his predecessors had done their utmost to keep its independence alive. During the Hundred Years War the Comtes de Foix, masters of the entire middle chain of the Pyrenees, were the strongest power in the southwest; and above all were they powerful because of their alliances and relations with the Spanish princes, whose friendship and aid were greatly to be desired, for their support meant success for their allies. This is proven, absolutely, from the fact that, when the Eng- lish were ultimately driven from France, it was through the aid and support of Gaston Phoebus The Counts of Foix 181 himself and his successors, Archambaud, Jean I and Gaston IV. The fifteenth century saw the apogee of the house of Foix. One of its princes married Madeleine de France, sister of Louis XI. The sixteenth century saw sad times during a long civil war of more than thirty years duration. War among the members of a household or among one's own people is really an inexcus- able thing. In the Comte the Abbey of Boul- bonne was destroyed. At Pamiers all the relig- ious edifices were razed; and the Abbey of St. Volusien at Foix, the special pride of the counts for ages, was destroyed by fire. Calm came for a period under the reign of Henri IV, at Paris; but, after his death, local troubles and dissensions broke out again, in- spired and instigated by the wily Due de Rohan, which culminated at Pamiers, where the great Conde and Montmorenci appeared at the head of their troops. The peace of Alais ended this final struggle ; and, to assure the security of the country, Richelieu gave the order to dismantle all the walls and ramparts of the fortified places in the Comte, and all the chateaux-forts as well. This was done forthwith, and that is why many a mediaeval chateau in these parts is in ruins 182 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces to-day. The Cliateau de Foix, by reason of its dignity, was allowed to keep its towers and battlemented walls. For a hundred and fifty years, that is up to the Revolution, Foix was comparatively tran- quil. Under the reign of Louis XIV, however, the region saw the frequent passage of troops and warlike stores as they came and went to the Spanish wars. This nearly ruined many dwellers in town and country by reason of the tax they had to pay in money and provisions. Like the Basques and the Bearnais the in- habitants of the Ariege, the descendants of the old adherents of the Comtes de Foix, bear many traces of their former independence and liberty. Civilization and their easy, comfort- able manner of living have not made of them a very robust race, but they are possessed of much fairness of face and figure and gentleness of manner. The smugglers of feudal times, and consid- erably later times for that matter, were the pest of the region. It was rude, hard work smuggling wines or tobacco over the mountains, in and out of Spain, and its wages were un- certain, but there were large numbers who em- barked on it in preference to grazing flocks and The Counts of Foix 183 herds or engaging in other agricultural pur- suits. It was hard work for the smugglers of Foix to get their burdens up the mountains, but they had a custom of rolling their load up into great balls bounds around with wool and thongs and rolling them down the other side. Thus the labour was halved. The Romany chiel or gypsy adopted the contraband business readily; and with the competition of the French and Span- ish, there were lively times on the frontier be- tween Foix and Gascogne and Spain and An- dorra. M. Thiers recounts an adventure in an au- berge of the Pyrenees with such a crew of ban- dits, and thought himself lucky to escape with his life. The chief of the band, as the travellers were all sitting around the great log fire, began clean- ing his pipe with a long poignard-like knife which, he volunteered, was ready to do other service than whittling bread or tobacco if need be. The night passed off safely enough by rea- son of the arrival of a squad of gendarmes, but the next night a whole house full of trav- ellers were murdered on the same spot. The roads of the old Comte de Foix, a very important thing for many who travel by auto- 184 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces mobile, are throughout excellent and extensive. There are fourteen Routes Nationales and De- partementales crossing in every direction. The highway from Toulouse to Madrid runs via St. Girons and Bayonne into Andorra by way of the valley of the Ariege, and to Barcelona via Perpignan and the Col de Perthus. The valley of the Ariege, to a large extent included in the Comte de Foix, has a better pre- served historical record than its neighbours on the east and west. In the ninth century the ruling comte was allied with the houses of Barcelona and Car- cassonne. His residence was at Foix from this time up to the Revolution; and his rule em- braced the valley of the Hers, of which Mire- poix was the principal place, the mountain region taken from Catalogue, and a part of the lowlands which had been under the scrutiny of the Comtes de Toulouse. CHAPTER XI FOIX AND ITS CHATEAU Foix, of all the Prefectures of France of to- day, is the least cosmopolitan. Privas, Mende and Digne are poor, dead, dignified relics of the past; but Foix is the dullest of all, although it is a very gem of a smiling, diffident little wisp of a city, green and flowery and astonish- ingly picturesque. It has character, whatever it may lack in progressiveness, and the brilliant colouring is a part of all the cities of the South. Above the swift flowing Ariege in their su- perb setting of mountain and forest are the towers and parapets of the old chateau, in it- self enough to make the name and fame of any city. Architecturally the remains of the Chateau de Foix do not, perhaps, rank very high, though they are undeniably imposing ; and it will take a review of Froissart, and the other old chron- iclers of the life and times of the magnificent Gaston Phoebus, to revive it in all its glory. A great state residence something more than a 186 186 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces mere feudal chateau, it does not at all partake of the aspect of a chateau-fort. It was this last fact that caused the Comtes de Foix, when, by marriage, they had also become seigneurs of Beam, to abandon it for Mazeres, or their es- tablishments at Pau or Orthez. Foix nevertheless remained a proud capital, first independent, then as part of the province of Navarre, then as a province of the Royaume de France; and, finally, as the Prefecture of the Departement of Ariege. The population in later times has grown steadily, but never has the city approached the bishopric of Pamiers, just to the northward, in importance. Many towns in this region have a decreasing population. The great cities like Toulouse and Bordeaux draw upon the youth of the country for domestic employment; and, lately, as chauffeurs and manicurists, and in comparison to these inducements their native towns can offer very little. If one is to believe the tradition of antiquity the '' Rocher de Foix/' the tiny rock plateau upon which the chateau sits, served as an out- post when the Phoceans built the primitive chateau upon the same site. Says a Renais- sance historian: " On the peak of one of nature's wonders, on a rock, steep and inac- Foix and Its Chateau 187 cessible on all sides, was situated one of the most ancient fortresses of our land." In Roman times the site still held its own as one of importance and impregnability. A rep- resentation of the chateau as it then was is to be seen on certain coins of the period. This establishes its existence as previous to the coming of the Visigoths in the beginning of the sixth century. The first written records of the Chateau de Foix date from the chronicles of 1002, when Eoger-le-Vieux, Comte de Carcas- sonne, left to his heir, Bernard-Roger, " La Terre et le Chateau de Foix." The Chateau de Foix owes its reputation to its astonishingly theatrical site as much as to the historic memories which it evokes, though it is with good right that it claims a legendary renown among the feudal monuments of the Pyrenees. All roads leading to Foix give a long vista of its towered and crenelated cha- teau sitting proudly on its own little monticule of rock beside the Ariege. Its history begins with that of the first Comtes de Foix, the first charter making mention thereof being the last will and testament of Roger-Bernard, the first count, who died in 1002. During the wars against the Albigeois the chateau was attacked by Simon de Montfort 188 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces three times, in 1210, 1212, 1213, but always in vain. Though the surrounding faubourgs were pillaged and burned the chateau itself did not succumb. It did not even take fire, for its rocky base gave no hold to the flames which burned so fiercely around it. The most important event of the chateau's history happened in 1272 when the Comte Boger-Bernard III rebelled against the author- ity of the Seneschal-Royal of Toulouse. To punish so rebellious a vassal, Philippe-le-Hardi came forthwith to Foix at the head of an army, and himself undertook the siege of the chateau. At the end of three days the count succumbed, with the saying on his lips that it was useless to cut great stones and build them up into for- tresses only to have them razed by the first besiegers that came along. Whatever the qual- ifications of the third Roger-Bernard were, con- sistent perseverance was not one of them. Just previous to 1215, after a series of in- trigues with the church authorities, the cha- teau became a dependence of the Pope of Rome ; but at a council of the Lateran the Comte Ray- mond-Roger demanded the justice that was his, and the new Pope Honorius III made over the edifice to its rightful proprietor. During the wars of religion the chateau was Foix and Its OMteau 189 the storm-centre of great military operations, of which the town itself became the unwilling victim. In 1561 the Huguenots became masters of the city. Under Louis XIII it was proposed to raze the chateau, as was being done with others in the Midi, but the intervening appeal of the gov- ernor saved its romantic walls to posterity. In the reign of Louis XIV the towers of the cha- teau were used as archives, a prison and a mili- tary barracks, and since the Revolution — for a part of the time at least — it has served as a house of detention. When the tragic events of the Eeformation set all the Midi ablaze, and Eichelieu and his followers demolished most of the chateaux and fortresses of the region, Foix was exempted by special orders of the Cardinal-Minister himself. Another war cloud sprang up on the horizon in 1814, by reason of the fear of a Spanish invasion; and it was not a bogey either, for in 1811 and 1812 the Spaniards had already penetrated, by a quickly planned raid, into the high valley of the Ariege. In 1825 civil administration robbed this fine old example of mediaeval architecture of many of those features usually exploited by anti- quarians. To increase its capacity for shelter- 190 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces ing criminal prisoners, barracks and additions — mere shacks many of them — were built; and the original outlines were lost in a maze of meaningless roof-tops. Finally, a quarter of a century later, the rubbish was cleared away; and, before the end of the century, res- toration of the true and faithful kind had made of this noble mediaeval monument a vivid re- minder of its past feudal glory quite in keep- ing with its history. Ground Plan of the Chateau de Foix The actual age of the monument covers many epochs. The two square towers and the main edifice, as seen to-day, are anterior to the thir- teenth century, as is proved by the design in the seals of the Comtes de Foix of 1215 and 1241 now in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. 190 Old Navarre and the B nnces ing criminal prisoners, barracks and additions — ^mere sliack^- f sany of them — were built; and the oriK i' outlines were lost in a maze of meaniiudcci; roof-tops. Finally, a quarter of a century later, the rubbish was cleared away ; 'Ud, before the end of the century, res- torali' i( of the true and faithful kind had made of u IS noble mediaeval monument a vivid re- iniii i'T of its past feudal glory quite in keep- ui^ with its history. .-^HATEAtKJDg, F01X^.^,.,.-<^.fe^ ^ 4it n Oround Plan of the ChMeau de Fi The actual age of the monument covers many epochs. The two square towers and the main edifice, as seen to-diiy, are anterior to the thir- teenth century, as i« proved by the design in the seals of the Comtes de Foix of 1215 and 1241 now in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. •^.fTf^mtJf ¥n;T' Foix and Its Chateau 191 In the fourteenth century these towers were strengthened and enlarged with the idea of making them more effective for defence and habitation. The escutcheons of Foix, Beam and Com- minges, to be seen in the great central tower, indicate that it, too, goes back at least to the end of the fourteenth century, when Eleanore de Comminges, the mother of Gaston Phoebus, ruled the Comte. Key of the Vavlting, Chdteau de Foix, Sfu)wing the Arms of the Corntes de Foix 192 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces The donjon or Tour Ronde arises on the west to a height of forty-two metres ; and will be remarked by all familiar with these sermons in stone scattered all over France as one of the most graceful. Legend attributes it to Gaston Phoebus; but all authorities do not agree as to this. The window and door openings, the mouldings, the accolade over the entrance door- way and the machicoulis all denote that they belong to the latter half of the fifteenth cen- tury. These, however, may be later interpo- lations. Originally one entered the chateau from ex- actly the opposite side from that used to-day. The slope leading up to the rock and swinging around in front of the town is an addition of recent years. Formerly the plateau was gained by a rugged path which finally entered the pre- cincts of the fortress through a rectangular barbican. Finally, to sum it up, the pleasant, smiling, trim little city of Foix, and its chateau rising romantically above it, form a delightful pros- pect. Well preserved, well protected, and for ever free from further desecration, the Chateau de Foix is as nobly impressive and glorious a monument of the Middle Ages as may be found Poix and Its Chateau 193 in France, as well as chief record of the gal- lant days of the Comtes de Foix. Foix' Palais de Justice, built back to back with the rock foundations of the chateau, is itself a singular piece of architecture contain- ing a small collection of local antiquities. This old Maison des Gouvemeurs, now the Palais de Justice, is a banal, unlovely thing, regardless of its high-sounding titles. In the Bibliotheque, in the Hotel de Ville, there are eight manuscripts in folio, dating from the fifteenth century, and coming from the Cathedral of Mirepoix. They are exqui- sitely illuminated with miniatures and initials after the manner of the best work of the time. It was that great hunter and warrior, Gas- ton Phoebus who gave the Chateau de Foix its greatest lustre. It was here that this most brilliant and most celebrated of the counts passed his youth ; and it was from here that he set out on his famous expedition to aid his brother knights of the Teutonic Order in Prussia. At Gaston's orders the Comte d'Armagnac was imprisoned here, to be released after the payment of a heavy ransom. As to the motive for this particular act authorities differ as to whether it was the fortunes of war or mere brigandage. 194 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces They lived high, the nobles of the old days, and Froissart recounts a banquet at which he had assisted at Foix, in the sixteenth century, as follows : — " And this was what I saw in the Comte de Foix: The Count left his chamber to sup at midnight, the way to the great salle being led by twelve varlets, bearing twelve illumined torches. The great hall was crowded with knights and equerries, and those who would supped, saying nothing meanwhile. Mostly game seemed to be the favourite viand, and the legs and wings only of fowl were eaten. Music and chants were the invariable accompaniment, and the company remained at table until after two in the morning. Little or nothing was drunk. ' ' Froissart 's description of the table is simple enough, but he develops into melodrama when he describes how the count killed his own son on the same night — a tragic ending indeed to a brilliant banquet. " ' Ha! traitor,' the Comte said in the patois, as he entered his sleeping son's chamber; * why do you not sup with us? He is surely a traitor who will not join at table.' And with a swift, but gentle drawing of his coutel (Imife) across his suc- cessor's throat he calmly went back to supper." Foix and Its Chateau 195 Truly, there were high doings when knights were bold and barons held their sway. They could combat successfully everything but treach- ery; but the mere suspicion of that prompted them to take time by the forelock and become traitors themselves. Foix has a fete on the eighth and ninth of September each year, which is the delight of all the people of the country round about. Its chief centre is the Alices de Vilote, a great tree- shaded promenade at the base of the chateau. It is brilliantly lively in the daytime, and fairy- like at night, with its trees all hung with great globes of light. A grand ball is the chief event, and the *' Quadrille Ofificiel " is opened with the maire and the prefet at the head. After this comes la fete generate, when the happy southrons know no limit to their gaieties. There are three great shaded promenades, and in each is a ball with its attendant music. It is a pandemonium; and one has to be habituated to distinguish the notes of one blaring band from the others. The central park is reserved for the country folk, that on the left for the town folk, and that on the right for the nobility. This, at any rate, was the disposition in times past, and some sort of distinction is still made. 196 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces In suburban Foix, out on the road to Pamiers, is the little village of St. Jean-de-Vergues. It has a history, of course, but not much else. It is a mere spot on the map, a mere cluster of houses on the Grande Route and nothing more. In the days of the Comte Roger-Bernard, how- ever, when he would treat with the king of France, and showed his willingness to become a vassal, its inhabitants held out beyond all others for an '' independance comtale." They didn't get it, to be sure, but with the arrival of Henri Quatre on the throne of France, the vassalage became more friendly than enforced. CHAPTER XII THE VALLEY OF THE AEIEGE The entire valley of the Ariege, from the Val d'Andorre until it empties into the Ga- ronne at Toulouse, contains as many historic and romantic reminders as that of any river of the same length in France. Saverdun and Mazeres, between Toulouse and Pamiers, and perhaps fifty kilometres north of Foix, must be omitted from no his- torical trip in these parts. Saverdun sits close beside one of the few remaining columns which formerly marked the boundary between Lan- guedoc and Gascogne, a veritable historical guide-post. It was one of the former fortified towns of the Comte de Foix. It is an unim- portant and unattractive enough place to-day, if a little country town of France can ever be called unattractive, but it is the head centre of innumerable chateaux and country houses of other days hidden away on the banks of the Ariege. Mostly they are without a traceable history, but everything points to the fact that 197 198 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces they played an important part in the golden days of chivalry, and such names as I'Avocat- Vieux, Frayras, Larlenque, Madron, Pauliac and Le Vigne — the oldtime manor of the fam- ily of Mauvasin — will suggest much to any who know well their mediaeval history. A diligence runs to-day from Saverdun to Mazeres, the birthplace of the gorgeous and gallant Gaston of Foix, the hero of Ravenna. Mazeres is a most ancient little town, built on the banks of a small river, the Hers, and in the thirteenth century was surrounded by impor- tant fortifications, now mostly gone to build up modern garden walls. Around the old ram- parts has been laid out a series of encircling boulevards, which, as an expression of civic improvement, is far and away ahead of the squares and circles of new western towns in America. The encircling boulevard is one, if not the chief, charm of very many French towns. The ruins of the ancient chateau where was born the celebrated Gaston are still seen, but nothing habitable is left to suggest the luxury amid which the youth was brought up. Near by are the chateaux of Nogarede and Nassaure, each of them reminiscent of family names writ large in the history of Foix. The Valley of the Ariege 199 Another dozen kilometres southward towards Foix is Pamiers. It is extremely probable that provincial France has changed its manners con- siderably since the Revolution, but one can hardly believe of Pamiers, to-day a delightful little valley town, all green and red and brown, that a traveller with a jaundiced eye once called it '' an ugly, stinking, ill-built hole with an inn — of sorts." This is not the aspect of the city, nor does it describe the Hotel Catala. Pamiers owes its origin to the erection of a feudal chateau by Comte Roger II on his re- turn from the Holy Land, and which he called Apamea or Apamia, in memory of his visit to Apamee in Syria. Evolution has readily trans- formed the name into Pamiers. Virtually, so far as its lands went, the place belonged to a neighbouring abbey, but as the monks were forced to call upon the Comtes de Foix to aid them in protecting their property from the Comtes de Carcassonne, the title rights soon passed to the ruling house of Foix. In 1628 Conde pillaged and sacked the city, and not a vestige now remains of its once proud chateau, save such portions as may have been built into and hidden in other structures. The site of the old chateau is preserved in the memory only by the name of Castellat, which has been given 200 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces to a singularly beautiful little park and prom- enade. It was in the thirteenth century that a Bishop of Pamiers, the legate of Pope Boniface VIII, insulted Philippe-le-Bel in full audience of his parlement. The king, resentful, drove him from the council, and a Bull of Pope Boniface delivered the bishop to an ecclesiastical tri- bunal. So far, so good, but Boniface issued another Bull demanding that the king of France submit to papal power in matters tem- poral as well as in matters spiritual. Thus a pretty quarrel ensued, beginning with the fa- mous letter from the king, which opened thus : ** Philippe, by the grace of God, King of the French, to Boniface, the pretended Pope, has little or no reason for homage. ..." Pamiers itself is a dull little provincial ca- thedral town, lying low in a circle of surround- ing hills. Its churches are historically famous, and architecturally varied and beautiful, and the octagonal belfry of its cathedral (1512), in the style known as '' Gothic-Toulousain/ ' is particularly admirable. Mirepoix, a dozen kilometres east of Pa- miers, is interesting. The Seigneurie of Mire- poix became an appanage of Guy de Levis, marechal in the army of Simon de Montfort The Valley of the Ariege 201 in the thirteenth century, but the legislators of Revolutionary times, disregarding the usage of five centuries, coupled the control of the affairs of the region with those of Foix, from which it had indeed been separated long ages before. Mirepoix has, nevertheless, an individuality and a history quite its own. In 1317 it was made a bishopric, and was under the immediate control of the Seneschalship of Carcassonne. It had, by parent right, a certain attachment for Foix, but by the popular consent of its peo- ple none at all; thus it lay practically under the sheltering wing of Languedoc. The descendants of Guy de Levis were dis- tinguished in the army, in diplomacy and held many public offices of trust at Paris. Under Louis XV the last representative of the family was made a ** Due, Marechal de France et Gou- verneur de Languedoc." It was his cousin, Frangois de Levis-Ajac (from whom Levis op- posite Quebec got its name), who became also Marechal de France, and illustrious by reason of his defence of Canada. The Chateau de Montsegur, in the valley of the Hers, was the scene of the last stand of the Albigeois tracked to their death by the inquis- itors. 202 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Just westward of Foix is La Bastide-de- Serou, founded in 1254, another of those an- cient bastides with which this part of the Midi was covered in mediaeval times. To-day it is a mere nothing on the map, and not much more in reality, a dull, sad town, whose only liveli- ness comes from the exploitations of a company whose business it is to dig phosphate and baux- ite from the hillsides round about. Below La Bastide is the Chateau de Bour- dette, charmingly set about with vines in a gen- uine pastoral fashion. For a neighbour, not far away, there is also the Chateau de Rodes, set in the midst of a forest of mountain ash and quite isolated. Either, if they are ever put on the market (for they are inhabitable to-day), would make a good retiring spot for one who wanted to escape the strenuous cares and hurly- burly of city life. South of Foix is Tarascon-sur-Ariege, a name which has a familiar sound to lovers of fiction and readers of Daudet. It was not at Tarascon-sur-Ariege where lived Daudet 's esti- mable bachelor, Tartarin, but Tarascon-sur- Rhone in Provence. Daudet pulled the latter smug little town from obscurity and oblivion — even though the inhabitants said that he had slandered them — but nothing has happened •■"•^ Tarasron-sur-Ariege The Valley of the Ariege 203 that gives distinction to the Tarascon of the Pyrenees since the days when its seigneurs in- habited its chateau. Reminders of the town's mediseval impor- tance are few indeed, and of its chateau only a lone round tower remains. There are two for- tified gateways in the town still above ground, and two thirteenth-century church towers which take rank as admirable mediaeval monuments. Tarascon was one of the four principal forti- fied towns of the Comte de Foix, but suffered by fire, and for ever since has languished and dozed its days away, so that not even a passing automobile will wake its dwellers from their somnolence. Tarascon has a fine and pictur- esque bridge over the Ariege which intrudes itself in the foreground from almost every view-point. It is not old, however, but the work of the last century. Here nearly everything is of the mouldy past and rusty with age and tradition, though there is a local iron industry something considerable in extent. The highroad from Foix into Andorra cuts the town directly in halves, and on either side are narrow, climbing streets running up the hillside from the river bank, but architectural or topographical changes have been few since 204 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces the olden times. Tarascon's population — though the place is the market town of the com- mune — has, in a hundred years, fallen from fifteen hundred to fourteen hundred and forty five, to give exact statistical figures, which are supposed not to lie. Such observations in France really prove nothing, not even that signs of progress are wanting, nor that folk are less prosperous; they simply suggest that its cities and towns are self-satisfied and con- tent, and are not ambitious to outdistance their neighbours in alleged civic improvements of doubtful taste — always at the tax-payers' ex- pense. Tarascon of itself might well be omitted from a Pyrenean itinerary, but when one in- cludes the neighbouring church of Notre Dame de Sabart — a place of pilgrimage for the faithful of the whole region of the Pyrenees on the eighth and fifteenth of September — the case were different. It is one of the sights and shrines of the region, as is that of Stes. Maries- de-la-Mer in Provence, or Notre Dame de La- ghat in the old Comte de Nice. The old abbey-fortress built here by Charle- magne has disappeared, but the great Eoman- esque church, with its three great naves, is avowedly built up from the remains of the The Valley of the Ariege 205 former edifice. Most of Charlemagne's handi- work has vanished throughout his kingdom, but the foundations remain, here and there, and upon them has been built all that is best and most enduring in Gaul. In the environs it was planned to make a great centre of affairs, but destiny and the Comtes de Foix ruled otherwise, though, curi- ously enough, up to the Revolution the " Pre- tres de S ah art " ruled with an iron-bound su- premacy many of the affairs of neighbouring parishes which were no business of theirs. It was church and state again in conflict, but the Revolution finished that for the time being. Like many of the pardons of Brittany, or the fete of Les Saintes Maries in Provence, the fete of Notre Dame de Sabart commences as a religious function, but degenerates finally into a Fete Profane, with dancing, bull-baiting, and eating and drinking to the full. It is perhaps not a wholly immoral aspect that the fete takes on; certainly the participants do not act in any manner outrageous; but by contrast the thing is bound to be remarked by westerners, and probably misjudged and set down as some- thing worse than it is. Bull-baiting, for in- stance, sounds bad, but when one learns that it consists only of trying to snatch a ribbon 206 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces rosette from between the bull's horns — for a prize of three francs for a blue one, and five francs for a red one, the bull carrying the red rosette being, supposedly, more vicious and savage than the others — the whole thing re- solves itself into a simple, harmless amusement, far more dangerous for the amateur rosette picker than the bull, who really seems to en- joy it. Vic Dessos, just southwest of Tarascon, is a quaint little mountain town, with the ruins of the Chateau de Montreal and a twelfth-cen- tury church as attractions for the traveller. The savage surroundings of Vic, the denuded mountain peaks, and the deep valleys, bring tempests and thunderstorms in their train with astonishing violence and frequency. The clouds roll down like a pall, suddenly, at any time of the year, and as quickly pass away again. The phenomena have been remarked by many trav- ellers in times past, and one need not fear miss- ing it if he stays anything over three hours within a fifty-kilometre radius. If this offers anything of a sensation to one, Vic Dessos should be visited. You can arrive by diligence from Tarascon, and can get comfortably in out of the rain at the excellent Hotel Benazet. From Tarascon to Ax-les-Thermes, still in The Valley of the Ariege 207 the valley of the Ariege, is twenty-five kilo- metres of superb roadway. All the way are strung out groups of dainty villages sur- rounded with cultivated country. Here and there is an isolated mass of rock, a round watch-tower, or a ruined fortress, still possess- ing its crenelated walls to give an attitude of picturesqueness. There are innumerable little villages, a whole battery of them, linked to- gether. At the end of this long peopled high- way is an unpretentious mediaeval country house, of that class known as a gentilJiommi- ere, of fawn-coloured stone, and still possess- ing its two flanking sentinel towers preserved in all the romantic grimness of their youth. At the junction of the Ariege with the Ascou, the Oriege, the Lauze and the Foins is Ax-les- Thermes — the ancient AqucB of tlie Romans, and now a '' thermal station " of the first rank. Primarily Ax is noted for its sulphurous wa- ters, but for the lover of romantic days and ways its architectural and historical monuments are of the first consideration. The ruins of the Chateau des Maures, the ancient Cast el Mail, are the chief of these monuments, while a neigh- bouring peak of rock bears aloft an enormous square tower surmounted by a statue of the Virgin. 208 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces There are sixty-one ^' sources " at Ax-les- Thermes giving a supply of medicinal waters. In part they were known to the Eomans, and in 1260 Saint Louis founded a hospital here for sick soldiers returning from the Crusades, Ax-les-Thermes is not a howlingly popular watering place, but it is far more delightful than Luchon, Cauterets or Bigorre, if quaint- ness of architecture, manners and customs, and modesty of hotel prices count for anything. The Porte et Pont d'Espagne at Ax is one of the most interesting architectural reminders of the past that one will find throughout the Pyrenees. The bridge itself is but a diminu- tive span carrying a narrow roadway, which if not forbidden to automobile trafiSc should be, for the negotiating of this bridge and road, and the low, arched gateway at the end, will come very near to spelling disaster for any who undertakes it. Throughout the neighbourhood one sees more than an occasional yawning pit's mouth. All through the Comte de Foix were exploited, and are yet to some extent, iron mines and forges, the latter known as Forges Catalans. Eoger- Bernard, Comte de Foix, in 1293 gave the first charter to the mine-promotors of the neigh- bourhood, and the industry flourished in many The Valley of the Ariege 209 parts of the Comte until within a few genera- tions, when, apparently, the supply of mineral was becoming exhausted. At Luzenac, on the line between Tarascon and Ax, one turns off the road and in a couple of hours, if he is a good brisk walker, makes the excursion to the chdteau-d-pic of Lourdat. There is a little village of the same name at the base of the rocky peak which holds aloft the chateau, but that doesn't count. "Without question this Chateau de Lourdat ranks as one of the most spectacular of all the Pyrenean chateaux. Its rank in history, too, is quite in keeping with its extraordinary situ- ation, though nothing very startling ever hap- pened within its walls. It dates from the thir- teenth and fifteenth centuries, and outside that of the capital of Foix was the most efficient stronghold the counts possessed. Louis XIII demolished the edifice, in part, fearing its powers of resistance, and as a base from which some new project might be launched against him. Accordingly, it is a ruin to-day, but in spite of this there are still left four pronounced lines of fortifications before one comes to the inner precincts of the chateau. For this reason alone it ranks as one of the most strongly de- fended of all contemporary feudal works. Even 210 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces the old Cite de Carcassonne has but two encir- cling walls. The square donjon rising in the middle is in the best style of that magnificent royal builder, Gaston Phoebus, and is reminiscent of the works of Foulques Nerra in mid-France. There is also a great ogive-arched portal, or gateway, which made still another defence to be scaled before one finally entered within. In situation and general spectacular effect the Chateau de Lourdat takes a very near rank to that rock-perched chateau at Le Puy — ** the most picturesque spot in the world." Chateau dc Lourdat CHAPTER XIII ST, LIZIER AND THE COUSEEANS Le Pays de Couserans lies in the valley of the Salat, in the mid-Pyrenees, hemmed in by Foix, Comminges and Spain. Its name is de- rived from the Euskarans, an Iberian tribe who were here on the spot in the dark ages. The history of the Couserans is not known to anything like the extent of its neighbouring states, and is, accordingly, very little trav- elled by strangers from afar, save long- bearded antiquarians who come to study St. Lizier, and regret that they were not obliged to come on donkey-back as of old, instead of by rail or automobile. The trouble with anti- quarianism, as a profession, or a passion, is that it leads one to fall into a sleepy unpro- gressiveness which comports little with the modern means at hand for doing things. A photographic plate of a curious Roman in- scription is far more truthful and convincing than the most painstaking Ruskinese pencil drawing ever limned, and a good '' process- 211 212 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces ■ ■■ cut " of the broad strokes of some facile mod- ern artist's brush is more typical of the char- acteristics of a landscape than the finest wood or steel engraving our grandfathers ever knew. If you like grand mountains, here in Couse- rans is Mont Vallier, a superb giant of the cen- tral chain of the Pyrenees. If it is sweet slop- ing valleys that you prefer, here they are in all their unspoiled wildness, for the railway actually does stop at St. Girons, If an ice-cold mountain stream would please your fancy, there is the Salat and its tributaries, flowing down by St. Girons and St. Lizier into the Garonne. And, finally, if you wish to roll back the curtain of time you will see in old St. Lizier a stage set with the accessories the reminiscent splendours of which will be scarcely equalled by any other feudal bourg of France. There is no region in the Pyrenees of which less is known historically than the Yalley of the Salat. A vicomte reigned here in the sixteenth century, but the seigneury was divided among different branches of the family soon after; and, if they had an archivist among them, he failed to preserve his documents along with the written history of the greater affairs of Toulouse and Foix. Soon religious and civil troubles began to press and much of Couserans St. Lizier and the Couserans 213 '-^ gave allegiance to neighbouring feudalities, with the result that from the times of Henri IV to those of the Revolution, not an historical event of note has been chronicled. As one approaches St. Girons, the metrop- olis of the Couserans, by road from Foix, he passes through the Grotto of the Mas d'Azil, a great underground cave, through which runs a splendid carriage road. It is a work unique among the masterpieces of the road builders of France. This subterranean roadway has, perhaps, a length of half a kilometre and a width of from ten to thirty metres. It is not a stupendous work nor an artistic one, but a most curious one. This Grotte de Mas d'Azil with its great domed gallery can only be lik- ened to a Byzantine cupola. This much is nat- ural; but a roadway beneath this noble roof and a parapet alongside are the work of man. It gave shelter to two thousand persons under its damp vault during the wars of relig- ion, in 1625, when the neighbouring Calvinists here defended themselves successfully against the Catholic army of invaders. The cavern was practically a fortress, then, and an old atlas of the time shows its precise position as being directly behind a little fortified or walled town, the same which exists to-day. The roadway 214 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces on this old map was marked, as now on the maps of the ]£tat-Major, as running directly through the '* Roch du Mas," and an engraved foot-note to the plate states that the '' riviere passe dessoubs ceste montagne." When Richelieu triumphed against the Prot- estants he razed the fortifications of Mas d'Azil, as he did others elsewhere. The little town is really delightfully disposed to-day, and has a quaint, old domed church and a fine shaded promenade which would make an admirable stage-setting for a mediaeval costume play. At Montjoie, on the road to Foix, is a curi- ous relic of the past. In the fourteenth century it was a famous walled town of considerable pretensions; but, to-day, a population of a hundred find it hard work to earn a livelihood. The square, battlemented walls of the little bourg are still in evidence, flanked with four tourelles at the corners and pierced with two gates. Architecturally it is a melange of Ro- manesque and Gothic. Castelnau-Durban lies midway between St. Girons and Foix, and possesses still, with some semblance to its former magnificence though it be a ruin, an old thirteenth-century chateau. At Rimont, near by, is an ancient hastide roy- ale, a sort of kingly rest-house or hunting lodge St. Lizier and the Couserans 215 of olden days. The bastide and the cabanon are varieties of small country-houses, one or the other of which may be found scattered everywhere through the south of France, from the Pyrenees to the Alps. They are low-built, square, red-tiled, little houses, a sort of abbre- viated Italian villa, though their architecture is more Spanish than Italian. They are the punctuating notes of every southern French landscape. One cannot improve on an unknown French poet's description of the bastide: — « Monuments f astueux d'orgueil ou de puissance, Hotels, palais, chateaux, votre magnificence N'6blouit pas mes yeux, n'inspire pas mes chants. Je ne veux c^l6brer que la maison des champs, La riaute bastide . . ." St. Girons has a particularly advantageous and attractive site at the junction of two rivers, the Lez and the Salat, and of four great trans- versal roadways. The traffic with the Spanish Pyrenean provinces has always been very great, particularly in cattle, as St. Girons is the nearest large town in France to the Span- ish frontier. A century ago a traveller described St. Gi- rons as a '' dull crumbling town," but he died 216 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces too soon, this none too acute observer. It was near-by St. Lizier that had begnn to crumble, while St. Girons itself was already prospering anew. To-day it has arrived. Its definitive position has been established. Its affairs aug- ment continually; and it is one of the few towns in these parts which has added fifty per cent to its population in the last fifty years. St. Girons is without any remarkably inter- esting monuments, though the town is delight- fully situated and laid out and there is real character and picturesqueness in its tree-lined promenade along the banks of the Salat. Orig- inally St. Girons was known as Bourg-sous- Ville, being but a dependency of St. Lizier. To-day the state of things is exactly reversed. In the twelfth century it came to have a name of its own, after that of the Apostle Geronius. In the Quartier Villefranche, at St. Girons, on the left bank of the Salat, is the Palais de Jus- tice, once the old chateau of the seigneurs, which architecturally ranks second to the old ]£glise de St. Vallier with its great Romanesque door- way and its crenelated tower like that of a donjon. St. Lizier, just out of St. Girons on the St. Gauden's road, is one of the medieeval glories which exist to-day only in their historic past. .SV. Lizicr St. Lizier and the Couserans 217 Its chateau, its cathedral and its old stone bridge are unfortunately so weather-worn as to be all but crumbled away; but they still point plainly to the magnificent record that once was theirs. Once St. Lizier was the principal city of Couserans, a region which included all that country lying between the basins of the Ariege and the Garonne. In Roman days it was an important strategic point and bore the impos- ing name of Lugdunwm Consoranorum. Later it became a bishopric and preserved all its pre- rogatives up to the Eevolution. The cloister of the twelfth and fourteenth- century cathedral has been classed as one of those Monuments Historiques over which the French Minister of Beaux Arts has a loving care. The chateau of other days was used also as an episcopal palace, but has undergone to- day the desecration of serving as a madhouse. At each step, as one strolls through St. Li- zier, he comes upon relics of the past, posterior even to the coming of Christianity. On the height of the hill were four pagan temples, one each to the honour of Minerva, Mars, Jupiter and Janus. Only a simple souvenir of the lat- ter remains to complete the story of their former existence as set forth in the chronicles. There is a two-visaged " Janus-head," disco v- 218 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces ered in 1771, which is now in the old cathe- dral. To the north of St. Lizier, a dozen kilometres or so, is the Chateau de Noailhan, dating from the fifteenth century, which is admirable from an architectural point of view. Above St. Grirons, in the valley of the Salat, is the quaint little city of Seix. It is delightful because it has not been exploited; and if you do not mind a twenty-kilometre diligence ride from St. Girons, if travelling by rail, it will give you a practical demonstration of a ** rest- cure." The ruins of the Chateaux de Mirabel and La Garde, close to the Pont de la Saule, recall the fact that Charlemagne confided the guarding of these upper valleys of the Couse- rans to the inhabitants of Seix, and gave it the dignity of being called a '' Ville Roy ale.'* In the Vallee d'Ustou one may see a real novelty in industry which the mountaineers have developed, and a monopoly at that. Think of that, ye who talk of the uncommercialism of effete Europe ! It is the trade in dancing bears which the montagnards of Ustou control. Not great, overbearing, ugly, unwholesome-looking ani- mals like grizzlies, nor sleek pale polar bears, but spicy-looking, cinnamon-coloured little Dla-ncbe M.*-M.Q.r\.u.i " 1 5 1> Trained Bears of the Vallee d'Vstou St. Lizier and the Couserans 219 bears, as gentle apparently as a shaggy New- foundland, and frequently not much bigger. When one does grow out of his class, and rises head and shoulders above his fellows as he stands on his hind legs, he is a moth-eaten, crotchety specimen whose only usefulness is as a '' come-on," or a preceptor, for the younger ones. There's nothing difficult about teaching a bear to dance. At least one so judges from watching the process here; but one needs pa- tience, a will, and must not know fear, for even a dancing bear has wicked teeth and claws; and, his strength, if dormant, is dangerous if he once suspects he is master and not slave. Above all the teeth are a great and valuable asset to a dancing bear. A bear who simply struts around and holds his muzzle in air is put in the very rear row of the chorus and called a sal cochon, but one who grins and shows his teeth has possibilities in his profes- sion that the other will never dream of. The bears of the country fairs of France are all descended from the best families of Ustou; and, whatever their lack of grace may be in the dance, certainly " personne est plus amour reux dans la soriete." All through Couserans, particularly along 220 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces the river valleys, are piquant little villages and smiling peasant folk, ever willing to pass the time of day with the stranger, or discuss the good old days before the railroad came to St. Girons, and when St. Lizier was looked upon as being a possible religious capital of the world. In the high valleys, above St. Girons, in Beth- male in particular, one finds still a. reminiscence of the past in the picturesque costumes of the peasants not yet fallen before the advance of Paris modes. The men wear short red or blue breeches, embroidered with arabesques down the sides, and, on fete-days, a big broad- brimmed hat, and a vest of embroidered ve- lours, with great turned-up sabots, something like those of the Ariege. The women have a sort of red bonnet coiffe, held tight around the head by a kind of diadem of ribbon, and a great white-winged cap tum- bling to the shoulders. The skirt is short with very many pleats, and there is also the tradi- tional sabot. This is the best description the author, a mere man, can give. High up in this same valley Is the little vil- lage of Biert, once the civil capital of the re- gion, as was St. Lizier the religious capital. St. Lizier and the Couserans 221 To-day there are between three and four thou- sand people here. Just above is the Col de Port, 1,249 metres high, leading into the water- shed of the Ariege and the Comte de Foix. CHAPTER XIV THE PAYS DE COMMINGES On the first steep slope of the Pyrenees, bounded on one side by Couserans and on the other by Bigorre, is the ancient Comte de Com- minges, the territory of the Convenes, whose capital was Lugdunum Convenarum, estab- lished by Pompey from the remains left by the legions of Sertorius. Under the Roman em- perors the capital became an opulent city, but to-day, known as St. Bertrand de Comminges, but seven hundred people think enough of it to call it home. It possesses a historic and picturesque site unequalled in the region, but Luchon, Montre- jeau and St. Gaudens have grown at the ex- pense of the smaller town, and its grand old cathedral church and ancient ramparts are little desecrated by alien strangers. The view of Comminges from a distance is uncommon and startling. One may see across a valley the outline of every rock and tree and housetop of the little town clustered about the 222 The Pays de Comminges 223 knees of the swart, sturdy church of St. Ber- trand of Coniminges, one of the architectural glories of the mediaBval builder. The moun- tains rise roundly all about and give a rough frame to an exquisite picture. What the precise date of the foundation of Comminges may be no one seems to know, though St. Jerome has said that it was a city built first by the montagnards in 79 b. c. This sacred chronicler called the founders '' bri- gands," but authorities agree that he meant merely mountain dwellers. There is a profuse history of all this region still existing in the archives of the Departe- ment, which ranks among the most important of all those of feudal times still preserved in France. Only those of the Seine (Paris), Nor- mandy (Rouen) and Provence (Marseilles and Aix) surpass it. In autumn St. Bertrand de Comminges is an enchanted spot, with all the colours of the rain- bow showing in its ensemble. It is grandly superb, the panorama which unrolls from the terrace of the old chateau, succeeding ranges of the Pyrenees rising one behind the other, cloud or snow-capped in turn. St Bertrand, the ancient bishop's seat of Comminges, with the fortress walls surrounding the town an3 224 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces towering cathedral is, in a way, a suggestion of St. Michel's Mount off the Normandy coast, except there is no neighbouring sea. It is a townlet on a pinnacle. The constructive elements of the grim ram- parts are Roman, but mediasval additions and copings have been interpolated from time to time so that they scarcely look their age. In the Ville Haute were built the cathedral and its dependencies, the chateau of the seigneurs, and the houses of the noblesse. Beyond these, but within another encircling wall, were the houses of the adherents of the counts; while outside of this wall lived the mere hangers-on. This was the usual feudal disposition of things. Eighty thousand people once made up the pop- ulation of St. Bertrand. And three great high- ways, to Agen, to Dax, and to Toulouse, led therefrom. This was the epoch of its great prosperity. It is one of the most ancient Eo- man colonies in Aquitaine, and its history has been told by many chroniclers, one of the least profuse being St. Gregoire, Archbishop of Tours. After a frightful massacre in the ninth cen- tury the city, its churches, its chateau and its houses became deserted. It was a century later that Saint Bertrand de I'lsle, who had just been Sf. BrrffdinJ dc Co \u ui in^es The Pays de Comminges 225 sanctified by his uncle the archbishop at Auch, undertook to reconstruct the old city on the ruins of its past. He re-established first the fallen bishopric, and elected himself bishop. This gave him power, and he started forthwith to build the singularly dignified and beautiful cathedral which one sees to-day. Comminges was made a comte in the tenth century, and the fief contained two hundred and eighty-eight towns and villages and nine castellanies, all owing allegiance to the Comte de Comminges. The episcopal jurisdiction varied somewhat from these limits, for it included twenty Span- ish communes beyond the frontier as well. One enters St. Bertrand to-day by the great arched gateway, or Porte Majou, which bears over its lintel the arms of the Cardinal de Foix. As a grand historical monument St. Bertrand commences well. Narrow, crooked, little streets climb to the platform terrace above where sits the cathedral. It is a sad, grim journey, this mounting through the deserted streets, with here and there a Gothic or Renaissance column built helter-skelter into a house front, and the suggestion of a barred Gothic window or a deli- cate Renaissance doorway now far removed from its original functions. At last one reaches a great mass of tumbled stones which one is 226 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces told is the ruin of the episcopal palace built by St. Bertrand himself. But what would you ? It is just this atmosphere of antiquity that one comes here to breathe, and certainly a more musty and less worldly one it would be difficult to find outside the catacombs of Rome. Another city gate, the Porte Cabirole, still keeps the flame of medirevalism alive; and, near by, is the most interesting architectural bit of all, a diminutive, detached tower-stair- way, dating at least from the fifteenth century. It is an admirable architectural note, quite in contrast with all the grimness and sadness of the rest of the ruins. Opposite the entrance to the walled city is a curious monumental gateway, better described as a harhacane, or perhaps a great watch-tower, through which one has still to pass. The upper town had no source of water supply, so a well was cut down in the rock, and this tower served as its protection. There is another gate, still, in the encircling city walls, the third, the Porte de Herrison. After this, in making the round, one comes again to the Porte Majou, by which one entered. Rising high above all, on the top of the hill, as does the tower of the abbey on St. Michel's Mount, is the great, grim, newly coiffed tower The Pays de Comminges 227 of the cathedral of St. Bertrand, one of the most amply endowed and luxuriously installed minor cathedrals in all France. Its descrip- tion in detail must be had from other works. It suffices here to state that the cathedral is of the town, and the town is of it to such an inter- mingled extent that it is almost impossible to separate the history of one from that of the other. The site of the cathedral is that of the old Roman citadel. Of the edifice built by St. Bertrand nothing remains but the first arches of the nave and the great westerly tower, really more like a donjon tower than a church steeple. In fact it is not a steeple at all. The whole aspect of St. Bertrand de Comminges, the city, the cathedral and the surroundings is militant, and looks as though it might stand off an army as well as undertake the saving of men's souls. The altar decorations, sculptured wood and carved stalls of the interior of this great church are very beautiful. Its like is not to be seen in France outside of Amiens, Albi and Rodez. The cloister, too, is superb. The happenings of the city since its recon- struction were not many, save as they referred to religion. Two bishops of the see became Popes, Clement V and Innocent VIII. The end of the sixteenth century brought the religious 228 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces wars, and Huguenots and Calvinists took, and retook, the city in turn. With the Revolution came times nearly as terrible ; and, in the new order of things following upon the Concordat, the bishopric was definitely suppressed. The few hundred inhabitants of to-day live in a city almost as dead as Pompeii or Les Baux. The word Comminges signifies an assembly inhabited by the Convenae in the time of Caesar. The inhabitants of feudal times were known as Commingeois. '' The Commingeois are nat- urally warriors," wrote St. Bertrand de Com- minges, and from this it is not difficult to fol- low the evolution of their dainty little feudal city, though difficult enough to find the reason for its practical desertion to-day. The Comtes de Comminges were an able and vigorous race, if we are to believe the records they left behind. There was one, Loup-Aznar, who lived in 932, who rode horse-back at the age of a hundred and five, and one of his de- scendants was married seven times. It was a Comte de Comminges, in the time of Louis XIV, who was compared by that monarch to a great cannon ball, whose chief efficiency was its size. Subsequently cannon balls, in France, came to be called " Comminges." Not a very great fame this, but still fame, and it was still for The Pays de Comminges 229 their warlike spirit that the Conuningeois were commended. Jean Bertrand, a one-time Archbishop of Comminges, became a Cardinal of France upon the recommendation of Henri II. The king afterwards confessed that he was persuaded to urge his appointment by Diane de Poitiers, who was distributing her favours rather freely just at that time. The " Memoires du Comte de Comminges " was the title borne by one of the most cele- brated works of fiction of the eighteenth cen- tury — a predecessor of the Dumas style of romance. It is a work which has often been confounded by amateur students of French history with the " Memoires du Philippe de Commines," who lived in another era alto- gether. The former was fiction, pure and sim- ple, with its scene laid in the little Pyrenean community, while the latter was fact woven around the life of one who lived centuries later, in Flanders. CHAPTER XV BBAEN AND THE BEAENAIS The Bearnais and the Basques have no his- torical monuments in their country anterior to the Roman invasion, and for that matter Ro- man monuments themselves are nearly non- existent. Medals and coins have been occasion- ally found which tell a story neglected by the chroniclers, or fill a gap which would be other- wise unbridged, but in the main there is little remaining of a period so far remote, save infre- quent fragmentary examples of Arab or Sara- cen art. Of later times as well, the splendid building eras of Gothic and Renaissance archi- tecture, there is but little that is monumental, or indeed remarkable for richness. Architec- tural styles were strong and hardy, but most often they were a melange of foreign forms, combined and presented anew by local builders. This makes for picturesqueness at any rate, so, taken as a whole, what the extreme south- west of France lacks in architectural magnifi- 230 Beam and the Bearnais 231 cence it makes up for in quaintness and variety, and above all environment. The historic memories hovering around Beam and Navarre are so many and varied that each will have to establish them for him- self if any pretence at completeness is to be made, and then the sum total will fall far short of reality. All are dear to the Bearnais them- selves, from the legendary first sip of wine of the infant Henri to the more real, but of still doubtful authenticity, tortoise - shell cradle. One absorbs them all readily enough, on the spot, or in any perusal of French history of the Middle Ages, and the names of the Cen- tulles, the Gastons, the Marguerites and the Henris are ever occurring and recurring which- ever by-path one takes. The province of Beam came to the Centulle house in the ninth century, and passed by mar- riage (in 1170) to that of Moncade, from which family it was transferred as a dowiy, in 1290, to Bernard III, Comte de Foix, on condition that Beam and Foix should be united in per- petuity. Gaston IX, a later descendant, by marrying Elenore de Navarre, in 1434, united the two sovereignties, and Catherine de Foix, his sister, in turn made over her hereditary 232 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces rights to her husband, Comte de Pentievre et de Perigord. In spite of this, Beam and the Bearnais have always kept a distinct and separate identity from that of their allies and associates, and Henri, Prince de Beam, is as often thought of by the Bearnais as Henri, Roi de Navarre, even though the two titles belonged to one and the same person. The most brilliant epoch of Beam was that which began with Henri II and Marguerite de Valois. The old Gothic castle at Pau had become metamorphosed into a Renaissance pal- ace, and the most illustrious princess of her century drew thither the most reputed savants, litterateurs, and artists in the world, until the little Pyrenean capital became known as the " Parnasse Bearnais." Jean d'Albret and Catherine were succeeded by their eldest son, who became Henri II of Navarre, and Henri I of Beam. This prince was born in the month of August, 1503, and was given the name of Henri because it was the name of one of two faithful German pilgrims who passed by, en route to pay their devotions at the shrine of St. Jacques de Compestelle. The pilgrims were given hospitality by the king of Navarre, and, because it was thought meet that the newborn Beam and the Beamais 233 prince should bear a worthy, even though hum- ble name, he was baptized thus, though the proud countrymen of Beam did resent it. The circumstance is curiously worthy of record. Beam and Navarre are above all other prov- inces of France proud indeed of the great names of history, and Henri Quatre and Gas- ton Phcebus were hung well on the line in the royal portrait galleries of their time. The first was more of a good ruler than a gallant chev- alier, and the second possessed a regal person- ality which gave him a place almost as exalted as that of his brother prince. Together they gave an indescribable lustre to the country of their birth. In erecting the statue of Henri IV in the Place Royale at Pau the Bearnais rendered homage to the most illustrious son of Beam. Without Henri Quatre one would not know that Beam had ever existed, for it was he who car- ried its name and fame afar. Luchon, Biarritz and Pau are known of men and women of all nations as tourist places of a supreme rank, but the mind ever wanders back to the days of the gallant, rough, unpolished Henri who went up to Paris and, in spite of opposition, became the first Bourbon king of the French after the Valois line was exhausted. 234 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces The Bearnais — the moTintaineers, as they were often contemptuously referred to at the capital — had a time of it making their way at Paris, for there was a rivalry and jealousy against the southerners at Paris which was only explainable by traditionary prejudice. When Catherine de Medici was making the first efforts to marry off her daughter Mar- guerite to Henri, Prince of Beam, the feeling was at its height. It is curious to remark in this connection that the two queens of Navarre by the name of Marguerite were separated by only a half century of time, and both were to become famous in the world of letters, the first for her " Heptameron " and the second for her '' Memoires." The daughter of the Medici would have none of the rough prince of Beam and told her mother so plainly, resenting the fact that he was a Protestant as much as anything. " My daughter, listen," said the queen mother. *' This marriage is indispensable for reasons of state. The king, your brother, and I myself, like the king of Navarre as little as you do. That little kingdom in the high valleys of the Pyrenees is a veritable thorn in our sides, but by some means or other we must pluck it out." B^arn and the Beamais 235 * ' I shall go to Nerac, in Gascony, ' ' the queen mother continued, '' to conclude a treaty with my sister, Reine Jeanne, the mother of Henri de Beam. When an alliance is concluded be- tween the queen of Navarre and myself your marriage shall take place." This was final! Tradition — or perhaps it is a fact, though the average traveller won't remark it — says that the Bearnais are an irascible and jealous people. Proud they are, but there are no ex- ternal evidences to show that they are more irascible or jealous than any other folk one meets in the French countryside. In the val- leys the type is more delicate than that of the inhabitants of the mountain slopes, and throughout they are fervidly religious without being in the least fanatical. The same tradition that says the Beamais are rough, irascible spirits, says also that they seek for a summary personal vengeance rather than let the process of law take its course. There's something of philosophy in this, if it's true, but again it is reiterated there are no visible signs that the peasant of Beam is of the knife-drawing class of humanity to which belong Sicilians and gypsies. The writer on more than one occasion has been stalled in the Pyrenees while blazing an automobile trail up 236 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces some valley road that he ought not to have attempted, and has found the Bearnais a faith- ful, willing worker in helping him out of a hole (this is literal), and glad indeed to accept such an honorarium as was bestowed upon him. Nothing of brigandage in this! The passing times change men and manners, and when it is recorded by the prefet of the Basses-Pyrenees that no department ever had so much law-business going on before in its courts, it shows at least that if the Bearnais do have their little troubles among themselves, they are now a law-loving, law-abiding people. They are good livers and drinkers too, of much the same stamp as the gallant Grascons, of whom Dumas wrote. It was in a Bearnais inn that the Prince de Conti saw the following couplet chalked upon the wall : " Je m'apuelle Robineau, Et je bois in on vin sans eaux." Whereupon he added : " Et moi, Prince de Conti, Sans eaux je le bois aussi." The sentiment is not very high; window- pane poetry and the like never does soar; but Beam and the Beamais 237 it is significant of the good living of past and present times in France, and in these parts in particular. The peasant dress of the Beamais is the same throughout all the communes. They wear a woollen head-dress, something like that of the Basques. It is round, generally brown, and usually drawn down over the left ear in a most degage fashion. The student of Paris' Latin Quarter is a poor copy of a Beamais so far as his cap goes. In some parts of the plain below the foot-hills of the Pyrenees, — around Tarbes for example, — the cap is replaced by a little round hat, a sort of a cross between that some- times worn by the Breton, and a '' bowler " of the vintage of '83. A long blouse-like coat, or jacket, is worn, and woollen breeches and gaiters, of such varie- gated colouring as appeals to each individual himself. In style the costume of the Beamais is national; in colour it is anything you like and individual, but mostly brown or gray of those shades which were the progenitors of what we have come to know as khaki. The shepherds and cattle guardians, indeed all of the inhabitants of the higher valleys and slopes, dress similarly, but in stuffs of much coarser texture and heavier weight, and wear 238 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces quite as much clothing in summer as in the cold- est days of winter. The Bearnais speak a patois, or idiom, com- posed of the structural elements of Celtic, Latin and Spanish. It is not a language, like the Breton or the Basque, but simply a hybrid means of expression, difficult enough for out- siders to become proficient in, but not at all unfamiliar in sound to one used to the expres- sions of the Latin races. It is more like the Provengal of the Bouches-du-Ehone than any- thing else, but very little like the Eomance tongue of Languedoc. In cadence the Bearnais patois is sweet and musical, and the literature of the tongue, mostly pastoral poetry, is of a beauty ap- proaching the epilogues of Virgil. The patois is the speech of the country peo- ple, and French that of the town dwellers. The educated classes may speak French, but, almost without exceptions, they know also the patois, as is the case in Provence, where the patois is reckoned no patois at all, but a real tongue, and has the most profuse literature of any of the anciently spoken tongues of France. The following lines in the Bearnais patois show its possibilities. They were sung when Beam and the Bearnais 239 Jeanne de Navarre was giving birth to the in- fant prince who was to become Henri IV. " Nouste Dame deii cap deii poiin, Adyudat-me a d'acquest'hore; Pre gats an Dioii deii ceil Qu'etnboulle hie delioura ceii, D'u maynat qu'em hassie lou doun Tou d'inqu' aii haul dous mounts I'implore Adyudat-me a d'acquest'hore." The significance of these lines was that the queen prayed God that she might be delivered of her child without agony, but above all that it might be born a boy. Beam was fairly populous in the old days with a well distributed population, and the towns were all relatively largely inhabited. Now, in some sections, as in the Pays de Bare- tous, for example, the region is losing its pop- ulation daily, and in half a century the figures have decreased something like thirty per cent. Like many other Pyrenean valleys the popula- tion has largely emigrated to what they call '' les Ameriques," meaning, in this case. South or Central America, never North America. Buenos Ayres they know, also '' la ville de Mexique," but New York is a vague, meaning- less term to the peasant of the French Pyre- nees. 240 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces The hastides, — the country houses, often for- tified chateaux witli dependencies, — originally a Bearnais institution, often remained stagnant hamlets or villages instead of developing into prosperous towns as they did elsewhere in the Midi of France, particularly in Gascogne and Languedoc. Many a time their sites had been chosen fortunately, but instead of a bourg growing up around them they remained iso- lated and backward for no apparent reason whatever. This has been the fate of Labastide-Ville- franche in Beam. One traces readily enough the outlines of the original hastide, but more than all else marvels at the great, four-storied donjon tower, planned by the father of the il- lustrious Gaston Phoebus of Foix. This senti- nel tower stood at the juncture of the princi- palities of Beam, Bidache and Navarre. Gas- ton Phoebus finished this great donjon with the same generous hand with which he endowed everything he touched, and it ranks among the best of its era wherever found. The hastide and its dependencies grew up around the foot of this tower, but there is nothing else to give the little town — or more properly village — any distinction whatever; it still remains merely a delightful old-world spot, endowed Beam and the Beamais 241 with a charming situation. It calls itself a rendezvous commercial, but beyond being a cat- tle-market of some importance, thanks to its being the centre of a spider's web of roads, not many outside the immediate neighbour- hood have ever heard its name mentioned, or seen it in print. In this same connection it is to be noted that all of Beam and the Basque provinces are cele- brated for their cattle. What Arabia is to the horse, the Pyrenean province of Beam, more especially the gracious valley of Baretous, called the " Jardin de Beam," is to the bovine race. Another delightful, romantic comer of Beam is the valley of the Aspe. Urdos is its prin- cipal town, and here one sees ancient customs as quaint as one is likely to find hereabouts. Urdos is but a long-drawn-out, one-street vil- lage along the banks of the Gave d'Aspe, but it is lively and animated with all the gaiety of the Latin life. On a fete day omnibuses, coun- try carts, donkeys, mules and even oxen bring a very respectable crowd to town, and there is much merry-making of a kind which knows not modern amusements in the least degree. ContinuoTis dnncing, — all day and all night — interspersed with eating and drinking suffices. 242 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Something of the sort was going on, the author and artist thought, when they arrived at five on a delightful June day; but no, it was noth- ing but the marriage feast of a local official, and though all the rooms of the one establish- ment which was dignified by the name of a hotel were taken shelter was found at an hum- ble inn kept by a worthy widow. She certainly was worthy, for she charged for dinner, lodg- ing, and coffee in the morning, for two persons, but the small sum of six francs and didn't think the automobile, which was lodged in the shed with the sheep and goats and cows, was an ex- cuse for sticking on a single sou. She was more than worthy; she was gentle and kind, for when a fellow traveller, a French Alpinist, would find a guide to show him the way across the mountain on the morrow, and so on down into the Val d'Ossau, she expostulated and told him that the witless peasant he had engaged to show him the road had never been, to her knowledge, out of his own commune. Her interrogation of the unhappy, self-named '' guide " was as sharp a bit of cross-question- ing as one sees out of court. '^ No, he knew not the route, but all one had to do was to go up the mountain first and then down the other side." All very well, but which other side? Beam and the Bearnais 243 There were many ramifications. He was sure of being able to find his way, he said, but the Frenchman became suspicious, and the bustling landlady found another who did know, and would work by some other system than the rule of thumb, which is a very bad one for mountain climbing. This time the intrepid tourist found a real guide and not a mere '' cul- tivateur," as the mistress of the inn contemp- tuously called the first. CHAPTER XVI OF THE HISTORY AND TOPOGRAPHY OP BEARN" The old Vicomte de Beam lay snug within tlie embrace of the Pyrenees between Foix, Comminges and Basse Navarre. It was fur- ther divided into various small districts whose entities were later swallowed by the parent state, and still later by the royal domain under the rule of Henry IV. There is one of these divisions, which not every traveller through the smiling valleys of the Pyrenees knows either by name or history. It is the Pays de Bidache, formerly the prin- cipality of Bidache, a tiny kingdom whose sov- ereign belonged to the house of G-rammont. This little principality was analogous to that of Liechtenstein, lying between Switzerland and Austria. Nothing remains but the title, and the Grammonts, who figure in the noblesse of France to-day, are still by right Princes de Bidache, the eldest of the family being also Due de Guiche. The chateau of the Grammonts at Bidache, which is a town of eight or nine 244 History and Topography of Beam 245 hundred inhabitants, sits high on the hill over- looldng the town. It is in ruins, but, neverthe- less, there are some very considerable vestiges remaining of the glories that it possessed in the times of Henri IV when the house of Grammont was at its greatest height. In the little village church are the tombs of the Sires de Grammont, notably that of the Marechal Antoine III, who died in 1678. Bidache was made a duche-pairie for the family De Grammont, who, by virtue of their letters patent, were absolute sovereigns. The Princes de Bidache, up to the Eevolution, exer- cised all the rights of a chief of state, a curious latter day survival of feudal powers. Tradition plays no small part even to-day in the affairs of the De Grammonts, and the old walls of the family chateau could tell much that outsiders would hardly suspect. One fact has leaked out and is on public record. The sons born in the family are usually named Agenor, and the daughters Corisande, names illustrious in the golden days of Bearnais history. Throughout all this ancient principality of Bidache the spirit of feudality has been effaced in these later Republican days, a thing the kings of France and Navarre and the parle- ment de Pau could not accomplish. As in other 246 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces parts of Beam and the Basque provinces, it is now entirely swallowed by '^ la nationalite frangaise." The Due de Grammont still possesses the Chateau de Guiche, and the non-forfeitable titles of his ancestors; but, virtually, he is no more than any other citizen. Just north from Bidache, set whimsically on a hillside above the Adour, is the feudal village of Hastingues. It was an English crea- tion, founded by John of Hastings towards 1300, for Edward I. It is crowded to the very walls with curious old houses in which its in- habitants live with much more tranquillity than in feudal times. The fourteenth-century forti- fications are still much in evidence. Up the river from Hastingues is Peyreho- rade, or in the old Bearnais tongue Perorade, literally roche-percee. It is the metropolis of the region, and has a population of twenty-five hundred simple folk who live tight little lives, and not more than once in a generation get fifty miles away from their home. The Vicomtes d'Orthe fortified the city in olden times, and the ruined chateau-fort of As- premont on the hillside overlooking the river valley and the town tells the story of feudal combat far better than the restored and made- History and Topography of Beam 247 over edifices of a contemporary period. Its pentagonal donjon of the sixteenth century is as grim and imposing a tower of its class as may be conceived. Below, along the river bank, is the sixteenth- century chateau of Montreal, its walls still standing flanked with grim, heavy, uncoiffed towers. It is all sadly disfigured, like its fellow on the heights; but the very sadness of it all makes it the more emphatic as a historical monument of the past. In the villages round about the dominant in- dustry appears to be sabot-making, as in the Basque country it is the making of espadrilles. Each is a species of shoe-making which knows not automatic machinery, nor ever will. Lying between Basse Navarre and Beam was the Pays de Soule, with Mauleon and Tardets as its chief centres of population. The district has a bit of feudal history which is interesting. It was a region of mediocre extent — not more than thirty leagues square — but with a polit- ical administration more complex than any Gerrymandering administration has dared to conceive since. The district was divided into three Messa- geries, Haute Soule, Basse Soule and Arbailles. Each of these divisions had at its head a func- 248 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces tionary called a Messager, and each was in turn divided again into smaller parcels of territory called Vies, each of which had a sort of beadle as an official head, called a Began. Popular election put all these officials in power, but the Courts of Justice were admin- istered by the king of France, as heir to the kings of Navarre. Mauleon takes its name from the old chateau which in the local tongue was known as Malo- Leone. Mainly it is of the fifteenth century. The interior court has been made over into a sort of formal garden, quite out of keeping with its former purpose, and by far the most impressive suggestions are received from the exterior. There are the usual underground prisons, or cachots, which the guardian takes pleasure in showing. From the chemin de ronde, encircling the central tower, one has a wide-spread panorama; of the Gave de Mauleon as it rushes down from its cradle near the crest of the Pyrenees. Mau- leon is the centre for the manufacture of the local Pyrenean variety of footwear called es- padrilles, a sort of a cross between a sandal and a moccasin, with a rope sole. The popu- lation who work at this trade are mostly Span- iards from RouQa, Pamplona and in fact all History and Topography of Beam 249 Aragon. This accounts largely for Mauleon's recent increase in population, whilst most other neighbouring small towns have reduced their ranks. For this reason Mauleon is a phenome- non. Paris and the great provincial capitals, like Marseilles, Bordeaux and Rouen, constantly increase in nmnbers, but most of the small towns of France either stand still, or more likely fall off in numbers Here at this little Pyrenean centre the population has doubled since the Franco-Prussian war. The historical monuments of Mauleon are not many, but the whole ensemble is warm in its unassuming appeal to the lover of new sensa- tions. The lower town is simply laid out, has the conventional tree-bordered promenade of a small French town, its fronton de pelote (the national game of these parts), a fine old Re- naissance house called the Hotel d'Andurrian, and a cross-surmounted column which looks ancient, and is certainly picturesque. Dumas laid the scene of one of his celebrated sword and cloak romances here at Mauleon, but as the critics say, he so often distorted facts, and built chateaux that never existed, the scene might as well have been somewhere else. This is not saying that they were not romances which have been seldom, if ever, equalled. 250 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces They were indeed the peers of their class. Let travellers in France read and re-read such ro- mances as the D'Artagnan series, or even Monte Cristo, and they will fall far more read- ily into the spirit of things in feudal times than they will by attempting to digest Carlylean rant and guide-book literature made in the British Museum. Dumas, at any rate, had the genuine spirit of the French, and with it well- seasoned everything he wrote. The story of Agenor de Mauleon, a real chevalier of romance and fable, is very nearly as good as his best. Leaving Tardets by the Route d'Oloron, one makes his way by a veritable mountain road. Its rises and falls are not sharp, but they are frequent, and on each side rear small, rocky peaks and great mamelons of stone, as in the Vald'Enfer of Dante. Montory is the first considerable village en route, and if French is to-day the national lan- guage, one would not think it from anything heard here offhand, for the inliabitants speak mostly Basque. In spite of this, the inhabit- ants, by reason of being under the domination of Oloron, consider themselves Bearnais. Montory, and the Baretous near-by, have in- timate relations with Spain. All Aragon and Navarre, at least all those who trade horses History and Topography of Beam 251 and mules, come through here to the markets of Gascogne and Poitou. Frequently they don't get any farther than Oloron, having sold their stock to the Bearnais traders at this point. The Bearnais horse-dealers are the worthy rivals of the Maquignons of Brittany. The next village of the Baretous is Lanne, huddled close beneath the flanks of a thousand- metre peak, called the Basse-Blanc. Lanne possesses a diminutive chateau — called a gen- tilhotwmiere in olden times, a name which ex- plains itself. The edifice is not a very grand or imposing structure, and one takes it to be more of a country-house than a stronghold, much the same sort of a habitation as one im- agines the paternal roof of D'Artagnan, com- rade of the Mousquetaires, to have been. Aramits, near by, furnished, with but little evolution, one of the heroic names of the D 'Ar- tagnan romances, it may be remarked. If one cares to linger in a historic, romantic literary shrine, he could do worse than stay at Aramits' Hotel Loubeu. As for the inner man, nothing more excellent and simple can be found than the fare of this little country inn of a practi- cally unknown corner of the Pyrenees. A dili- gence runs out from Oloron, fourteen kilo- metres, so the place is not wholly inaccessible. 252 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Lanne's liumble chateau, nothiug more than a residence of a poor, but proud seigneur of Gascogne, is an attractive enough monument to awaken vivid memories of what may have gone on within its walls in the past, and in con- nection with the neighbouring venerable church and cemetery suggests a romance as well as any dumb thing can. Aramits is bereft of historical monuments save the Mairie of to-day, which was formerly the chamber of the syndics who exercised judi- ciary functions here (and in the five neighbour- ing Adllages) under the orders of the iStats de Beam. Another delightful and but little known cor- ner of Beam is the valley of the Aspe, leading directly south from Oloron into the high valley of the Pyrenees. The Pas d'Aspe is at an ele- vation of seventeen hundred metres. Majestic peaks close in the valley and its half a dozen curious little towns; and, if one asks a native of anything so far away as Pan or Mauleon, perhaps fifty miles as the crow flies, he says simply: '^ Je ne sois pas! Je ne peiix pas sa- voir, moi, je passe tous mes jours dans la valJee d'Aspe." Even when you ask the route over the mountain, that you may make your way back again by the Val d'Ossau, it is the same History and Topography of B6arn 253 thing; they have never been that way them- selves and are honest enough, luckily, not to give you directions that might put you off the road. Directly before one is the Pic d'Anie, the king mountain of the chain of the Pyrenees between the Aspe and the sea to the westward. Urdos is the last settlement of size as one mounts the valley. Above, the carriage road continues fairly good to the frontier, but the side roads are mere mule paths and trails. One of these zigzags its way craftily up to the Fort d 'Urdos or Portalet. Here the grim walls, with their machicolations and bastions and re- doubts cut out from the rock itself, give one an uncanny feeling as if some danger portended; but every one assures you that nothing of the sort will ever take place between France and Spain. This fortification is a very recent work, and formidable for its mere size, if not for the thiclmess of its walls. It was built in 1838- 1848, at the time when Lyons, Paris and other important French cities were fortified anew. War may not be imminent or even probable, but the best safeguard against it is protection, and so the Spaniards themselves have taken pattern of the French and erected an equally imposing fortress just over the border at the 254 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Col de Lladrones, in the valley of the Aragon, and still other batteries at Canfranc. One of the topographic and scenic wonders of the world which belongs to Beam is the Oirque de Gavarnie, that rock-surrounded am- phitheatre of waterfalls, icy pools and caverns. Of the Cirque de Gavarnie, Victor Hugo wrote : — *• Quel cyclope savant de I'age 6vanoui, Quel gtre monstrueux, plus grand que les idSes, A pris un compas haut de cent mille coud6es Et, le tournant d'un doigt prodigieux et sftr, A trac6 ce grand cercle au niveau de I'azur ? " Just below the *' Cirque " is the little vil- lage of Gavarnie, which before the Kevolution was a property of the Maltese Order, it having previously belonged to the Templars. Vestiges of their former preshytere and of their lodg- ings may be seen. A gruesome relic was for- merly kept in the church, but it has fortunately been removed to-day. It was no less than a dozen bleached skulls of a band of unfortunate chevaliers who had been decapitated on the spot in some classic encounter the record of which has been lost to history. Above Gavarnie, on the frontier crest of the Pyrenees, is the famous Breche de Roland. History and Topography of Beam 255 One remembers here, if ever, his schoolboy days, and the '' Song of Roland " rings ever in his ears. " High are the hills and huge and dim with cloud ; Down in the deeps and living streams are loud." The Breche de Roland, with the Col de Ronce- vaux, shares the fame of being the most cele- brated pass of the Pyrenees. It is a vast rock fissure, at least three hundred feet in height. As a strategic point of defence against an in- vading army or a band of smugglers ten men could hold it against a hundred and a hundred against a thousand. At each side rises an un- scalable rock wall with a height of from three to six hundred feet. The legend of this famous Breche is this: Roland mounted on his charger would have passed the Pyrenees, so giving a swift clean cut of his famous sword he clave the granite wall fair in halves, and for this reason the mountaineers have ever called it the Breche de Roland. The Tours de Marbore were built in the old days to further defend the passage, a sort of a trap, or barbican, being a further defence on French soil. The aspect roundabout is as of a desert, ex- 256 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces cept that it is mountainous, and the gray ster- ile juts of rock and the snows of winter — here at least five months of the year — might well lead one to imagine it were a pass in the Him- alayas. Bordering upon Beam on the north is the ancient Comte d'Armagnac, a detached corner of the Duche de Gascogne, which dates its his- tory from the tenth century. It passed to Henri d'Albret, king of Navarre, in 1525, and by reason of belonging to the crown of Na- varre came to France in due course. The ancient family of Armagnac had many famous names on its roll : the first Comte Ber- nard, the founder; Bernard II, who founded the Abbey of Saint Pe; Gerard II, successor of the preceding and a warrior as well; Ber- nard III, canon of Sainte-Marie d'Auch; Ge- rard III, who united the Comte de Fezensac with Armagnac; Bernard V, who, in league with the Comtes de Toulouse, went up against Saint Louis; Gerard V, who became an ally of the English king; Bernard VI, who warred all his life with Eoger-Bernard, Comte de Foix, on the subject of the succession of the Vicomte de Beam, to which he pretended ; Jean II, who terminated the quarrel with the house of Foix ; Bernard VI, the most famous warrior of his History and Topography of Beam 257 race, whose name is written in letters of blood in the chronicles of the wars of the Armagnacs and Jean IV, who was called " Comte par la grace de Dieu." CHAPTEE XVn PAU AND ITS CHATEAU Pav, and the Surrounding Country Pau, ville d'hiver mondaine et cosmopolite, is the way the railway-gnides describe the an- cient capital of Beam, and it takes no profound 2'58 Pau and Its Chateau 259 Arms of the City of Pau 260 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces knowledge of the subtleties of the French lan- guage to grasp the significance of the phrase. If Pan was riot all this it would be delightful, but what with big hotels, golf and tennis clubs, and a pack of fox-hounds, there is little of the sanctity of romance hanging over it to-day, in spite of the existence of the old chateau of Henri IV 's Bourbon ancestors. The life of Pan, in every phase, is to-day ardent and strenuous, with the going and com- ing of automobile tourists and fox hunters, semi-invalids and what not. In the gallant days of old, when princes and their followers held sway in the ancient Bearnaise capital, it was different, quite different, and the paternal chateau of the D 'Albrets was a great deal more a typical chateau of its time than it has since become. If the observation is worth anything to the reader '' Pau est la petite Nice des Pyrenees." This is complimentary, or the reverse, as one happens to think. Pau's attractions are many, in spite of the fact that it has become a typical tourist resort. The chateau itself, even as it stands in its reconstructed form, is a pleasing enough struc- ture, as imposingly grand as many in Touraine. This palace of kings and queens, which saw Pau and Its Chateau 261 the birth of the Bearnais prince who was to reign at Paris, has been remodelled and re- stored, but, in spite of this, it still remains the key-note of the whole gamut of the charms of Pau, and indeed of all Beam. The Revolution and Louis Philippe are jointly responsible for much of the garish crudity of the present arrangement of the Cha- teau de Pau. The mere fact that the edifice was a prison and a barracks from 1793 to 1808 accounts for much of the indignity thrust upon it, and of the present furnishings — always ex- cepting that exceedingly popular tortoise-shell cradle — only the wall tapestries may be con- sidered truly great. In spite of this, the mem- ories of the D'Albrets, of Henri IV, of Gaston, and of the ^' Marguerite des Marguerites " still hang about its apartments and corridors. The Vicomte de Beam who had the idea of. transferring his capital from Morlaas to Pau was a man of taste. At the borders of his newly acquired territory he planted three pieux or pau, and this gave the name to the new city, which possessed then, as now, one of the most admirable scenic situations of France, a ter- race a hundred feet or more above the Gave, with a mountain background, and a low-lying valley before. 262 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces The English discovered Pan as early as 1785, fifty years before Lord Brougham discovered Cannes. It was Arthur Young, that indefat- igable traveller and agriculturalist, who stood as godfather to Pan as a tourist resort, though truth to tell he was more interested in industry and turnip-growing than in the butterfly doings of '^ les elements etrangers " in French water- ing places of to-day. Throngs of strangers come to Pan to-day, and its thirty-five thousand souls make a living from the visitors, instead of the ten thousand of a century and a quarter ago. The people of Pan, its business men at any rate, think their city is the chief in rank of the Basses-Pyrenees. Figures do not lie, however, and the local branch of the Banque de France ranks as number sixty-five in volume of busi- ness done on a list of a hundred and twenty- six, while Bayonne, the real centre of commer- cialism south of Bordeaux, is numbered fifteen. In population the two cities rank about the same. The real transformation of Pau into a city of pleasure is a work, however, of our own time. It was in the mid-nineteenth century that the capital of Beam came to be widely known as a resort for semi-invalids. Just what degree Pau and Its Chateau 263 of curative excellencies Pau possesses it is not for the author of this book to attempt to state, but probably it is its freedom from cold north and east winds. Otherwise the winter climate is wintry to a certain degree, and frequently damp, but an appreciable mildness is often to be noted here when the Riviera is found in the icy grip of the Rhone valley mistral. The contrast of the new and the old at Pau is greatly to be remarked. There are streets which the French describe as neuves et co- quettes, and there are others grim, mossy and as dead as Pompeii, as far as present-day life and surroundings are concerned. Formerly the river Hedas, or more properly a rivulet, filled the moat of the chateau of the kings of Navarre, but now this is lacking. The chateau has long been despoiled of its furnishings of the time of Henri IV and his immediate successors. Nothing but the mere walls remain as a souvenir of those royal days. The palatial apartments have been in part destroyed, and in part restored or remodelled, and not until Napoleon III were steps taken to keep alive such of the mediaeval aspect as still remained. Pau, with all its charm and attraction for lovers of history and romance, has become 264 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces sadly over-run of late with diversions wMch. comport little enough with the spirit of other days. Fox-hunting, golf tournaments and all the Anglo-Saxon importations of a colony of indulgent visitors from England and America are a poor substitute for the jousting tourna- ments, the jeux de paume and the pageants of the days of the brave king of Navarre. Still Pau, its site and its situation, is wonderfully fine. Pau is the veritable queen of the Pyrenean cities and towns, and mingles all the elements, of the super-civilization of the twentieth cen- tury with the sanctity of memories of feudal times. The Palais d'Hiver shares the archi- tectural dignity of the city with the chateau, but a comparison always redounds to the credit of the latter. Below the terrace flows the Gave de Pau, and separates the verdant faubourg of Jurangon from the parent city. The sunlight is brilliant here, and the very atmosphere, whether it be winter or summer, is, as Jean Eameau puts it, like the laughter of the Bearnais, scintillating and sympathetic. The memories of the past which come from the contemplation of the really charming his- torical monuments of Pau and its neighbour- Pau and Its Chateau 265 hood are admirable, we all admit, but it is dis- concerting all the same to read in the local paper, in the cafe, as you are taking your appe- tizer before dinner, that *' the day was charac- terized with fine weather and the Pau fox- hounds met this morning at the Poteau d'Es- coubes, some twenty kilometres away to the north. A short run uncovered a fox in a spinny, and in time he was ' earthed ' near Las- caveries! " This is not what one comes to the south of France to find, and the writer is uncompromis- ingly against it, not because it is fox-hunting, but because it is so entirely out of place. The early history of the city of Pau is en- veloped in obscurity. Some sort of a fortified residence took shape here under Centulle IV in the ninth century, and this noble vicomte was the first to be freed of all vassalage to the Due d'Aquitaine, and allowed the dignity of independent sovereignty. On the occasion when the Bishop Amatus of Oloron, the legate of the Pope Gregory Yll, came to confer upon Centulle the title of comte, in place of that of vicomte which he had inherited from his fathers, a ceremony took place which was the forerunner of the brilliant gatherings of later days. Says the chronicler: " The drawbridge 266 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces of the chateau lowered before the Papal Legate, and as quickly as possible he delivered himself of the mandemeiit of the Pope, a document which meaut much to the future history of Beam." Pau owes its fame and prosperity to the building- of a chateau here by the Bearnais princes. To slielter and protect themselves from the incursions of the Saracens a fortress- chateau was first built high on a plateau over- looking the valley of the Ossau. Possession was taken of the ground necessary for the site by a bargain made with the inhabitants, whereby a certain area of paced-off ground was to be given, by the original dwellers here, in return for the privilege of always being present (they and their descendants) at the sit- tings of the court. Just who built or planned the present Cha- teau de Pau appears to be doubtful. Of course it is not a thoroughly consistent or homoge- neous work ; few median^al chateaux are. That master-builder Gaston certainly had something to do with its erection, as Froissart recounts that when this prince came to visit the Comte d'Armagnac at Tarbes he told his host that *' il y a faisait cdlficr un moult hel chastel en la ville de Pan, an deJiors la ville sur la riviere Pau and Its Chateau 267 du Gave." The groat tower is, as usual, cred- ited to Gaston, and it is assuredly after his manner. Old authors nodded, and sometimes got their facts mixed, so one is not surprised to read on the authority of another chronicler of the time, the Abbe d'Expilly, that " the Chateau de Pau was built by Alain d'Albret during the regency of Henri II, towards 1518." Favyn, in his ** Histoire de Navarre," says, ^' Henri II fit hastir a Pau une maison assez helle et assez forte selon I'assiette du pays." These conflicting statements quite prepare one to learn that Michaud in his " Marguerite de Va- lois " says that that '' friend of the arts and humanity " built the '' Palais de Pau." These quotations are given as showing the futility of any historian of to-day being able to give un- assailable facts, even if he goes to that shelter under which so many take refuge — ' ' original sources." One learns from observation that Pau's cha- teau, like most others of mediaeval times, is made up of non-contemporaneous parts. It is probable that the original edifice served for hardly more than a country residence, and that another, built by the Vicomtes de Beam, re- placed it. This last was grand and magnifi- 268 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces cent, and with various additions is the same foundation that one sees to-day. It was in the fifteenth century that the present structure was completed, and the gathering and grouping of houses without the walls, all closely hugging the foot of the cliff upon which stood the cha- teau, constituted the beginnings of the present city. It was in 1464 that Gaston IV, Comte de Foix, and usurper of the throne of Navarre, established his residence at Pau, and accorded his followers, and the inhabitants of the im- mediate neighbourhood, such privileges and concessions as had never been granted by a feudal lord before. A parlement came in time, a university, an academy of letters and a mint, and Pau became the accredited capital of Beam. The development of Pan's chateau is most interesting. It was the family residence of the reigning house of Beam and Navarre, and the same in which Henri IV first saw light. In gen- eral outline it is simple and elegant, but a rug- gedness and strength is added by the massive donjon of Gaston Phoebus, a veritable feudal pile, whereas the rest of the establishment is built on residential lines, although well forti- fied. Other towers also give strength and firm- ness to the chateau, and indeed do much to set 268 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces cent, and with various additions is the same foundation that one sees to day. It was in the fifteenth century that the present structure was completed, and the gathering and grouping of houses without the walls, all closely hugging the foot of the cliff upon which stood the cha- teai3. constituted the beginnings of the present city. It was in 1464 that Gaston IV, Comte de Foix, and usurper of the throne of Navarre, established his residence at Pau, and accorded his followers, jf|flHA^^^lt^fe©fcs of the im- mediate neighl ^ f iiiooa, such pr ivileges and concessions as had never been granted by a feudal lord before. A parlement came in time, a university, an academy of letters and a mint, and Pan became the accredited capital of Beam. The development of Pan's chateau is most interesting. It was the family residence of the rei^gning hou??e of Beam and Navarre, and the same in which Henri IV fir^t saw light. In gen- eral outline it is simple and elegant, but a rug- gedness and atrength is added by the massive donjon of Gaston Phoebus, a veritable feudal pile, whereas the rest of the establishment is built on residential lines, although well forti- fied. Other towers also give strength and firm- ness to the chateau, and indeed do much to set Pau and Its Chateau 269 off the luxurious grace of the details of the main building. On the northeast is the Tour de Montauset of the fourteenth century, and also two other mediaeval towers, one at the westerly and the other at the easterly end. The Tour Neuve, by which one enters, does not belie its name. It is a completely modern work. Numerous alterations and repairs have been undertaken from time to time, but nothing dras- tic in a constructive sense has been attempted, and so the cour d'honneur, by which one gains access to the various apartments, remains as it always was. Within, the effect is not so happy. There are many admirable fittings and furnishings, but they have been put into place and arranged often with little regard for contemporary ap- propriateness. This is a pity; it shows a lack of what may be called a sense of fitness. You do not see such blunders made at Langeais on the Loire, for instance, where the owner of the splendid feudal masterpiece which saw the marriage of Anne de Bretagne with Charles VIII has caused it to be wholly furnished with contemporary pieces and decorations, or excel- lent copies of the period. Better good copies than bad originals ! The chateaux of France, as distinct from for- 270 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces tified castles merely, are what the French clas- sify as " gloires domestiques," and certainly when one looks them over, centuries after they were built, they unquestionably do outclass our ostentatious dwellings of to-day. There are some excellent Gobelin and Flem- ish tapestries in the Chateau de Pau, but they are exposed as if in a museum. Still no study of the work of the tapestry weavers would be complete without an inspection and considera- tion of these examples at Pau. The chief '' curiosity " of the Chateau de Pau is the tortoise-shell cradle of Henri of Beam. It is a curio of value if one likes to think it so, but it must have made an uncom- fortable sort of a cradle, and the legend con- nected with the birth of this prince is surpris- ing enough to hold one's interest of itself with- out the introduction of this doubtful accessory. However, the recorded historic account of the birth of Henri IV is so fantastic and quaint that even the tortoise-shell cradle may well be authentic for all we can prove to the contrary. There is a legend to the effect that Henri d'Albret, the grandfather of Henri IV, had told his daughter to sing immediately an heir was born: '' pour ne pas faire un enfant pleureux et rechigne." The devoted and faithful Jeanne Pau and Its Chateau 271 chanted as she was bid, and the grandfather, taking the child in his arms and holding it aloft before the people, cried: " Ma brebis a enfante un lion." The child was then immediately given a few drops of the wine of JuranQon, grown on the hill opposite the chateau, to as- sure a temperament robust and vigorous. As every characteristic of the infant prince's after life comported well with these legendary prophecies, perhaps there is more truth in the anecdote than is usually found in mediaeval tra- ditions. Another account has it that the first nourish- ment the infant prince took was a '^ goutte " (gousse) of garlic. This was certainly strong nourishment for an infant! The wine story is easier to believe. The '* Chanson Bearnais " sung by Queen Jeanne on the birth of the infant prince has become a classic in the land. As recalled the Bearnais patois opened thus : — " Nostre dame deou cap deou poun, ajouda me a d'aqueste hore." In French it will be better understood : — " Notre Dame du bout du pont, Venez a mon aide en cette heure ! Priez le Dieu du ciel Qu'il me delivre vite ; Qu'il me donne un g&rqon. 272 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Tout, jusqu'au haut des monts, vous implore. Notre Dame du bout du pont, Venez a mon aide en cette heure." It was in the little village of Billere, on the Lescar road, just outside the gates of Pan, that the infant Henri was put en nourrice. The lit- tle Prince de Viane, the name given the eldest son of the house of Navarre, was later confided to a relative, Suzanne de Bourbon, Baronne de Miossens, who lived in the mountain chateau of Coarraze. The education of the young prince was always an object of great solici- tude to the mother, Jeanne d'Albret. For in- structor he had one La Gaucherie, a man of austere manners, but of a vast erudition, pro- foundly religious, but doubtful in his devotion to the Pope and church of Rome. The child Henri continued his precocious ca- reer from the day when he first became a hon vivant and a connoisseur of wine. By the age of eleven he had translated the first five books of Caesar's Commentary, and to the very end kept his literary tastes. He planned to write his memoires to place beside those of his min- ister. Sully, and the work was actually begun, but his untimely death lost it to the world. Another dramatic scene of history identified with the Pau chateau of the D'Albrets was Pau and Its Chateau 273 when Henri IV took his first armour. As he was out-growing the early years of his youth, the queen of Navarre commanded the appear- ance at the palace of all the governors of the allied provinces. The investiture was a romantic and impos- ing ceremony. The boy prince was given a suit of coat armour, a shield and a sword. A day on horseback, clad in full warrior fashion, was to be the beginning of his military educa- tion. All the world made holiday on this occasion ; for three days little was done by the retainers save to sing praises and shout huzzas for their king to be. For the seigneurs and their ladies there were comedies and dances, and for all the people of Gascogne who chose to come there were great fetes, cavalcades and open-air amusements on the plain of Pau below the castle. The culmination of the fete was on the eve- ning of the third day. The young prince of Navarre, dressed as a simple Bearnais, with only a gold fleur-de-lis on his beret, as a mark of distinction, came out and mingled with his people. As a finishing ceremony the prince took again his sword, and, amid the shouts and acclamations of the populace, plunged it to the 274 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces hilt in a tall broc, or jug, of wine, and raised it — as if in benediction — first towards the people, then towards the army, then towards the ladies of the court — ^as a sign of an un- written pact that he would ever be devoted to them all. The sun fell behind the crests of the Pyre- nees just as this ceremony was finished, and the youth, saluting the smiling king and queen, — his father and mother — left with his '' gens d'armes pour faire le tour de sa Gascogne." The memory of Henri Quatre remains won- drous vivid in the minds of all the Bearnais, even those of the present day, and peasant and bourgeois alike still talk of " notre Henri,'* when recounting an anecdote or explaining the significance of some historic spot. Well, why not! Henri lived in a day when men made their mark with a firmer, surer hand, than in these days of high politics and social- istics. The Bearnais never forget that Henri, Prince de Beam — the rough mountaineer, as he was called at Paris — was a joyous com- patriot, a lover and a poet, and that he knew the joys of passion and the sorrows of suffer- ing as well as any man of his time. The fol- lowing old chanson, sung to-day in many a peasant farmhouse of Beam proves this : — Pau and Its Chateau 275 " Le coeur bless^, les yeux en larmes, Ce coeur ne songe qu'a vos charmes, Vous etes mon unique amour ; Pres de vous je soupire, Si vous m'aimez a votre tour, J'aurai tout ce que je desire . . ." Under the reign of Louis XIV the inhabitants of Pau would have erected a statue in honour of the memory of the greatest of all the Bear- nais — of course Henri IV — but the insistent Louis would have none of it, and told them to erect a statue to the reigning monarch or none at all. Nothing daunted the Bearnais set to work at once and an effigy of Louis XIV rose in place of Henri the mountaineer, but on the pedestal was graven these words : '^ A ciou qu'ils I'arra- hil de nouste grand Enric." " To him who is the grandson of our great Henri. ' ' One of the great names of Pau is that of Jean de Grassion, Mjarechal de France. He was born at Pau in 1609. At Eocroi the Grand Conde embraced him after the true French fashion, and vowed that it was to him that victory was due. He was full of wise saws and convictions, and proved himself one of France's great war- riors. The following epigrams are worthy of ranking as high as any ever uttered : — 276 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces " In war not any obstacle is insurmount- able." ' ' I have in my head and by my side all that is necessary to lead to victory." *' I have much respect, but little love for the fair sex." (He died a celibataire.) ^' My des- tiny is to die a soldier." " I get not enough out of life to divide with any one." This last expression was gallant or ungallant, selfish or unselfish, according as one is able to fathom it. At any rate de Gassion was a great soldier and served in the Calvinist army of the Due de Eohan. The following " mot " describes his character : ' ' Will you be able to follow us ? " asked de Rohan at the Battle of the Pont de Camerety in Gascogne. " What is to hin- der? " demanded the future Marechal of France, '' you never go too fast for us, except in retreat." He recruited a company of French for the aid of Gustavus Adolphus in his campaign in Upper Saxony, and presented himself before that monarch on the battle field with the follow- ing words : ' ' Sire, I come with my Frenchmen ; the mention of your name has induced them to leave their homes in the Pyrenees and offer Pau and Its Chateau 277 you their services. ..." At the battle of Leip- zig (1631) Gassion and his men charged three times and covered themselves with glory. The " Histoire de Marechal de Gassion," by the Abbe de Pure, and another by his almoner Duprat, an " Eloge de Gassion " (appearing in the eighteenth century), are most interesting reading. De Gassion it would seem was one of the chief anecdotal characters of French his- tory. Another of the shining lights of Pau (though he was born at Gan in the suburbs) was Pierre de Marca, an antiquarian whose researches on the treasures of Beam have made possible the writings of hundreds of his followers. He was born in Pau a few years before Henri IV, and died an Archbishop of Paris in 1689. His epitaph is a literary curiosity. " Ci-git Monseigneur de Marca, Que le Roi sagement marqua Pour le Prelate de son Eglise, Mais la mort qui le remarqua Et qui se plait a la surprise Tout aussit6t le demarqua." CHAPTER XVIII LESCAB, THE SEPULCHRE OF THE BEAKNAIS The antique city of Beneharnum is lost in modern Lescar, thougli, indeed, Lescar is far from modern, for it is unprogressive with re- gard to many of those up-to-date innovations which city dwellers think necessary to their existence. Lescar was the religious capital of Beam, and its bishops were, by inheritance, presidents of the Parliament and Seigneurs of their diocesan city. Lescar is by turns gay and sad; it is gay enough on a Sunday or a fete day, and sad and diffident at all other times, save what anima- tion may be found in its market-place. Archi- tecture rises to no great height here, and, be- yond the picturesque riot of moss-grown roof- tops and tottering walls, there is not much that is really remarkable of either Gothic or Renaissance days. The ancient cathedral, with a weird triangular facade, belongs to no school, not even a local one, and is unspeakably ugly as a whole, though here and there are gems 278 Lescar 279 of architectural decoration which give it a cer- tain fantastic distinction. Lescar is but a league distant from Pau, hut not many of those who winter in that delight- ful city ever come here. *' The Normans razed it in 856, when it was rebuilt on the side of a hill in the midst of a wood. ' ' This was the old chronicler's description, and it holds good to- day. Usually travellers find the big cities like Pau or Tarbes so irresistible that they have no eye for the charm of the small town. The country-side they like, and the cities, and yet the dull, little, sleepy old-world towns whose names are never mentioned in the newspapers, and often nowhere but on the road maps of the automobilist, are possessed of many pleas- ing attributes for which one may look in vain in more populous places. Lescar has some of these, one of them being its Hotel Uglas. Lescar is a good brisk hour and a half's stroll from Pau, the classic constitutional recom- mended by the doctors to the semi-invalids who are so frequently met with at Pau, and is a humble, dull bourgade even to-day, sleepy, rus- tic, and unprogressive, and accordingly a de- lightful contrast to its ostentatious neighbour. Poor Lescar, its fall has been profound since the days when it was the Beneharnum of the 280 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Eomans. Its bishopric has been shredded into nonentity, and its ancient cathedral disfigured by interpolated banalities until one can hardly realize to-day that it was once a metropolitan church. St. Denis, as the old cathedral of Lescar is named, was once the royal burial-place of Beam, as was its namesake just outside of Paris the sepulchre of the kings of France. Here the Bearnais royalties who were kings and queens of Navarre came to their last long slumbers. Side by side lie the Centulles and the D'Albrets. The cathedral sits upon a terrace formed of the ancient ramparts of the old city, and right here is the chief attraction and charm of Las- carris, " la ville morte." Lascarris, as it was known before it became simply Lescar, was built up anew after the primitive city had been destroyed by the Saracens in 841, This rampart terrace has one great architec- tural monument, formerly a part of the ancient fortress, a simple, severe tower in outline, but of most complicated construction, built up of bands of brick and stone in a regular building- block fashion, a caprice of some local builder. Through this tower one gains access to the ca- thedral, which shows plainly how the affairs of Lescar 281 church and state, and war and peace, were closely bound together in times past. This lit- tle brick and stone tower is the only remaining fragment of the fourteenth-century fortress- chateau known as the Fort de I'Esquirette. Within the cathedral were formerly buried Jeanne d'Albret, Catherine de Navarre, Mar- guerite de Valois, and other Bearnais sover- eigns, but no monuments to be seen there to-day antedate the seventeenth century, those of the Bearnais royalties having been destroyed either by the Calvinists or later revolutionists. Cath- erine of Beam was buried here in the cathedral of Lescar in spite of her wish that she should be entombed at Pamplona beside the kings of Navarre. The ceremony of the funeral of Marguerite de Navarre is described in detail in a document preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. It recounts that among those present were the kings of Navarre and France, the Duchesse d'Estonteville, the Due de Montpen- sier, M. le Prince, the Due de Nevers, the Due d'Aumale, the Due d'Etampes, the Marquis du MajTie, M. de Rohan and the Due de Vendo- mois, with the Vicomte de Lavedan as the mas- ter of ceremony. As is still the custom in many places in the Pyrenees, there was a great feast- 282 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces ing on the day of the interment, the chief mourners eating apart from the rest. Charles de Sainte-Marthe wrote the funeral eulogy, in Latin and French, and Ronsard, the prince of poets, wrote an ode entitled " Hymne Triomphale." Three nieces of Jane Seymour, wife of Henry VIII of England, composed four distiques, in Latin, Greek, Italian, and French, entitled '^ Tombeau de Marguerite de Valois, Reine de Navarre." Valentine d'Arsinois gave publicity to this work in the following words: " Musarum decima, et charitum quarta, inclyta regum et soror et conjux Margaris ilia jacet." This in French has been phrased thus : " Sceur et femme de roys, la reine Marguerite Des Muses la dixieme et leur plus cher souci Et la quatrieme Charit6 La reine du savoir git sous ce marbre-ci." Throughout the valley of the Gave d'Ossau, and from Lescar all the way to Lourdes on the Gave de Pau, the chief background peak in plain view is always the Pic du Midi d'Ossau. This the peasant of the neighbourhood knows by no other name than " la montagne." '' What mountain? " you ask, but his reply is simply " Je ne sais pas — la montagne." It Lescar 283 should not be confounded with the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, Between Pau and Lescar, lying just north- ward of the Gave, is the last vestige of an in- cipient desert region called to-day La Lande de Pont-Long. It now blossoms with more or less of the profusion which one identifies with a land of roses, but was formerly only a pas- ture ground for the herders of the Val d 'Ossau, who, by a certain venturesome spirit, crossed the Gave de Pau at some period well anterior to the foundation of the city of Pau and thus established certain rights. It was these sheep and cattle raisers who ceded the site of the new city of Pau to the Vicomtes de Beam. Henri II de Navarre, grandfather of Henri IV, would have fenced off these Ossalois, but every time he made a tentative effort to build a wall around them they rose up in their might and tore it down again. In vain the Beamais of the valley tried to preempt the rights of the montagnards, and willingly or not they per- force were obliged to have them for neighbours. This gave saying to the local diction '' En de- spicit dens de Pau, lou Pounloung ser sera d'Aussau. Intrigue, feudal warfare and oppression could do nothing towards recovering this pre- 284 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces empted land, and only a process of law, as late as 1837, finally adjudicated the matter, when the Ossalois were bound by judgment to give certain reciprocal rights in their high valleys to any of the lowland population who wanted to pasture their flocks in the mountains for a change of diet. It is a patent fact that the sheep of all the Midi of France thrive best in the lowlands in winter and in the mountains in summer. It is so in the Pyrenees and it is so in the Basses-Alpes, which in summer furnish pasturage for the sheep of the Crau and the Camargue, even though they have to march three hundred or more kilometres to arrive at it. Closely allied with Lescar is the ancient cap- ital of Beam, Morlaas. After the destruction of Lescar by the Normans Morlaas became the residence of the Vicomtes de Beam. Its his- tory is as ancient and almost as important as that of its neighbour. The Eomans here had a mint and stamped money out of the copper they took from the neighbouring hills. The Visigoths, the Franks, the Dues de Gascogne and the Vicomtes de Beam all held sway here for a time, and the last built a pretentious sort of an establishment, the first which the town had had which could be dignified with the name Lescar 285 of a palace. This palace was called La Four- quie and has since given its name to a hill out- side the proper limits of the present town, still known as Vieille Fourquie. Morlaas is a mere nonentity to-day, though it was the capital of Beam from the time of the destruction of Lescar by the Saracens until the thirteenth century, when the vicomtes re- moved the seat of the government to Pau. The town is practically one long, straight grand rue, with only short tributary arteries running in and from the sides. The £}glise Sainte Foy at Morlaas is a real antiquity, and was founded by Oentulle, the fourth vicomte, in 1089. There are still vestiges of the ancient ram- parts of the city to be seen, and the great market held every fifteen days, on the Place de la Fourquie, is famous throughout Beam. Altogether Morlaas should not be omitted from any neighbouring itinerary, and the local col- our to be found on a market day at Morlaas' snug little Hotel des Voyageurs will be a mar- vel to those who know only the life of the cities. Morlaas is one of the good things one occasion- ally stumbles upon off the beaten track; and it is not far off either; just a dozen kilometres or so northwest of Pau. Morlaas' importance 286 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces of old is further enhanced when one learns that the measure of Morlaas was the basis for the measure used in the wine trade of all Gascony, and the same is true of the livre morlan, and the sou morlan, which were the monetary units of G-ascony and a part of Languedoc. CHAPTER XIX THE GAVE d'oSSAU On ascending the Gave d'Ossau, all the -way to Laruns and beyond, one is impressed by the beauty of the snow-crested peaks before them, unless by chance an exceptionally warm spell of weather has melted the snow, which is quite unlikely. You can name every one of the peaks of the Pyrenees with the maps and plans of Joanne's Guide, but you will glean little specific infor- mation from the peasants en route, especially the women. " Attendez, monsieur, je vais demander a mon mari," said a buxom, lively-looking peas- ant woman when questioned at Laruns. Her " mari " came to the rescue as well as he was able. ^' Ma foi, je ne sais pas trop," he re- plied, " mais pent etre . . . ; " there was no use going any further; all he knew was that the mountains were the Pyrenees, and were the peaks high or low, to him they were always ** les Pyrenees " or " la montagne." 287 288 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Not far from Pan, on niounting the Gave d'Ossau, is Gan, one of the thirteen ancient cities of Beam. In a modest castle flanked by a tiny pepper-box tower Pierre de Marca, the historian of Beam, first saw the light, some years after the birth of Henri IV. A little further on, but hemmed in among the high mountains between the valley of the Ossau and the Pau, is a tiny bourg bearing the incongruous name of Bruges. It is not a simple coincidence in name, with the well-known Belgium port, because the rec- ords show that this old feudal hastide was orig- inally peopled by exiled Flemings, who gave to it the name of one of their most glorious cities. The details of this foreign implantation are not very precise. The little bourg enjoyed some special privileges, in the way of being immune from certain taxes, up to the Kevolu- tion. There are no architectural monuments of splendour to remark at Bruges, and its sole industries are the manufacture of espadrilles, or rope-soled shoes, and chapelets, the con- struction of these latter '' objects of piety " being wholly in the hands of the women-folk. Like many a little town of the Pyrenees, Laruns, in the Val d'Ossau, is a reminder of similar towns in the Savoian Alps-Barcelon- EspadriUe- makers The Gave d'Ossau 289 nette, for instance. They all have a certain grace and beauty, and are yet possessed of a hardy character which gives that distinction to a mountain town which one lying in the low- lands entirely lacks. Here the houses are trim and well-kept, even dainty, and the church spire and all the dependencies of the simple life of the inhabitants speak volumes for their health and freedom from the annoyances and cares of the big towns. Laruns merits all this, and is moreover more gay and active than one might at first suppose of a little town of scarce fifteen hundred inhab- itants. This is because it is a centre for the tourist traffic of Eaux-Bonnes and Eaux- Chaudes, not greatly higher up in the valley. There are many quaint old Gothic houses with arched windows and doorways, and occa- sionally a curious old buttress, but all is so admirably kept and preserved that the whole looks like a newly furbished stage-setting. For a contrast there are some Renaissance house fronts of a later period, with here and there a statue-filled niche in the walls, and a lamp bracket which would be worth appropriating if that were the right thing to do. There is a picturesqueness of costume among the women-folk of Laruns, too. They wear a 290 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces sort of white cap or bonnet, covered with a black embroidered fichu, and a coloured shawl and apron which gives them a holiday air every day in the week. When it comes Sunday or a fete-day they do the thing in a still more startling fashion. The coiffes and costumes of France are fast disappearing, but in the Pyre- nees, and in Brittany, and in just a few places along some parts of the coast line bordering upon the Bay of Biscay, they may still be found in all their pristine quaintness. The Fete Dieu procession (the Thursday after Trinity) at Laruns is an exceedingly pic- turesque and imposing celebration. Here in the pious cortege one sees more frequent ex- hibitions of the local costumes of the country than at any other time or place. The tiny girls and the older unmarried girls have all the pic- turesque colouring that brilliant neckerchiefs, fichus and foulards can give, with long braided tresses like those of Marguerite, except that here they are never golden, but always sable. The matrons are not far behind, but are more sedately clothed. The men have, to a large ex- tent, abandoned the ancient costume of their forefathers, save the heret and a high-cut pan- taloon, which replaces the vest. But for these two details one finds among the men a certain The Gave d'Ossau 291 family resemblance to a carpenter or a boiler maker of Paris out at Courbevoie for a happy Sunday. The procession at the Fete Dieu at Laruns is very calm and dignified, but once it is dis- persed, all thoughts of religion and devoutness are gone to the winds. Then commences the invariable dance, and they don't wait for night to begin. Most likely this is the first Bal d'Me, though usually this comes with Easter in France. The dance is the passion of the people of the Pays d'Ossau, but this occasion is purely a town affair, and you will not see a peasant or a herder from the countryside among all the throng of dancers. Their great day in town comes at quite another season of the year, in the autumn, in the summer of Saint Martin, which in America we know as the Indian sum- mer. On the highroad, not far from Laruns, is a great oak known locally as the *' Arbre de I'Ours " because on more than one occasion in the past a bear or a whole family of them has treed many an unfortunate peasant travel- ling by this route. This may have been a dan- ger once, but the bears have now all retreated further into the mountains. They are not by any means impossible to find, and not long since 292 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces one read in the local journal that three were killed, practically on the same spot, not far above Laruns, and that a sporting Russian prince had killed two within a week. In the high valley of the Ossau the bear is still the national quadruped, and the arms of the district represent a cow struggling with a bear and the motto Viva la Tacha, which in French means simply Vive la Vache. Near Laruns is the little village of Louvie- Soubiron which takes its name from an ancient seigneurie of the neighbourhood. It has no artistic embellishments worthy of remark, but on this spot was quarried the stone from which were carved the symbolical statues of the great cities of France surrounding the Place de la Concorde at Paris. The ancient capital of Ossau was Bielle, and up to the Eevolution the assemblies of the an- cient government were held here. It hardly looks its part to-day. The population is but seven hundred, and it is not even of the rank of a market-town. Traditions still persist, how- ever, and delegates from all over the Pays d 'Ossau meet here at least once a year to dis- cuss such common interests as the safeguard- ing of forests and pastures. In a small chamber attached to the little parish church is preserved The Gave d'Ossau 293 the ancient coffer, or strong box, of the old Republic of Ossau. It is still fastened by three locks, the keys being in the possession of the mayors of Bielle, of Laruns, and of Saint Co- lome. Ten kilometres from Laruns is Eaux-Bonnes, Their virtues have been known for ages. The Bearnais who so well played their parts at the ill-fated battle of Pavia were transported thilher that they might benefit from these *' waters of the arquebusade," as the generic name is known. A further development came under the leadership of a certain Comte de Castellane, prefet of the department under the great Napoleon. He indeed was the real ex- ploiter, applying some of the ideas which had been put into practice in the German spas. He set to with a will and beautified the little town, laid out broad tree-lined avenues, and made a veritable little paradise of this rocky gorge. The little bourg is therefore to-day what the French describe as " amiable/' and nothing else describes it better. The town itself is dainty and charming enough, but mostly its architectural characteristics are of the villa order. The church is modern and everybody is '' on the make." It is not that the population are swindlers, 294 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces — far from it ; but they have discovered that by exploiting tourists and '' malades imagi- naires " for three months in the year they can make as ample a living as by working at old- fashioned occupations for a twelvemonth. A sign on one house front tells you that a ' ' Guide- Chasseur " lives there, and that he will take you on a bear hunt — prix a forfait; which means that if you don't get your bear you pay nothing to your guide ; but you have given him a fine ten-days' excursion in the mountains, at your expense for his food and lodging never- theless, beside which he has had the spending of your money for the camp equipment and sup- plies. He really would make a very good thing, even if you did not have to pay him a bonus for every bear sighted, not shot, mind you, for all the guide undertakes to do is to point out the bear, if he can. Another very business-like sign may be seen at Eaux-Bonnes, — that of a transatlantic steamship company. They gather traffic, the steamship agents, even here in the fastnesses of the Pyrenees, and Amerique du Sud espe- cially is still depopulating southern France. Eaux-Chaudes is another neighbouring ther- mal station. As its name implies, it is a source of hot water, and was already famous in the The Gave d'Ossau 295 reign of Henri IV. Tlie little community points out with pride that the archives record the fact that this monarch *' took the waters here with much benefit." The little Pyrenean village of Gabas lies high up the valley under the shelter of the Pic du Midi d'Ossau. It is not greatly known to fame ; it is what the French call a hamlet with but a few chimneys. A late census gave it twenty- three inhabitants, but probably the most of these have departed in the last year or so to become femmes de chambre and gargons de cafe in the big towns. The place is, however, very ancient, and was the outgrowth of a little settlement which sur- rounded a chapel built as early as 1121, and a sort of resting-house or hospital for pilgrims who passed this way in mediaeval times. This establishment was known as Santa-Christina, and was consecrated to the pilgrims going and coming from Saint Jacques de Compostelle. Plastered up recently on the wall of the mayor's office in the little village was a placard addressed to the " Messieurs d'Ossau," by the Conseiller d'Arrondissement, This singular form of address is a survival of the ancient con- stitution of this little village, which, in times past, when everything else round about was 296 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces feudal or monarchial, was sort of demi-repub- lican. The " Messieurs d'Ossau " recognized no superior save the Prince of Beam, and con- sidered him only as a sort of a titular dignitary with no powers over them worth speaking of. Here in the communes of Laruns and Arudy the peasants have certain rights of free pas- ture for their flocks and herds, a legacy which came originally through the generosity of Henri IV, and which no later rule of monarchy or republic has ever been able to assail. The " Messieurs d'Ossau " also had the ancient right of gathering about the same council table with the Vicomtes of Beam when any discus- sion of the lands included in the territorial lim- its of Beam was concerned. CHAPTER XX TAKBES, BIGORRE AND LUCHON There is a clean-cut, commercial-looking air to Tarbes, little in keeping with what one imag- ines the capital of the Hautes-Pyrenees to be. Local colour has mostly succumbed to twen- tieth-century innovations in the train of great hotels, tourists and clubs. In spite of this, the surrounding panorama is superb; the setting of Tarbes is delightful ; and at times — but not for long at a time — it is really a charming town of the Midi. Tarbes possessed a chateau of rank long years ago; not of so high a rank as that of Pau, for that was royal, but still a grand and dignified chateau, worthy of the seigneurs who inhabited it. Raymond I for- tified the place in the tenth century, and all through the following five hundred years life here was carried on with a certain courtly splendour. To-day the chateau, or what is left of it, serves as a prison. The unlovely cathedral at Tarbes was once a citadel, or at least served as such. It must have 297 298 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces been more successful as a warlike accessory than as a religious shrine, for it is about the most ungracious, unchurchly thing to be seen in the entire round of the Pyrenees. The chief architectural curiosity of Tarbes is the Lycee, on whose portal (dated 1669) one reads : ' ' May this building endure until the ant has drunk the waters of the ocean, and the tortoise made the tour of the globe. ' ' It seems a good enough dedication for any building. The ever useful Froissart furnishes a refer- ence to Tarbes and its inns which is most apro- pos. Travellers even in those days, unless they were noble courtiers, repaired to an inn as now. The Messire Espaing de Lyon, and the Maitre Jehan Froissart made many journeys together. It was here under the shelter of the Pyrenees that the maitre said to his compan- ion: ** Et nous vinmes a Tarbes, et nous fumes tout aises a 1 'hostel de I'Etoile. . . . C'est une ville trop bien aisee pour sejourner chevaux: de bons foins, de bons avoines et de belles rivieres." Tarbes is something of an approach to this, but not altogether. The missing link is the Hostel de I'fitoile, and apparently nothing ex- ists which takes the place of it. From the four- Tarbes, Bigorre and Luchon 299 teenth century to the twentieth century is a long time to wait for hotel improvements, particu- larly if they have not yet arrived. The great Marche de Tarbes is, and has been for ages, one of its chief sights, indeed it is the rather commonplace modern city's principal picturesque accessory, if one excepts its grandly scenic background. Every fifteen days through- out the year the market draws throngs of buy- ers and sellers from the whole region of the western Pyrenees. In the very midst of the most populous and wealthy valleys and plains of the Pyrenees, one sees here the complete gamut of picturesque peoples and costumes in which the country abounds. Here are the Bearnais, agile and gay, and possessed of the very spirit associated with Henri IV. They seat themselves among their wares, composed of woollen stuffs and threads, pickled meats, truffles, potatoes, cheeses of all sorts, agricultural implements — mostly primitive, but with here and there a gaudy South Bend or Milwaukee plough — porcelain, coppers, cattle, goats, sheep and donkeys, and a greater variety of things than one's imag- ination can suggest. It is almost the liveliest and most populous market to be seen in France to-day. The gaudy umbrellas and tents cover 300 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces the square like great mushrooms. There are much picturesqueness and colour, and lively comings and goings too. This is ever a contra- diction to the reproach of laziness usually ap- plied to the care-free folk of the Midi. In olden times the market of Tarbes was the resort of many Spanish merchants, and they still may be distinguished as donkey-dealers and mule traders, but the chief occupants of the stalls and little squares of ground are the dwellers of the countryside, who think nothing of coming in and out a matter of four or five leagues to trade a side of bacon — which they call simply sale — for a sheep or a goat, or a sheep or a goat for a nickel clock, made in Connecticut. It's as hard for the peasant to draw the line between necessities and superflu- ities as it is for the rest of us, and he is often apt to put caprice before need. Neighbouring close upon Tarbes is the an- cient feudal bourg of Ossun, which most of the fox-hunters of Pan, or the pilgrims of Lourdes, know not even by name. It's only the travel- ler by road — the omnipresent automobilist of to-day — who really stands a chance of ' ' dis- covering " anything. The art of travel degen- erated sadly with the advent of the railway and the ** personally conducted pilgrimage," Tarbes, Bigorre and Luchon 301 but the automobile is bringing it all back again. The bicycle stood a chance of participating in the same honour at one time, but folk weren't really willing to take the trouble of becoming a vagabond on wheels. Ossun was the site of a Roman camp before it became a feudal stronghold, and with the coming of the chateau and its seigneurs, in the fifteenth century, it came to a prominence and distinction which made of it nearly a metrop- olis. To-day it is a dull little town of less than two thousand souls, but with a most excellent hotel, the Galbar, which is far and away better (to some of us) than the popular hotels of Pau, Tarbes or Luchon. The chateau of Ossun, or so much of it as remains, was practically a fortress. What it lacks in luxury it makes up for in its intimation of strength and power, and from this it is not difficult to estimate its feudal importance. The Roman camp, whose outlines are readily defined, was built, so history tells, by one Cras- sus, a lieutenant of Caesar. It was an extensive and magnificent work, a long, sunken, oblong pit with four entrances passing through the sloping dirt walls. Four or five thousand men, practically a Roman legion, could be quartered within. 302 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces It was from the Chateau d'Odos, near Tarbes, in the month of December, 1549, that the Queen of Navarre observed the comet which was said to have made its appearance because of the death of Pope Paul III. Says Brantome: ' ' She jumped from her bed in fright at observ- ing this celestial phenomenon, and presumably lingered too long in the chill night, for she caught a congestion which brought about her death eight days later, 21st December, 1549, in the fifty-eighth year of her age." According to Hilarion de Coste her remains were trans- ported to Pau, and interred in the " principal eglise/' but others, to the contrary, say that she was buried in the great burial vault at Les- car. This is more likely, for an authentic doc- ument in the Bibliotheque Nationale describes minutely the details of the ceremony of burial " dans r antique cathedrale de Lescar." On the Landes des Maures, near by, was cele- brated a bloody battle in the eighth century between the Saracens and the inhabitants of the country. Gruesome finds of '' skulls of ex- traordinary thickness " have frequently been made on this battlefield. Just what this descrip- tion seems to augur the writer does not know; perhaps some ethnologist who reads these lines A Shepherd of Bigorre Tarbes, Bigorre and Luchon 303 will. At any rate the combatants must have died hard. Following up the valley of the Adour one comes to the Bagneres de Bigorre in a matter of twenty-five kilometres or so. Bagneres de Bigorre is a hodge-podge of a name, but it is the " Bath " of France, as an Englishman of a centur}^ ago called it. There are other resorts more popular and fashionable and more wick- edly immoral, such as Vichy, Aix les Bains and even Luchon, but still Bigorre remains the first choice. From the times of the Romans, throngs have been coming to this charming little spot of the Pyrenees where the mineral waters bub- ble up out of the rock, bringing health and strength to those ill in mind and body. Pleas- ure seekers are here, too, but primarily it is the baths which attract. There are practically no monuments of by- gone days here, but fragmentary relics of one sort or another tell the story of the waters from Roman times to the present with scarcely a break: Arreau, seven leagues from Bigorre, towards the heart of the Pyrenees, through the Val d 'Arreau, certainly one of the most pictur- esquely unspoiled places in all the Pyrenees, is a relic of mediaevalism such as will hardly 304 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces be found elsewhere in the whole chain of moun- tains from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. Its feudal history was fairly important, but its monuments of the period, save its churches and its market house or " Halle," have practically disappeared. Whatever defences there may have been, have been built into the town's fine stone houses and bridges, but the Eoman tower of St. Exupere, and the primitive church now covered by Notre Dame show its architectural importance in the past. By reason of being one of the gateways through the Pyrenees into Spain (by the valley of the Arreau and the partes, so called, of Plan and Vielsa) Arreau enjoys a Franco-Espagnol manner of living which is quaint beyond words. It is the nearest thing to Andorra itself to be found on French soil. Luchon is situated in a nook of the Larboust surrounded with a rural beauty only lent by a river valley and a mountain backgrouiid. The range to the north is bare and grim, but to the southward is thickly wooded, with little eagles '-nest villages perched here and there on its flanks and peaks, in a manner which leads one to believe that this part of the Pyrenees is as thickly peopled as Switzerland, where peas- ants fall out of their terrace gardens only to Tarbes, Bigorre and Luchon 305 tumble into those of a neighbour living lower down the mountain-side. The surroundings of Luchon are indeed sub- lime, from every point of view, and one's imag- ination needs no urging to appreciate the sen- timent which is supposed to endow a " nature- poet." Yes, Luchon is beautiful, but it is over- run with fashionables from all over the world, and is as gay as Biarritz or Nice. " La grande vie mondaine " is the key-note of it all, and if one could find out just when was the off-season it would be delightful. Of late it has been crowded throughout the year, though the height of fashion comes in the spring. Outside of its sulphur springs the great world of fashion comes here to dine and wine their friends and play bridge. Luchon has a history though. As a bathing or a drinking place it was known to the Romans as Onesiorum, Thermce and was mentioned by Strabo as being famous in those days. There were many pagan altars and temples here erected to the god Ilixion, which by evo- lution into Luchon came to be the name by which the place has latterly been known. In 1036, by marriage. Luchon was trans- ferred from the house of Comminges to that of Aragon, but later was returned to the Comtes 306 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces de Comminges and finally united with France in 1458 under Charles VII, retaining, however, numerous ancient privileges which endured until the end of the seventeenth century. This was the early history of Luchon. Its later history began when, in 1754, the local waters were specially analyzed and a boom given to a project to make of the place a great spa. The city itself is the proprietor of all the springs and its administrative sagacity has been such that fifty thousand visitors are at- tracted here within the year. CHAPTER XXI BY THE BLUE GAVE DE PAU The Gave de Pan, a swiftly-flowing stream which comes down from its icy cradle in the Cirque de Gavarnie and joins with the Adour near Bayonne's port, winds its way through a gentle, smiling valley filled with gracious vis- tas, historic sites and grand mountain back- grounds. Next to the aesthetic aspects of the Gave de Pau are its washhouses. The writer in years of French travel does not remember to have seen a stream possessed of so many. One sees similar arrangements for washing clothes all over France, but here they are ex- ceedingly picturesque in their disposition, and the workers therein are not of the Zola-Ama- zon type, nor of the withered beldam class. How much better they wash than others of their fraternity elsewhere is not to be re- marked. There are municipal washhouses in some of the larger towns of France, great, ugly, brick, 307 308 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces cement and iron structures, but as the actual washing is done after the same manner as when carried on by the banks of a rushing river or a purling brook there is not much to be said in their favour that cannot as well be applied to the washhouses of Pau, Oloron or Orthez in Navarre, and artist folk will prefer the latter. Coarraze, twenty kilometres above Pau, on the banks of the Gave, is a populous centre where the hum of industry, induced by the weavers who make the toile du Beam, is the prevailing note. Toile du Beam and chapelets are the chief output of this little bourg, and many francs are in circulation here each Sat- urday night that would probably be wanting except for these indefatigable workers who had rather bend over greasy machines at some- thing more than a living wage, than dig a mere existence out of the ground. The little bourg is dull and gray in colour, only its surroundings being brilliant. Its situ- ation is most fortunate. Opposite is a great tree-covered plateau, a veritable terrace, on which is a modern chateau replacing another which has disappeared — " comme un chevreau en liberie/' says the native. It was in this old Chateau de Coarraze that the youthful Henri IV was brought up by an Chateau de C oar raze By the Blue Gave de Pau 309 L aunt, en paysan, as the simple life was then called. Perhaps it was this early training that gave him his later ruggedness and rude health. The chateau has been called royal, and its construction has been attributed to Henri IV, but this is manifestly not so. Only ruined walls and ramparts, and the accredited facts of his- tory, remain to-day to connect Henri IV with the spot. The chateau virtually disappeared in a revo- lutionary fury, and only the outline of its former walls remains here and there. A more modern structure, greatly resembling the cha- teau at Pau, practically marks the site of the former establishment endowed with the mem- ory of Henri IV 's boyhood. Froissart recounts a pleasant history of the Chateau de Coarraze and its seigneur. A cer- tain Raymond of Beam had acquired a con- siderable heritage, which was disputed by a Catalan, who demanded a division. Raymond refused, but the Catalan, to intimidate his ad- versary, threatened to have him excommuni- cated by the Pope. Threats were of no avail, and Raymond held to his legacy as most heirs do under similar claims. One night some one knocked loudly at Raymond's door. 310 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces '' Who is there? " he cried in a trembling voice. '* I am Orthon, and I come on behalf of the Catalan. ' ' After a parley he left, nothing accomplished, but returned night after night in some strange form of man or beast or wraith or spook or masquerader and so annoyed Eaymond that he was driven into madness, the Catalan finally coming to his own. At Nay, Gaston Phoebus is said to have built a sort of modest country house which in later centuries became known simply as La Maison Carree. Perhaps Gaston Phoebus built it, and perhaps he did not, for its architecture is of a very late Renaissance. At any rate it has a charming triple-galleried house-front, quite in keeping with the spirit of medisevalism which one associates with a builder who has ' ' ideas ' ' and is not afraid of carrying them out, and this was Gaston's reputation. The house is on rec- ord as having one day been occupied by the queen of Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret. Just beyond Coarraze is Betharrem whose * ' Calvary ' ' and church are celebrated through- out the Midi. From the fifteenth of August to the eighth of September it is a famous place of pilgrimage for the faithful of Beam and By the Blue Gave de Pau 311 Bigorre, a veritable New Jerusalem. Its foun- dation goes back to antiquity, but its origin is not unknown, if legend plays any part in truth- ful description. One day, too far back to give a date, a young and pious maiden fell precipitately into the Gave. She could not swim and was sinking in the waters, when she called for the protection of the Virgin Mary. At that moment a tree trunk, leaning out over the river, gave way and fell into the waters; the maiden was able to grasp it and keep afloat, and within a short space was drifted ashore. There is nothing very unplausible about this, nothing at all miraculous; and so it may well be accepted as a legend based on truth. A modest chapel was built near at hand, by some pious folk, to commemorate the event, or perhaps it was built — as has been claimed — by Gaston IV himself, on his return from the Crusades in the middle of the twelfth century. The latter supposition holds good from the fact that the place bears the name of the city by the Jordan. Montgomery burned the chapel during the religious wars, but again in the seventeenth century, Hubert Charpentier, licencie of the Sorbonne, came here and declared that the con- 312 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces figuration of the mountain resembled that where took place the crucifixion, and accordingly erected a Calvary dedicated to " Our Lady," '' in order," as he said, " to revivify the faith which Calvinism had nearly extinguished." Saint-Pe-de-Bigorre, lying midway between Pan and Lourdes, is an ideally situated, typical small town of France. It is not a resort in any sense of the word, but might well be, for it is as delightful as any Pyrenean " station " yet '' boomed " as a cure for the ills of folk with imaginations. It is a genume garden-city. Its houses, strung out along the banks of the Gave, are wall-surrounded and tree-shaded, nearly every one of them. But one hotel extends hospitality at Saint Pe to-day, but soon there will be a dozen, no doubt, and then Saint Pe will be known as a centre where one may find " all the attractions of the most celebrated watering- places." To-day Saint Pe depends upon its ravishing site and its historic past for its reason for be- ing. It derives its name from the old Abbey of Saint-Pe-de-Greneres (Sanctus Petrus de Generoso), founded here in the eleventh cen- tury, by Sanchez-Guillaume, Due de Gascogne, in commemoration of a victory. This monas- By the Blue Gave de Pau 313 tery, with its abbatial church, was razed during the religious wars by the alien Montgomery who outdid in these parts even his hitherto un- enviable cruelties. The church was built up anew, from such of its stones as were left, into the present edifice which serves the parish, but nothing more than the tower and the apse are of the original structure. To Lourdes is but a dozen kilometres by road ^N'» ^ lO • or rail from Saint Pe. In either case one fol- lows along the banks of the Gave with delight- ful vistas of hill and dale at every turn, and always that blue-purple curtain of mountains for a background. Lourdes is perhaps the most celebrated, if not the most efficacious, pilgrim-shrine in all the world. It's a thing to see, if only to remark the contrasting French types among the pil- grims that one meets there — the Breton from Pont Aven or Quimperle, the Norman from the Pays de Caux, the Parisian, the Alsagien, the NiQois and the Tourangeau. All are here, in all stages of health and sickness, vigorous and crippled. The shrine of '' Our Lady of Lourdes " is all things to all men. Lourdes is a beastly, unclean, and uncomfortable place in which to linger, in spite of its magnificent 314 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces situation, and its great and small hotels with all manner of twentieth-century conveniences. It's a plague-spot on fair France, looking at it from one point of view ; and a living super- stition of Christendom from another. The medical men of France want to close it up; the churchmen and hotel keepers want to keep it open. Arguments are puerile, so there the matter stands ; and neither side has gained an appreciable advantage over the other as yet. Lourdes was one day the capital of the an- cient seigneurie, Lavedan-en-Bigorre, and at that time bore the name of Mirambel, which in the patois of the region signified beautiful view. Originally it was but a tiny village seated at the foot of a rock, and crowned by the same chateau which exists to-day, and which in its evolution has come down from a castellum- romain, a Carlovingian bastille, a Capetian and English prison of state, a hospital for the mili- tary, a barracks, to finally being a musee. Of the chateau of the feudal epoch nothing remains save two covered ways, the donjon, a sixteenth-century gate and a drawbridge, this latter probably restored out of all semblance to its former outlines. One of these covered ways gave access to the upper stages with so ample a sweep that it became practically a horse stair- 314 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces situation, and its great and small hotels with all manner of twentieth-century conveniences. It's a plague-spot on fair France, looking at it from one point of view; and a living super- stition of Christendom from another. The medical men of France want to close it up; the churchmen and hotel keepers want to keep it open. Arguments are puerile, so there the matter stands ; and neither side has gained an appreciable advantage over the other as yet. Lourdes was one day the capital of the an- cient seigneurie, Lavedan-en-Bigorre, and at that fe,^^^% TO^=i5tfs^i^a^bel, which in the jjllfe'^g=e# [111! ivglo fpgfgffified beautiful view. Originally it was but a tiny village seated at the foot of a rock, and crowned by the same chateau which exists to-day, and which in its evolution has come down from a castelhim- ron>: ?rlovingian bastille, a Capetian and Engiisii piisoLi of state, a hoBpital for the mili- tary, a barracks, to finally being a musee. Of the chateau of the feudal epoch nothing remains save two covered ways, the donjon, a sixteenth-century gate and a drawbridge, this latter probably restored out of all semblance to its former outlines. One of these covered ways gave access to the upper stages with so ample a sweep that it became practically a horse stair- By the Blue Gave de Pau 315 way upon which cavaliers and lords and ladies reined their chargers. The donjon is manifestly a near relation to that of Gaston Phoebus at Foix, though that prince had no connection with the chateau. Transformation has changed all but its out- lines, its fosse has become a mere sub-cellar, and its windows have lost their original pro- portions. The Chateau de Lourdes was undoubtedly a good defence in its day in spite of its present attenuated appearance. In 1373 it resisted the troops of Charles V, commanded by the Due d'Anjou. Under the ancient French monarchy its career was most momentous, though in- deed merely as a prison of state, or a house of detention for political suspects. Many were the " lettres de cachet " that brought an un- willing prisoner to be caged here in the shadow of the Pyrenees, as if imbedded in the granite of the mountains themselves. The rock which supports the chateau rises a hundred metres or so above the Gave. A great square mass — the donjon — forms the prin- cipal attribute, and was formerly the house of the governor. This donjon with a chapel and a barracks has practically made up the en- semble in later years. 316 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Here, on one of the counterforts of the Pyre- nees, just beyond the grim old chateau, and directly before the celebrated Pic du Ger, now desecrated by a cog-railway, where the seven plains of Lavedan blend into the first slopes of the mountains, were laid the first stones of the Basilique de Lourdes in 1857. Previously the site was nothing more than a moss-grown grotto where trickled a fountain that, for ages, had been the hope of the incur- ably ill, who thought if they bathed and drank and prayed that miracles would come to them and they would be made whole again. The fact that the primitive, devout signifi- cance of this sentiment has degenerated into the mere pleasure seeking of a mixed rabble does not affect in the least the simple faith of other days. The devout and prayerful still come to bathe and pray, but they are lost in the throng of indiscriminately " conducted " and '' non-conducted " tourists who make of the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes a mere guide-book sight to be checked off the list with others, such as the Bridge of Sighs, the Pyra- mids of Gizeh, the Tour Eiffel, or Hampton Court, — places which once seen will never again be visited. To-day only the smaller part of the visitors. By the Blue Gave de Pau 317 among even the French themselves, excepting the truly devout, who are mostly Bretons — will reply to the question as to whether they believe in Lourdes: " Oui, comme un article de foi." No further homily shall be made, save to say that the general aspect of the site is one of the most picturesque and enchanting of any in the Pyrenees — when one forgets, or eliminates, the signs advertising proprietary condiments and breakfast foods. It doesn't matter in the least whether one Frenchman says : '' C'est ma Foi; " or another '' C'est un scandale; " the landscape is glori- ously beautiful. Of the Grotto itself one can only remark that its present-day garnishings are blatant, garish and offensive. The great, slim basilica rises on its monticule as was planned. It has been amply endowed and ex- travagantly built. Before it is a perron, or more properly a scala-sancta, and the whole is so theatrically disposed, with a great square before it, that one can quite believe it all a stage-setting and nothing more. As a place of pilgrimage, Lourdes is perhaps the most popular in all the world, certainly it comes close after Jerusalem and Rome. 318 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Alphonse XIII, the present ruler of Spain, made his devotions here in August, 1905. Argeles is practically a resort, and has the disposition of a Normandy village ; that is, its houses are set about with trees and growing verdure of all sorts. For this reason it is a delightful garden city of the first rank. Argeles' chief attraction is its site; there are no monuments worth mentioning, and these are practically ruins. Argeles is a watering-place pure and simple, with great hotels and many of them, and prices accordingly. Above Argeles the Gave divides, that portion to the left taking the name of Gave de Cau- terets, while that to the right still retains the name of Gave de Pau. Cauterets has, in late years, become a great resort, due entirely to its waters and the at- tendant attractions which have grouped them- selves around its etahlissement. The beneficial effect of the drinking or bathing in medicinal waters might be supposed to be somewhat neg- atived by bridge and baccarat, poker and '' pe- tit s chevaux " but these distractions — and some others — seem to be the usual accompani- ments of a French or German spa. '^ C'est le premier jour de septemhre que les bains des Pyrenees commencent a avoir de la Cauterets By the Blue Gave de Pau 319 vertu." Thus begins the prologue to Margue- rite de Navarre's " Heptameron." The " sea- son " to-day is not so late, but the queen of Navarre wrote of her own experiences and times, and it is to be presumed she wrote truly. A half a century ago Cauterets was a dirty, shabby village, nearly unknown, but the ex- ploiter of resorts got hold of it, and with a few medical endorsements forthwith made it the vogue until now it is as trim and well-laid-out a little town as one will find. The town is a gem of daintiness, in strong contrast to the surrounding melancholy rocks and forests of the mountainside. Peaks, ap- proximating ten thousand feet in height, rise on all sides, and dominate the more gentle slopes and valleys, but still the general effect is one of a savage wildness, with which the little white houses of the town, the electric lights and the innumerable hotels — a round score of them — comport little. Certainly the beneficial effects accruing to semi-invalids here might be supposed to be great — if they would but leave *' the game " alone. A simple mule path leads to the Col de Riou back of Cauterets, though it is more frequented by tourists on foot than by beasts of burden. Here on the Col itself, in plain view of the 320 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Pic du Midi and its sister peaks, the Touring Club has erected one of those admirable guide- book accessories, a "' table d' orientation." On its marbled circumference are traced nearly three hundred topographical features of the surrounding landscape, and a study of this well-thought-out affair is most interesting to any traveller with a thought above a table d'hote. Throughout the region of the Pyrenees these circular '^ tables d' orientation," with the marked outlines of all the surrounding land- scape, are to be found on many vantage grounds. The principal ones are : — • On the Ramparts of the Chateau de Pau. The Col d'Aspin. The Col de Riou. Platform of the Tour Massey at Tarbes. Platform de Mouguerre. Summit of the Pic du Midi. Summit of the Cabaliros. Summit of the Canigou. Over the Col de Riou and down into the Gave de Pau again, and one comes to Luz. Luz is curiously and delightfully situated in a triangu- lar basin formed by the water-courses of the Gave de Pau and the Gave de Bareges. Prac- tically Luz is a ville ancienne and a ville mo- derne, the older portion being by far the most By the Blue Gave de Pau 321 interesting, though there is no squalor or un- usual picturesqueness. Civic improvements have straightened out crooked streets and razed tottering house fronts and thus spoiled the pic- ture of mediaevalism such as artists — and most others — love. A ruined fortress rises on a neighbouring hill-top which gives a note of feudal times, but the general aspect of Luz, and its neighbouring pretty suburb of St. Sauveur, each of them possessed of thermal establishments, are re- sorts pure and simple, which, indeed, both these places were bound to become, being on the direct route between Pau and Tarbes and Ga- varnie, and neighbours of Cauterets and Ba- reges. Bareges lies just eastward of Luz on a good carriage road. Like Bagneres-de-Bigorre, it is an oddly named town which depends chiefly upon the fact that it is a celebrated thermal station for its fame. It sits thirteen hundred metres above the sea, and while bright and smiling and gracious in summer, in winter it is as stern-visaged as a harpy, and about as unrelenting towards one's comfort. Only this last winter the mountain winds and snows caved in Bareges' Casino and a score of houses, killing several persons. There is no such a 322 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces storm-centre in the Pyrenees. Bareges has got a record no one will envy, though the efficacy of its waters makes them worthy rivals of those of Bigorre and Cauterets. The fame of Bareges' waters goes back to the days of the young Due du Maine, who came here with Madame de Maintenon, in 1667, on the orders of the doctor of the king. In 1760 a military hospital was founded here to receive the wounded of the Seven Years War. Bareges is one of the best centres for moun- tain excursions in the Pyrenees. The town it- self is hideous, but the surroundings are mag- nificent. Above Saint Sauveur, Luz and Cauterets, in the valley of the Gaube, rises the majestic Vignemale, whose extreme point, the Pic Longue, reaches a height of three thousand, two hundred and ninety-eight metres, which is the greatest height of the French Pyrenees. In the year 1808, on the occasion of the coming of the Queen of Holland, spouse of Louis Bona- parte, to the Bains de Saint Sauveur, an un- known muse of poesy sang the praise of this great mountain as follows : — " Roi des Monts: Despote intraitable. Toi qui domine dans les airs, Toi dont le trone inabordable By the Blue Gave de Pau 323 Appelle et fixe les Eclairs! Fier Vignemale, en vain ta cime S'entoure d'un affreux abime De niege et de debris pierreux ; Une nouvelle B6r6nice Ose, a c6te du precipice, Gravir sur ton front sourcilleux I " Each of the thermal stations in these parts possesses its own special peak of the Pyrenees. Luchon has the Nethou; Bigorre the Pic du Midi de Bagneres ; Eaux-Bonnes the Balaitous ; Eaux-Chaudes the Pic du Midi d'Ossau; Ver- net the Canigou and Saint Sauveur and Cau- terets the Vignemale. The Vignemale, composed of four peaks, each of them overreaching three thousand, two hun- dred metres, encloses a veritable river of ice. Its profound crevasses and its Mer de Glace re- mind one of the Alps more than do the acces- sories of any other peak of the Pyrenees. The ascension of the Vignemale, from Cau- terets or Luz, is the classic mountain climb of the Pyrenees. No peak is more easy of access, and none gives so complete an idea of the ample ranges of the Pyrenees, from east to west, or north to south. CHAPTEE XXII OLOKON AND THE VAL d'aSPE Olorof, at the confluence of the Gave d'Os- sau and the Gave d'Aspe, has existed since Eoman times, when it was known as Iluro, finally changing to Oloro and Olero. It was sacked by the Saracens in 732, and later en- tirely ruined by the Normans. Centulle, Vi- comte de Beam, reestablished the city, and for a time made it his residence. The roads and lanes and paths of the neigh- bourhood of Oloron offer some of the most charming promenades of the region, but one must go on foot or on donkey-back (the latter at a cost of five francs a day) to discover all their beauties. The highroads of the Pyrenees are a speedy and a short means of communica- tion between two points, but the delicate charm of the region is only discovered by following the by-roads, quite away from the beaten track. Oloron will some day be an artists' resort, but it hasn't been exploited as such yet. It sits delightfully on the banks of the two Gayes, 324 Oloron and the Val d'Aspe 325 and has all the picturesqueness that old tum- ble-down Gothic and Renaissance houses and bridges can suggest, the whole surrounded with a verdure and a rocky setting which is " all things to all (painter) men." In reality Oloron is a triple city, each quite distinct from one another: Sainte-Marie, the episcopal city, with the cathedral and the bish- op's palace; Sainte-Croix, the old feudal bourg; and the Quartier Neuve, the quarter of the rail- way station, the warehouses and all the smug commercialism which has spoiled many a fair landscape elsewhere. The feudal Sainte-Croix has character; the episcopal Sainte-Marie dignity. In Sainte- Croix the houses rise up from the surface of the Gave in the most entrancing, damp pictur- esqueness imaginable as the waters flow swiftly down towards Orthez. Back from the river, the houses are mounted on tortuous hillsides, with narrow, silent streets, as if they and their in- habitants all lived in the past. On the very crest of the hill is the iSglise Sainte-Croix, founded in the ninth century by one of the Vicomtes de Beam, a monument every whit as interesting as the great cathedral lower down. The diocese of Saint-Marie d 'Oloron was the least wealthy of any of mediaeval France. Its 326 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces government allowance was but thirteen thou- sand francs, and this sum had to be divided with the Bishop of Lescar. On the other hand, the city of Oloron itself was important and wealthy in its own right. In the Faubourg of Sainte-Croix one remarks as real a mediaevalism as exists anywhere in France to-day. Its streets are narrow and silent, and therein are found many examples of domestic habitations dating back to Roman times. These are very rare to-day, even in southern Gaul, where the hand of progress is supposed to be weak. Interspersed with these Romanesque houses are admirable works of the Gothic and Renaissance periods. There is very little that is modern. Of the old city walls but little evidence re- mains. A kind of rampart is seen here and there built into other structures, and one, at least, of the watch-towers is left, of the dozen or more that once existed. Sainte-Croix still has, however, an archaic aspect which bids fair not to change within the lives of the present generation. The chief industries of Oloron are the mak- ing of espadrilles, and the weaving of '* toile du Beam, ' ' a species of linen with which house- wives all over these parts stock their linen clos- Oloron and the Val d'Aspe 327 ets once in a lifetime, and which lasts till they die, or perhaps longer, and is handed down to their daughters and granddaughters. Another echo of Protestantism in Beam still reverberates at Oloron. A one-time Bishop of Oloron, a protege of Marguerite de Navarre, became a disciple of Martin Luther. He was named Roussel, and had been a professor of philosophy in the University of Paris. He had travelled in Germany, had met Luther, and Ead all but accepted his religion, when, returning to Beam, he came into favour with the learned Marguerite, who nominated him Bishop of Oloron. He hesitated between the two relig- ions, knowing not which to take. Meantime he professed both one and the other; in the morning he was for Rome, and in the evening for Luther ; and preaching thus in the churches and temples he became a natural enemy of both parties. One day he was summarily des- patched by a blow with a hatchet which one of his parishioners had concealed upon his person as he came to church. For this act the mur- derer was, in the reign of Henri IV, made Bishop of Oloron in the unworthy Roussel 's place. Six kilometres from Oloron, at Eysus, a tiny hamlet too small to be noted in most guide 328 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces books, is an old Chateau de Plaisance of the Vicomtes de Beam. Folks had the habit, even in the old days, of living around wherever fancy willed — the same as some of us do to-day. It has some advantages and not many disadvan- tages. Back of Oloron, towards the foot-hills of the Pyrenees, is another of those little kingdoms which were scattered all over France, and which only geographers and antiquarians know sufficiently well to be able to place offhand. This is the Baretous, and very curious it is with the survival of its old customs and cos- tumes. Up to Aramits the routes are much frequented, but as one penetrates further into the fastnesses of the mountains, there is an immense sadness that is as entrancing as the most vivid gaiety. Pushing through to the Spanish frontier, fifty kilometres or more be- yond Aramits, a whole kaleidoscope of moun- tain charms unrolls itself at every step. At the Spanish frontier limit, a quaint and curious ceremony is held on the thirteenth of July in each year by the Baretains and their Spanish neighbours. The Baretains, by an an- cient right, pasture their flocks up in the high valleys of the Eongal, and, to recognize the right of the Eongalois to keep them out of their Oloron and the Val d'Aspe 329 pasturage if they so chose, the Baretains pay them homage. The ceremony is carried out before a notary, seven jurats being the repre- sentatives of the Baretains, each armed with a pike, as are the representatives of Kongal. The first lay down their pikes before the latter, and, in a second layer, their points turned towards the Bearnais capital, are placed those of the RouQalois. Then a shout of acclama- tion goes up and rends the air : ' ' Patz abantz ! Patz abantz ! Patz abantz ! — Peace for the fu- ture! " This is the signal for a general rejoi- cing, and a merry-making of dancing and eating and drinking, not far different from other fetes. It is the setting that makes it so remark- able, and the quaint costumes and customs of the men and women of two nations mingling in a common fete. This Franco-Espagnol ceremony is accom- plished with much eclat on a little square of ground set off on the maps of the :fitat Major as " Champ de Foire Frangais et Espagnol." Tradition demands that three cows be given or offered to the Spanish by the French for the privilege of pasturage over the border in the Spanish valleys. The cows are loosed on the Champ de Foire, and if they remain for half an hour without crossing the line into France 330 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces again they belong to the Spanish. If, on the other hand, one or more cross back into France they remain the property of the French. Formerly three horses were used for this part of the function, but as they were bound to have a white star on the forehead, and as that variety of beast is rare in these parts, a compromise was made to carry out the pact with the cows. The most historic spot in the Gave d'Aspe is unquestionably Sarrance. Notre Dame de Sar- rance is a venerable and supposedly miraculous statue. Numbers of pilgrims have visited the shrine in times past, among them the none too constant Louis XI, who, if he was devoted to Our Lady of Clery and Notre Dame de Em- brun, was ready to bow down before any whom he thought might do him a good turn. Certainly Sarrance 's most favourite memory is that of the celebrated Marguerite de Na- varre. If she did not write, she at least con- ceived the idea of her " Heptameron " here, if history is to be believed. The title page of this immortal work reads as follows, L'HEPTAMERON <' des nouvelles de tres illustr6 et tres excellente princesse, Marguerite de Valois, Reinede Navarre." Oloron and the Val d'Aspe 331 The history of the inception of these tales is often inexactly recounted at this late day, but in the main the facts seem to be as follows : — In September (1549?), when the queen and her followers were journeying from Cauterets to Tarbes, the waters of the Gave overflowed their banks and destroyed the bridge of Sar- rance. The party stopped first at the Abbaye de Saint Savin, and again at the Monastere de Notre Dame de Sarrance. Ten days were ne- cessary to repair the bridge which had been carried away, and time apparently hung heavy on the hands of every one. To break the ennui of their sojourn in the company of these austere monks of Sarrance, the royal party sought what amusements they might. In the morning all met with the Dame Oy- sille, the eldest of the company, when they had an hour's reading of the Scriptures. After this there was a mass; then at ten o'clock they dined ; finally each retired to his room — '' pour ses affaires particulieres/' says the old record — presumably to sleep, though it was early in the day for that. In the afternoon {" depuis midi jusques a quatres heures," ran the old chronicle) they all assembled in the meadow by the river's bank beneath the trees, and each, seated at his ease, recounted such salacious sat- 332 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces ires and tales as would have added to tlie fame of Boccaccio. This procedure went on until the tellers of tales were interrupted by the coming of the prior who called them to vespers. These tales or " contes," or '' petites his- toires," or whatever one chooses to call them, free of speech and of incident as was the cus- tom of the time, were afterwards mothered by the queen of Navarre, and given to the world as the product of her fertile mind. Judging from their popularity at that time, and since, the fair lady must have been a wonderful story- teller. The gentle slopes of a prairie along the banks of the Gave near by is the reputed spot where these tales were told, — a spot ' ' where the sun could not pierce the thick foliage," certainly romantically and picturesquely endowed. The site is charming, and one can picture the scene all out again for himself if he is possessed of the least bit of imaginative sense. Still following the valley of the Aspe upward, one comes next to Bedous, really a pretentious little city, but unheard of by conventional trav- ellers. Everything begins to take on a Spanish hue, and the church, dating from 1631, is more Spanish than French in its architecture and all its appointments. All the commercial life Oloron and the Val d'Aspe 333 of the valley centres here, and a mixed Franco- Espagnol traffic goes on. It is principally the trading of cattle, sheep and wool, with an oc- casional porker or a donkey sold, or bargained for, on the side. Bedous has been marked out as being the terminus of a railway line yet to be built. Until the times shall be propitious for pushing the railway on into Spain the town will remain simply what it has been for cen- turies. When that day comes, much of the charm of the region will be gone. The automo- bile is no such desecrator as the railway, let scoffers say what they will. In the valley of the Aspe, with snow-capped mountains in full view, there is a surprising softness of climate all through the year. In this valley was the last refuge of Protestant- ism in the days of the religious wars, and the little village of Bedous still possesses a '' tem- ple " and a '^ pastor." Above Bedous, towards the crest of the Pyr- enees, is Accous, and as one progresses things become more and more Spanish, until the sign " Posada " is as frequent as " Auherge." Accous offers no curiosities to visitors, but it was here that Victor Hugo gave the last glimpses of Jean Val jean when the police were close upon his trail; " at the place called the 334 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Grange de Doumec, near the hamlet of Cha- villes," ran the romance. From this point the valley of the Aspe opens almost perpendicularly into the heart of the rock wall of the Pyrenees; it is a veritable chasm in its upper reaches; and in this rocky defile was once a tiny feudality, absorbed and later wiped into oblivion by the Eevolution. Beyond Sar ranee are Urdos and Somport and the fortress of Portalet. The route was known to the ancients as that through which the Saracens came from Spain to over-run southern Gaul. Somport was the Summus Pyreneus of the old-time historians of the Komans. CHAPTER XXIII OBTHEZ AND THE GAVE d'OLOBON Okthez is another of those cities of the Pyre- nees which does not live up to its possibilities, at least not in a commercial sense. Neverthe- less, some of us find it all the more delightful for that. It is a city where the relics of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance are curiously intermingled, and if one within its walls so chose he could imagine himself as living in the past as well as in the present, and this in spite of the fact that the city has been remodelled and restored in certain quarters out of all sem- blance to its former self. There is little or nothing remaining of that time which Froissart described with such mi- nuteness when writing of the court at Orthez' chateau. All that remains of this great pile is the Tour de Moncade, but from its grandeur and commanding site one realizes well enough that in its time it was hardly overshadowed by the better preserved edifices at Pau and Foix. 335 336 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces At the northeast of Ovtliez, on a lull over- looking the city is an ancient, rectangular tower, its sides mellowed by ages, and its crest in ruins. ** Sarc::-vous cc que sout ccs ruiucs? " you ask of any one, and they will tell you that it is all that remains of tlie tine chateau of Gaston Pluvbus. Ffc^tes and crimes were curiously in- termingled within its walls, for always little rivulets of blood flowed in mediawal times as the accompaniment of the laughter of the feast. Gaston de Foix, after the burning of his cha- teau, came to Orthez in the thirteenth century, and began the citadel of Orthez — the "" chd- teau-rwhle " of the chronicles of Froissart. The edifice played an important role in the his- tory of Beam. At that time Gaston was a vassal of Ed- ward III. of England who was then making a Crusade in the Ea_st. On his return he found this ** chdteau-nohlc " already built, and his surprise was great, for he knew not what it portended. Pie concluded that it could only mean the rebellion of his vassal, and he ordered the Seneschal of Gascony to demand the sur- render of the property. When this was refused Edward seized it and all the domains of Boarn, and sent Gerard de Laon as envoy to put the Orthez and the G-ave d'Oloron '^'47 new political machinery in running order. The envoy entered Orthez without the least ob- stacle being put in his way, but in an instant the gates were closed and he was made a pris- oner. Irritated by this outrage, Edward, at the head of an imposing army, marched on Orthez. Gaston, seized with fear, lost his head, and made up his mind to surrender before he was attacked. No protestations of future de- votion to his overlord would, however, be ac- cepted, and Edward made him prisoner on the spot. To regain his liberty, Gaston promised to turn over the '' Fortresse d 'Orthez " but, when he was set free, he established himself with a doubled garrison behijid his walls and prepared for resistance. Edward pleaded for justice and honourable dealing, and a quarrel, long and animated, followed. The affair took on such proportions that the Pope sent his legate, as an intermediary, to make peace. Gaston would hear of no compromise, and called upon the king of France to take his part. A sort of council was finally arranged, during which Gaston became so exasperated that he threw his glove in the face of the English king. He begged the king's pardon afterwards, and an agreement was reached whereby everything was left as it had been before the quarrel began. 338 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Many imperishable souvenirs are left of the reign at Orthez of the brilliant Gaston de Foix, when tourneys and fetes followed in rapid suc- cession. It was Orthez' most brilliant epoch. It was here, to the court of Gaston Phoebus, that Messire Jehan Froissart came, in 1388, and stayed three weeks and some of his most brilliant pages relate to this visit. Of his host, the chronicler said: " De toutes choses il est si par fait/' Gaston Phoebus was so powerful and mag- nificent a Seigneur in his own right, and his castle at Orthez was such a landmark of history that Louis XI — who conceded little enough to others as a usual thing — said to his follow- ers as he was passing through Bearnais terri- tory on a pilgrimage: *' Messeigneurs, laissez Vepee de France, nous sortons ici du royaume." Gaston Phoebus was the most accomplished seigneur of his time, and he had for his motto '' Toquos-y se gaasos '* — *' Attack who dares." One day, in the month of August, 1390, on returning from a bear hunt, greatly fatigued, he was handed a cup from which to drink. He drank from the cup and instantly expired. Was he poisoned? That is what no one knows. It was the custom of the time to make away with one's enemies thus, and in this connection The Pont d'Orthez Orthez and the Gave d'Oloron 339 one recalls that Gaston himself killed his own son because he would not eat at table. Orthez was deserted by the court for Pau, and in time the natural destruction of wind and weather, and the hand of man, strifjped the chateau to what one sees to-day. The Pont d 'Orthez is a far better preserved monument of feudal and warlike times, and it was a real defence to the city, as can be readily understood by all who view it. Its four hardy arches span the Gave as they did in the thir- teenth and fourteenth centuries. It was from the summit of one of the sentinel towers of this most remarkable of mediaeval bridges that the soldiers of Montgomery obliged the monks to throw themselves into the river below. The *' Brothers of the Bridge " were a famous in- stitution in mediaeval times, and they should have been better treated than they usually were, but too frequently indeed they were mas- sacred without having either the right or the means to defend themselves. The history of Montgomery's connection with Orthez, or more particularly the Pont d 'Orthez, reads almost as if it were legend, though indeed it is truth. The story is called by the French historians ^' La Chronique de la Tour des Caperas.'* 340 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Jeanne d'Albret, the mainstay of Protestant- iem in her day, wished to make Orthez the re- ligious capital, and accordingly she built here a splendid church in which to expound the the- ories of Calvin and brought " professors " from Scotland and England to preach the new dogma. Orthez became at once the point of attack for those of the opposite faith, and as horrible a massacre as was ever known took place in the streets of Orthez and gave perhaps the first use of the simile that the river flowed as a river of blood. Priests and monks were the special prey of the Protestants, while they themselves were being attacked from without. One by one as they were hunted out from their hiding-places the priests and lay brothers were pushed from the parapet of the bridge into the Gave below. If any gained the banks by swim- ming they were prodded and stabbed by still other soldiery with lances, and from this great noyade the great Tour des Caperas became known as the Tour des Pretres, To-day Montauban and Orthez have rela- tively the largest Protestant populations of any of the cities of France. The old Route Royale between Bayonne and the capital of Beam and Navarre passed through Orthez, and the same narrow streets. Orthez and the Gave d'Oloron 341 irregular, badly paved, and badly kept up, are those which one traverses to-day on entering and leaving the city. One great improvement has been made in the ancient quarter of the town — though of course one does not know what historical souvenirs it may have sup- planted — and that is the laying out of a mail or mall, planted on either side with great elms, and running from the banks of the Gave to the fine fifteenth - century — but still Gothic — church, well at the centre of the town. The ^' jamhons de Bayonne " are mostly cured at Orthez, and it is indeed the leading industry of the city. The porkers of Orthez may not be corn fed, but they are well and cleanly nourished, which is more than can be said of many *' domesticated pigs " in New and Old England, which are eaten with a great relish by those who have brought them up. In the religious wars Orthez played a grand role, and in 1814 it was the scene of one of the great struggles of France against alien inva- sion of her territory. Just north of the city, on the height of a flanking hill, Wellington — at the head of a force very much superior, let no one forget — inflicted a blood^' defeat on Marechal Soult. The Due de Dalmatie lost, it is recorded, nearly four thousand men, but he 342 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces wounded or killed six thousand in the same engagement. General Foy here received his fourth wound on the field of battle. Orthez is one of the really great feudal cities of the south of France. In the ninth century it was known as Orthesium, and belonged to the Vicomtes de Dax, who, only when they were conquered by Gaston III, Prince of Beam, ceded the city to the crown of Beam and Na- varre. It was in the chateau of Orthez that the un- fortunate Blanche of Castille, daughter of the king of Aragon, was poisoned by her sister, the wife of Gaston IV, Comte de Foix. This was one of the celebrated crimes of history, though for that matter the builder of the cha- teau, the magnificent (sic) Gaston Phoebus, committed one worthy to rank with it when he killed his brother and " propre fils " on the mere suspicion that they might some day be led to take sides against him. Orthez flourished greatly under its Protes- tant princes, but it waned and all but dwindled away in the unpeaceful times immediately fol- lowing upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The cessation of the practice of the arts of industry, and very nearly those of com- merce, left the city poor and impoverished, and Orthez and the Gave d'Oloron 343 it is only within recent generations that it has arisen again to importance. The donjon of Moncade is all that remains of the once proud chateau where Gaston Phcje- bus held more than one brilliant court on his excursions beyond the limits of his beloved Foix. It dominates the whole region, however, and adds an accentuated note of grimness to the otherwise gay melody of the Gave as it flows down to join the Adour from the high valleys of the Pyrenees. On the opposite hillside is a memorial in honour of the brave General Foy, which will recall to some the victory of Wellington over Soult, and to others, who have not forgotten their Dumas, the fact that it was General Foy who first gave the elder Dumas his start as writer of romances. Salies de Beam is a near neighbour of Or- thez, and can be omitted from no Pyrenean itinerary. The bustling little market- town and watering-place combined dates, as to the foun- dation of its great industry, back to the tenth century, when the Due de Gascogne gave to the monks of the Monastery of Saint Pe an estab- lishment ready fitted that they might commence the industry of recovering salt from the neigh- bouring salt springs. All through mediaeval 344 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces times, and down as late as 1840, the industry was carried on under the old concession. All the distractions of a first-class watering- place may be had here to-day, and the '' sea- son " is on from May to September. The city is the birthplace of Colonel Dambourges, who became famous for his defence of Quebec against the English in 1775. At Salies is still the house which sheltered Jeanne d 'Albret when she took the waters here, and not far away is the spot where died Gas- ton Phoebus, as he was returning from a bear hunt. These two facts taken together make of Salies hallowed historic ground. At Salies de Beam one recalls a scrap of literary history that is interesting; Dumas pere certainly got inspiration for the names of his three mousquetaire heroes from hereabouts. Not far away is Athos — which he gave to the Comte de la Fere, while Aramits and Ar- tagnan are also near-by. In any historical light further than this they are all unimportant how- ever. Six kilometres to the northward is the Cha- teau de Bellocq, a fine mediaeval country house (fourteenth century), though unroofed to-day, the residence of Jeanne d 'Albret when she so- journed in the neighbourhood. The walls, Orthez and the Gave d'Oloron 345 flanked with four great round towers, are ad- mirably preserved, and the vaulting and its ribs, two square towers and a great entrance gate show the manner of building of the time with great detail. Five leagues from Orthez, on a little valley plain, watered by the Gave d'Oloron, is the tiny little city of Navarreux. Its population is scarce above a thousand, but it is the centre of affairs for twenty-five communes, contain- ing perhaps twelve thousand souls. It is a typ- ical, bustling, little Pyrenean metropolis, and the comings and goings on market-day at the little Hotel de France are as good an illustra- tion of the life and manners of a people of small affairs as one will find in a year of travel. Henri d'Albret of Navarre picked out the site of the city in the midst of this fertile plain, and planned that it should increase and mul- tiply, if not in population, at least in pros- perity, though it was at first a '' private enter- prise," like Richelieu's garden-city in Touraine. The preeminence of Navarreux was short lived. Henri d'Albret had built it on the squared-off, straight-street, Chicago plan, had surrounded it with walls, and even had a for- tress built by Vauban, in the expectation of making it the commercial capital of the Pyre- 346 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces nees, but man proposes, and the lines of com- munication or trade disposes, and many a thought - to - be - prosperous town has finally dwindled into impotency. There was a good deal in the favour of Navarreux; its situation was central, and it was surrounded by a nu- merous population, but its dream was over in a couple of hundred years and the same year (1790) saw both its grandeur and its deca- dence. To-day it remains still a small town, tied to the end of an omnibus line which runs out from Orthez a dozen or fifteen kilometres away. The fortifications of Vauban are still there and a remarkable old city gate, called the Porte St. Antoine, a veritable gem of feudal architecture. The very dulness and disappointment of the place appeal to one hugely. One might do worse than doze away a little while here after a giddy round at Pan or Biarritz. Navarreux is of the past and lives in the past ; it will never advance. As a fortress it has been unclassed, but its walls one day guarded — as a sort of last line of defence — the route from Spain via Bongevaux and Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. In those days it certainly occupied a proud posi- tion in intent and in reality, as its citadel sat high on a little terrace-plateau, dominated in The ITa/Is of Xavarreux Orthez and the Gave d'Oloron 347 turn by the red dome of its church still higher up. The effect is still much the same, impotent though the city walls and ramparts have be- come. The route into Navarreux from the south is almost a tree-shaded boulevard, and crosses the Gave on an old five-arched bridge, so nar- row that one vehicle can scarcely pass, — to say nothing of two. This picturesque bridge was also the work of Henri d'Albret, the founder of the primitive city. This first foun- dation was a short distance from the present village. Its founder in a short time came to believe he had made a mistake, and that the bourg as it was placed would be too difficult to defend, so he tore it down in real northwest Dakota fashion, and built the present city. Louis XIV and Vauban had great plans for it, and would have done much, but Oloron in time relieved it of all pretensions to a distinc- tion, as, in turn. Pan robbed Oloron. Between Navarreux and Sauveterre, along the Gave d'Oloron, is a whole string of little villages and hamlets whose names are scarcely ever mentioned except by the local postman. It is a winsome valley, and the signs of civili- zation, pale though they be, throw no ugly shad- ows on the landscape. Midway between these 348 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces two little centres is Audaux, which possesses a vast seventeenth-century chateau, flanked with a series of high coiffed pavilions and great domes, like that of Valen^ay in Touraine. Its history is unimportant, and is rather vague, but a mere glance at its pompous or- nateness is a suggestion of the great contrast between the chateaux of the north and centre of France and those of the Midi. In the north the great residential chateaux, as contrasted with the fortress-chateaux, were the more nu- merous; here the reverse was the case, and the feudal chateau, which was more or less of a fortress, predominated. The Chateau d 'Au- daux, sitting high on its own little plateau, and surrounded by great chestnut trees, is al- most the peer of its class in these parts — from a grandiose architectural view point at any rate. Sauveterre, twenty kilometres from Navar- reux, is one of those old-time bourgs which puts its best side forward when viewed from a dis- tance. Eeally it is nothing but a grim old ruin, so far as its appeal for the pilgrim goes. Close acquaintance develops a squalor and lacka- daisical air which is not in the least in keeping with that of its neighbours. It is the ensemble of its rooftops and its delightful site which gives Oloron and the Val d'Aspe 349 Sauveterre almost its only charm. In the Mid- dle Ages it was a fortified town which played a considerable part in olden history. To-day the sole evidence that it was a place of any importance is found in a single remaining arch of its old bridge, surmounted by a defending tower similar to those which guard the bridges at Orthez and Cahors, but much smaller. There is another relic still standing of Sauve- terre 's one-time greatness, but it is outside the town itself. The grim, square donjon of the old Chateau de Montreal rises on a hilltop op- posite the town, and strikes the loudest note of all the superb panorama of picturesque sur- roundings. It was the guardian of the fate of Sauveterre in feudal times, and it is the guar- dian, or beacon, for travellers by road to-day as they come up or down the valley. Within the town there is, it should be men- tioned, a really curious ecclesiastical monu- ment, the thirteenth-century church, with a combination of Eomanesque and Gothic con- struction which is remarkable; so remarkable is it that in spite of its lack of real beauty the French Government has classed it as a '' Mon- ument Historique." The sublime panorama of the Pyrenees frames the whole with such a gra- cious splendour that one is well-minded to take 350 Old Navarre and tlie Basque Provincp^. the picture for the sake of the frame. This may be said of Tarbes as well, which is a really banal great town, but which has perhaps the most delightful Pyrenean background that ex- ists. Sauveterre is another centre for the manu- facture of rope-soled espadrilles, which in An- glo-Saxon communities are used solely by bath- ers at the seaside, but which are really the most comfortable and long-enduring footwear ever invented, and are here, and in many other parts of France, worn by a majority of the population. Up out of the valley of the Oloron and down again into that of the Bidouze, a matter of eighteen or twenty kilometres, and one comes to Saint-Palais which formerly disputed the title of capital of French Navarre with Saint- Jean-Pied-de-Port. This was because Henri d'Albret, king of Navarre, established his chancellerie here after the loss of Pamplona to Spain. Saint-Palais is what the French call a '' ville mignonne." Nothing else describes it. It sits jauntily perched on a tongue of mother earth, at the juncture of the Joyeuse and the Bidouze, and its whitewashed houses, its tiled roofs and its washed-down dooryards and pavements sug- Orthez and the Gave d'Oloron 351 gest that some of its inhabitants must one day have been in Holland, a place where they pay more attention to this sort of house-cleaning than anywhere else. Saint-Palais has no historical monuments; all is as new and shining as Monte Carlo or the Digue at Ostend, but its history of long ago is important. Before 1620 it was the seat of the sovereign court of French Navarre and possessed a mint where the money of the little state was coined. The most distinctive architectural monument of Saint-Palais, the modern church and the hybrid Palais de Justice being strictly ineli- gible, is the fronton for the game of pelote, Saint-Palais being one of the head centres for the sport. Arthur Young, a great traveller, an agricul- turist, and a writer of repute, passed this way in 1787. He made a good many true and just observations, more or less at hazard, of things French, and some others that were not so just. The following can hardly be literally true, and if true by no means proves that Jacques Bon- homme is not as good a man as his cousin John Bull, nor even that he is not as well nourished. " Chacun a son gout! " He said, writing of the operation of getting dinner at his inn : * ' I saw 352 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces them preparing the soup, the colour of which was not inviting; ample provision of cabbage, grease and water, and about as much meat, for a score of people, as half a dozen Suffolk farm- ers would have eaten, and grumbled at their host for short commons." What a condemna- tion to be sure, and what an unmerited one! The receipt is all right, as far as it goes, but he should have added a few leeks, a couple of carrots and an onion or two, and then he would have composed a houilli as fragrant and nour- ishing as the Englishman's chunks of blood-red beef he is for ever talking about. Our " agri- culturist " only learned half his lesson, and could not recite it very well at that. In the midst of a great plain lying between Saint-Palais, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Ba- yonne, perhaps fifty kilometres south of the left bank of the Adour, are the neighbouring little towns of Iholdy and Armendarits. The former is the market town of a vast, but little populated, canton, and a village as purely rus^ tic and simple as one could possibly imagine. Iholdy and its few unpretentious little shops and its quaint unworldly little hotel caters only to a thin population of sheep and pig growers, and their wants are small, save when they go afield to Peyrehorade, St. Jean or Bayonne. Orthez and the Gave d'Oloron 353 One eats of the products of the country here, and enjoys them, too, even if mutton, lamb and little pig predominate. The latter may or may not be thought a delicacy, but certainly it was better here than was ever met with before by the writer of these lines; and no prejudice prevented a second helping. Armendarits, Ilioldy's twin community, saw the birth of Eenaud d'Elissagory, who built what was practically the first gunboat. The birthplace of " Petit Renaud," as he was, and is still, affectionately called, the inventor of galiotes a homhes, is still inhabited and reck- oned as one of the sights of these parts. CHAPTER XXIV THE BIRTH OF FEENCH NAVARRE ^earn anQ JVavarre Hi if jr s^ CO '"^ G N t :aj Basse-Navarre or Navarre-Frangaise, to- gether witli Beam, made, under the Emperor Hadrian, a part of Aquitaine, The Roman conquest of Gaul was the first impetus given towards a coherent massing of the peoples. Formerly there had been many- tribes and races, but the three divisions made by the Romans reduced things to a minimum. Cisalpine Gaul was that part where the inhab- 864 The Birth of French Navarre 355 itants wore a sort of adaptation of the Roman toga. In Trans-Alpine Gaul, situated in the Rhone basin and along the Mediterranean be- tween Italy and Spain, the inhabitants wore braies or hragues — a sort of jacket extending down almost to the knees, a detail of dress which has evolved itself into the blouse, and perhaps even the great cloak of the mountain- eers of the Pyrenees. The remainder of an- cient Gaul was known as the country where the natives wore their long hair hanging, — liter- ally the Gaule chevelue. Through the times of Caesar the divisions became indifferently known by various names, until with Augustus there came to be four great divisions, the Narbonnaise, Aquitaine, Lyonnaise and Belgique. Towards the fifth century the Vascons, or Gascons, the ancient inhabitants of Spanish Cantabria, established themselves snugly in these well protected valleys of the Pyrenees. They warred with the Saracens, and for five centuries were in a continual uproar of battle and bloodshed. Among themselves, the dukes and counts of Gascogne quarrelled continuously, and dis- puted the sovereignty of the country with the Vicomtes de Beam. 356 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces In the ninth centnry a treaty was consum- mated which assured to Bernard, Comte d'Ar- magnac, the Comte de Gascogne, and to Gaston de Centulle the suzerainty of Beam, while Navarre came by heritage to the Comtes de Champagne, and in the thirteenth century to Philippe-le-Bel as a dot with Jeanne, his wife. In the same manner it came to the house of Evreux through Jeanne II, daughter of Louis- le-Hutin. With the marriage of Blanche II, the grand- daughter of Jeanne II, Navarre passed to the king of Aragon and to Eleonore, and later with the Comte de Foix et de Bigorre and the Vi- comte de Beam, went to Jean, Sieur d'Albret, with whom the history of the kingdom is so commonly associated, Jean d'Albret II, by reason of his marriage with Catherine of Beam, the heiress to the crown of Navarre, became joint ruler of the kingdom. He was a gentle, easy-going prince, liberal, but frivolous, and loved no serious oc- cupation in life. He was popular to excess and dined, say the chronicles, '' without ceremony, with any one who asked him," a custom which still obtains with many who are not descend- ants of a king of Navarre. He danced fre- quently in public with the wives and daugh- The Birth of French Navarre 357 ters of his subjects, a democratic proceeding which was not liked by his court, who told him that he '^ danced on a volcano." This in a measure was true, for he lost that part of the kingdom known as Spanish Navarre to Ferdi- nand of Aragon. Up to the commencement of the sixteenth century, the Royaume de Navarre occupied both slopes of the Pyrenees and had Pamplona for its capital, but in 1512, Ferdinand the Catholic, of Aragon, with the approbation of the Pope, usurped most of the territory and left the king of Navarre, the legitimate sove- reign, only a small morsel eight leagues long by five in width, with St. Jean-Pied-de-Porte as its principal city. A picturesque figure was Ferdinand, King of Aragon on his own part, King of Castille by Ms wife Isabella, and King of Grenada by con- quest; '* a heritor of three bastard crowns," he was called. At his death he was succeeded by the infamous and cruel Charles V. That which remained, French Navarre, was the portion of the united kingdom lying on the French slopes of the Pyrenees. The loss of the Spanish province was really due to the ex- communication of Jean d'Albret and Catherine 358 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces by the Pope, thus giving the Catholic Ferdi- nand power to compel a division. The then ruling monarchs of Beam and Navarre came to a sad realization of their position. It was this circumstance which gave birth to one of the famous mots of history. '* If we had not been born, we would not have lost Navarre," said the unhappy Catherine to her spouse. Previously, though, the region had been known as Basse-Navarre; and in Spanish, Navarra Baja, and had had its ^tats or Parle- ment, and its own special laws. Its Parlement was composed of three orders, the clergy, the noblesse and the tiers. Two great families stood out in Basse-Navarre in these times above all others, the Seigneurs de Grammont et Bidache and those of Lux and Ostabat. Beam at the time was composed of twelve an- cient baronies, the bishoprics of Lescar and Oloron, and the seigneuries of Navailles, An- doins, Lescun, Correze, Miossens, Arros and Lons. French Navarre — the Navarre-Frangaise — was by this time a reality and has been vari- ously known since to historians ; to the French as Basse-Navarre and Navarre du Nord; to the Spaniards as Navarra Baja; to the Basques The Birth of French Navarre 359 as Navarra-deca-ports, and Navarra-f rangia ; and to the kings of France as the Royaume de Navarre. Henri, son of Jean d'Albret, married the first Marguerite de Valois, sister of Francois I, the " Marguerite of Marguerites," The only- daughter of this marriage was wed with An- toine Bourbon- Vendome and became the mother of Henri IV. By an edict of 1620 Louis XIII united the crown of France with that of Navarre, Beam and the other patrimonial states. Such is the evolution of the little Royaume de Navarre and its incorporation into French domain. The king of Navarre's title was a formidable one, and even included the word monsieur. Princes, bishops, popes and saints were at that time known as Monsieur, a title even more dig- nified than Monseigneur, and the " Messieurs de France " were as much of the noblesse of France as were the " Milords d'Angleterre " of the nobility of England. The full title of the king of Navarre in the fifteenth century was as follows : — Monsieur Frangois-Phoebus, par la grace de Diou, Roi de Navarre, Due de Nemours, de Guandi, de Montblanc et de Penafiel, et, par la meme grace Comte de Foix, Seigneur de Beam, ^1B l-H o ID d U a> O 15^^ S *^ S -! u t* 0) d ja^'^ u > § j3 (u " g > o D C3 .s "^ -C J3 H i^ in c s <" -2 a vn a _ 3 ;s ^ .ti " -o 4J 4J M ^ -, >0 *i a, m Pi^-^ _ in -^ "" •« .2 © 4J - <» 4) rl .2 4> . 3 T3 a o d^ C3 rt 1- ".2 ^ a" ij "^ ?« r^ 9 "O o I- o u 3 p O et P5 41 V pq -a 4) •c T3 EQ 362 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces Comte de Bigorre et de Eivegorce, Vicomte de Castelbon, de Marsau, Gavardan et Nebouzan, Seigneur de la ville de Valaguer et Pair de France. The arms of Navarre have ever been a mys- tery to antiquarians, but it seems there is some ambiance of Basque tradition and folk-lore in The Arms of Navarre it all, in that there is an old Basque game which is played upon a diagram, or scale, traced upon The Birth of French Navarre 363 the ground, and following the principal out- lines of the blazonings of the ancient kings of Navarre. Which came first, the hen or the egg'i Authorities differ, and so it is with the Basque game of laz Marellas, and the royal arms of the Navarres. Labastide says the game came down from the time when the Basques of to- day were originally Phoenicians. If this be so, the royal arms were but a copy of something that had gone before. Certainly they form as curious and enigmatic an armorial device as is found in heraldry. The Royaume de Navarre has so completely disappeared and been so absorbed by France that it takes a considerable knowledge of geog- raphy and history to be able to place it pre- cisely upon the map of modern Europe, hidden away as it was in what are now the two arron- dissements of Bayonne and Saint-Palais. They were a noble race, the men of Beam and Navarre, the Basques especially, and the questionable traits of the cagots and gj'^psies have left but little impress on the masses. Henri IV, faithful in his sentiment for his first subjects, would have shown them his pre- dilection by allowing them to remain an inde- pendent monarchy. He would not that the 364 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces kingdom of his mother be mingled with that of France, but intriguing counsel prevailed and the alliance was made, though Navarre escaped conquest and was still ruled by the sceptre of its legitimate sovereign. How near France came to being ruled by Navarre instead of Navarre by France is re- called by the following bit of recorded history, When Philippe V (le Long) came to the throne of France (1316) his right was contested by many princes. Among others the crown was claimed by Jeanne de Navarre, but an assembly of bishops, seigneurs and bourgeois of Paris declared for the Salic law — which proscribed the right to rule the French to one of the female sex, and this against feudal rights as they were known and protected in the satellite kingdoms surrounding the royal domain. It was agreed later (by Philippe-le-Long) that if the widow of Louis X should have another female child, the rights appertaining to Navarre should be- long to her and her stepsister Jeanne, making it an independent monarchy again. When Philippe-le-Bel came to the throne of France it was his wife Jeanne who, by common consent, administered the affairs of Navarre. She chased the Aragonians and Castilians from her fair province, and put her people into a state The Birth of French Navarre 365 of security hitherto unknown. " She held," said Mezeray the historian, " every one en- chanted by her eyes, her ears, and her heart, and she was equally eloquent, generous and lib- eral." A veritable paragon of a woman evi- dently. Henri II, son of Catherine and Jean d'Albret II, succeeded to the throne of French Navarre at the age of thirteen. He followed the French king, Francois, to Italy, and was made pris- oner at the unfortunate battle of Pavia, finally escaping through a ruse. FranQois Premier, king of France, and Henri d'Albret, king of Navarre, each nourished an equal aversion for the king of Spain, the prime cause of that fateful day at Pavia. The first hated the Spanish monarch as a rival; the second as the usurper of his lands. They united arms, but the battle of Pavia, when ' ' all was lost save honour," gave matters such a setback that naught but time could overcome them. It was Henri II 's marriage with Marguerite of Valois, the Duchesse d'Alengon, in 1526, by which he acquired the Armagnac succession as a gift from his brother-in-law, Frangois Pre- mier, that brought to Navarre's crown nearly all of Guyenne. In 1555 the young king died 366 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces at Pau, leaving a daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, who with her second husband, Antoine de Bour- bon, Due de Vendome, succeeded to the throne. The new rulers did not attempt or accom- plish much, save to embrace Calvinism with zeal. Suffice to recall the well-known facts that Antoine died in 1562 from a wound received in the siege of Rouen, and that Jeanne herself died from the poison of the wicked Catherine de Medici's gloves at Paris. Their son, Henri III of Navarre, was the Henri IV of France. Bom at Pau in 1553, he was first only the Comte de Viane. When he came to Paris he would not have allied his Pyrenean possessions with those of France but for the pressure brought to bear upon him. He declared that his ancestral lands should re- main entirely separate, but the procureur gen- eral, La Guesle, forced his hand, and it was thus that the Royaume de France became aug- mented by Basse-Navarre, the Comtes d'Ar- magnac, Foix, d'Albret and Bigorre, the Duche de Vendome, the Comte de Perigord and the Vicomte de Limoges. The story of Beam and Navarre, for most folk, begins with those kings of Navarre who were also kings of France. The first of these was the white-plumed knight Henri III, Prince The Birth of French Navarre 367 of Beam, who became Henri IV of France. The France of the Valois, which strain died with Henri III, murdered by the black monk Clement, was much more narrow in its con- fines than now. In the northeast it lacked Lor- raine, Franche Comte, Bresse, Dombes and Bucey; in the south Roussillon, Beam and Basse-Navarre, and there was a sort of quasi- independence observed by the former great states of Bretagne, Bourgogne and Dauphine. With the coming of the king of Navarre to the throne of France, the three great move- ments which took place in the religious situa- tion, the manners and customs of the court and noblesse, and in the aspirations of the people gave an aspect of unity and solidarity to France. The religious question was already momen- tous when Henri IV was crowned, and Protes- tantism and its followers were gaining ground everywhere, though the real Frangais — the Guises and the Bourbons, the princes of Lor- raine and the '* princes of the blood " — were on the side of Catholicism, and had their swords ever unsheathed in its behalf. The court, in the midst of this great religious quarrel, was also in a state of transition. Cath- erine and her gay troupe of damsels had passed, 368 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces as also had Charles IX, who died shortly after the Huguenot massacre of St. Bartholomew's night. His brother, and successor to the throne, Henri III, Due d'Anjou, was a weakling, and he too died miserably at the point of the assassin's knife, and few seemed to regret the passing of him who devoted himself more to monkeys, parrots and little dogs than to statecraft. Henri of Beam was the strong man in public view, and of him great things were expected by all parties in spite of his professed Cal- vinism of the time. It was during the reign of the feeble-witted Henri III that Henri, king of Navarre, became the titular head of the Huguenots ; thus abjur- ing the Catholic religion that he had previously embraced under pressure. The Protestant League became a powerful institution, and the gentilshommes of Beam, Guienne, Poitou and Dauphine became captains in the cause, just as the gentilshommes of Picardie and Artois be- came captains of Catholicism. The whole scheme was working itself out on traditional hereditary lines; it was the Protestantism of the mountains against the Catholicism of the lowlands. As for the people, the masses, they simply stood by and wondered, ready for any innovation which augured for the better. Arms of Henri IJ^ of France and Xavarre The Birth of French Navarre 369 This was the state of France upon the coming of Henri IV to the throne, and the joining of Basse-Navarre and Beam to the royal domain. Unquestionably it is a fact that the feudal- ity in France ceased only with the passing of Louis XI, and the change in the Pyrenean states was contemporary. The Renaissance made great headway in France, after its im- portation from Italy at the hands of Charles VIII and his followers. Constantinople had been taken ; art and letters were everywhere in the ascendency; printing had been invented; and America was on the verge of being discov- ered. The golden days of the new civilization were about dawning. The Renaissance here in Beam and Navarre, under the shadow of the Pyrenees, flowered as it did nowhere else out of Italy, so far as its application to life and letters went. Many celebrated litterateurs and poets had been per- secuted and chased from France, and here they found a welcome refuge. To remark only two, Desperriers and Marat, it is interesting to note that the sympathetic Marguerite of Navarre took them under her patronage, and even made them valets de chamhre. Marguerite's passions were, according to the historians, noble, but according to the roman- 370 Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces cers they were worldly. Said Erasmus: " Elle etait chaste et peu sujette aux passions/' and contemporary historians agree with him ; while Marat, the poet valet de chambre, wrote the following : — " Que je suis serf d'un monstre fort strange, Monstre je dis, car pour tout vrai, elle a Corps f^miniu, coeur d'homme et t§te d'ange." In 1574 Brantome, the chronicler, had fin- ished his military career and was retained by Henri III of France as a gentleman of the bed- chamber. Here he passed through many af- fairs of intrigue and the heart. In 1581 he received a mission to go and interview the king of Navarre, for which he received the sum of six hundred ecus soleil. Wliat the subject of this mission was no one knows; there is no further mention of it either in the works of Brantome or the letters of the king of Navarre, but at any rate he became enamoured of Mar- guerite, and his account of his first meeting with her is one of the classic documents of French history. ^' I dare to say," said he, ^' that she was si belle et si admirable that all the three hundred persons of the assembly were ravished and astounded." It is on Marguerite of Navarre, no less than The Birth of French Navarre 371 on the plumed Henry, that the popular interest in Navarre and its history has been built. A Brief Chronology of French and Spanish Navarre Spanish Navarre came to be annexed to the Spanish crown in 1512 through the efforts and energies of Ferdinand the Catholic king of Aragon. French Navarre virtually came to France in 1328, but its independent monarchs since that time have been; Jeanne II (et Philippe) 1328 Charles II (le Mauvais) 1349 Charles IH 1387 Jean II (et Blanche) 1425 El^onore 1479 Phoebus de Foix 1479 Catherine (et Jean d'Albret IT) 1484 Henri U 1517 Jeanne d'Albret (et Antoine de Bourbon) 1555 Henri III 1589-1610 It was Henri III of Navarre who became Henri IV of France and it was he who first brought the little kingdom to the crown of France, the double title being borne by his suc- cessors up to the abdication of Charles X in 1830. CHAPTER XXV THE BASQUES .^^M _^^ / ,_^^^ /wrl&^^^^ \^^^^c\l ™n| BIARR5TZ J^^^^^^^^^^^\\^. : GOLFE or ^^^^^^•'^'^S^^Sl^^^^^^X^^ -i^^^Sl^^SSl . Fonts Sr:^B{«IJEW ^^^^f^^ijl '^_!^^^h^M'R'^^_^-~ 181, 182, 184, 185-196, 197, 199, 202, 209, 213, 214, 315, 335, 343 Foix, Comte de, i, 8, 9, 17, 53, 76, 175-177, 181-184, 197, 201, 202, 2o8-2oq, 211, 212, 221, 244, 256, 356, z^^ Foix, Counts of, 148, 176-184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190-195, 198, 199, 205, 208, 209, 231, 268, 311, 342 Fontainebleau, 42 Foulques, Nerra, 43, 210 Fournier, Gaston (see Benoit XII) Foy, General, 342, 343 Frangois I, 21, 23, 64, 97, 365, 41S-416, 437-439, 445 Frayras, 198 Froissart, 185, 194, 266, 298, 309, 335. 336, 338 Frontignan, 15 Gabas, 295 Gan, 277, 288 Gar at, M., 74 Gard, 9, 15, 16 Gascogne, 8, 84, 197, 240, 256, 273. 286, 355, 356 Gassion, Jean de, 275-277 Gaston Phoebus de Foix, 4, 8, 178-180, 185, 191, 192, 193, 210, 233, 240, 261, 266, 267, 268, 310, 315, 336-339, 342, 343, 344 Gautier, Theophile, 373 Gavarnie, 58, 62, 254, 321 Gibraltar, 3 Ginestas, 15 Gorges de Pierre Lys, 3, 156- 157 Gorges de St. Georges, 152, 158-159 Grammont Family, 244-246, 358 Gregory VII, 265 Grenada, 3, 66 Grotte de Mas d'Azil, 213-214 Gudanne, Chateau de, 177 Guiche, Chateau de, 246 Gustavus Adolphus, 276 Guienne, 8, 9, 365 Hadrian, 354 Hannibal, 81, 96, 120 Haro, Don Louis de, 439 Hastingues, 246 Haute-Garonne, 9 Haute-Languedoc, 8, 9 Hautes- Pyrenees, 9, 84, 87, 297 Hendaye, 80, 436, 439, 440- 442, 445 Henri II of France, 229, 267 Henri II of Navarre, 232, 283 Henri III of France, 367, 368, 370 Henri III of Navarre (see Henri IV of France) Henri IV of France, 3, 7, 13, 24, 84, 178, 180, 181, 196, 213, 231, 232, 233-235, 239, 2/14, 245, 260, 261, 263, 264, 268, 270-275, 277, 283, 288, 295, 296, 299, 308-309, 327, 359, 363, 366-371, 429 Henry VIII of England, 282 Herault, 9, 15, 16, 89 Hospitalet, 140, 146-147, 148 Honorius III, 188 Huesca, 47 Hugo, Victor, 254, 333, 373, 434 Huguet, Pierre, 107 Iholdy, 352, 353 He des Faisans, 63, 97, 436, 437-439 Innocent VIII, 227 Irun, 80, 436-437, 439, 442, 445 Index 453 Isabella of Castile, 97, 357 Itxassou, Chateau, 412 James I of Aragon, 96 Jean II of Roussillon, 96-97 Jurangon, 264, 271 Lagarde, Fortress of, 139, 140 La Bastide-de-Serou, 25, 202 La Garde, Chateau de, 218 La Gaucherie, 272 Laghat, Notre Dame de, 204 La Guesle, 366 Landes, The, 9, 13, 52, 53, 59, 84 Languedoc, 14, 15. 55, 77, 87, 197, 201, 238, 240, 286 Lanne and Its Chateau, 251- 252 Laon, Gerard de, 336-337 Laruns, 287, 288-293, 296 Larlenque, 198 Lascaveries, 265 Lasse and Its Chateau, 398- 399, 400 Lastours, Chateau of, 174 Latour-de-France and Its Chateau, 103 Laurens, Jean Paul, iy2 Laustan, Chateau de, 407-408 Le Boulou, 136, 137 Le Puy, 210 Les Andelys, 41 Lescar, 272, 278-284, 285, 302, 326 I.csscps, De. 153 Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (sec Saintes Maries) Le Vigne, 198 Levis, Guy de, 200, 201 Levis-Ajac, Frangois de, 201 Lezignan, 15 Limoux. 15, 104, 153, 171, 172, 173-174 Littre, 76 Llagone, 114 Lorris, Guillaume de, 22 Lothaire, 122, 124, 128 Loti, Pierre, 442 Louis IX, 43, 56, 96, 163, 164, 208, 256 Louis X, 18, 364 Louis XI, 35, 96-97, 116, 119, 123, 124, 126, 181, 330, 338, 369 Louis XIII, 97, 112, 116, 123, 140, 189, 209, 359, 397, 433, 437 Louis XIV, 23, 7:i, 108, 136, 140, 142, 182, 189, 228, 27s, 347, 398, 430, 432-433 Louis XV, 68, 121, 201 Louis Philippe, 261 Lourdat, Chateau de, 39, 177, 209-210 Lourdes and Its Chateau, 2, 3, 8, 39, 42, 282, 300, 313- 317. Louvie-Soubiron, 292 Luchon, 2, 3, 8, 25, 46, 64, 70, 137, 208, 222, 233, 301, 303, 304-306, 323 Luna, Pierre de, 116, 124 Lunel, 15 Luther, Martin, 327 Luz, 320-321, 322, 323 Luzenac, 209 Lyons, 28 Madrid, 3, 64, 67, 81, 99, 184 Madron, 198 Majorca. Kings of, 96, 112, 116, 122, 128 Mansard, 23 Marat, 369 Marbore, Tours de, 255 Marca, Pierre de, 08, 277, 288 Marseilles, 3, 28, 48, 115, 117, 163. 240 Mas d'Azil, 213-214 Mauleon and Its Chateau. 2, 71, 247-250, 252, 378. 387 Maupassant . Guy dc, no Maures, Chateau de, 207 Mazarin, 439 454 Index Mazeres and Its Thateau, 2, 8, 178, 186, 197, 198 Medici, Catherine de, 234- 235, 366, 367 Meilleraye, Marechal de la, 123 Mende, 185 Mercier, 172 Merimee, Prosper, 163 Meseray, 365 Michaud, 267 Mirabel, Chateau de, 218 Mirepoix, 184, 193, 200-201 Moncade Family, 176, 231 Montauban, 16, 36, 52, 60, 340 Montelimar, 17 Montesquieu, 23 Montfort, Simon de, 165, 176, 187, 200 Montgomery, 311, 313, 339 Montjoie, 214 Mont Louis, 81, 144 Montmorenci, 181 Montory, 250 Montpellier, 8, 15, 56 Montreal, Chateau de, 206, 247, 349 Montrejeau, 222 Montsegur, Chateau de, 201 Morlaas, 2, 261, 284-286 Nadaud, Gustave, 162, 170- 172, 174 Naples, 125 Napoleon I, 30, 71, 293, 400, 447 Napoleon III, 263, 423 Narbonne, 15, 55, 120, 127, 152, 153 Nassaure, Chateau de, 198 Navarre, i, 9, 28, 46, 62, y6, 176, 186, 231, 240, 281, 354- 371, 396, 403 Navarre Family, 30, 231, 239, 256, 280, 330-332 Navarreux, 2, 345-348 Navarrino, 8i Nay, 2, 310 Nice, 59, 305 Nimes, 56, iii Noailhan, Chateau de, 218 Nogarede, Chateau de, 198 Nogent, 42 Notre Dame de Chateau, 127 Notre Dame de Consolation, 126 Odos, Chateau d', 302 Oloron, 28, 250, 251, 252, 265, 308, 324-327, 347 Orphila, Guillaume de Puig de, 124 Orth, Vicomte d', 416 Orthe, Vicomtes d', 246 Orthez and Its Chateau, 28, 186, 308, 325, 335-346, 349 Ossun and Its Chateau, 300- 301 Palada, 138 Palissy, Bernard, 51 Pamiers, 53, 181, 186, 196, 197, 199-200 Pamplona, 248, 281, 350, 357, 395, 396, 399, 402-404 Paris, 3, 28, 31, 42, 56, 64, 67, 81, 82, 138, 154, 161, 190, 234, 249, 253, 274, 280, 291, 292, 377, 378, 379, 384, A2i, A27 Pas de Roland, 405-406 Pau and Its Chateau, 2, 3, 8, 9, 24, 39, 42, 46, 47, 60, 61, 64, 66, III, 121, 163, 186, 22,2, 233, 245, 252, 258-277, 279, 283, 285, 288, 300, 301, 302, 308, 309, 321, 335, 339, 346, 347, 366, 384, 396, 42s Pau, Guillem de, \i:^% ^-c °^ A^.«J4:%V rP^.^1^% °o .-^^.'J^^^V ( ♦ ^^ 'i^ "^ O 4^ 'bV •-^0^ h* *< ^' /\ V G "^ "^^ -^.T*' A <» *''77 JO '^. '"^* -i^^ .. "°-^ ••-»' yj' ^^ "^ '"'• ^V • «? «^. o^ '^o^ * q, '•?rr«* .0^ "^tf^ **•"•' -^"^ OOBBSBROS. '^ ^A* , laiiAiiT iiNoiNa ^lO ,C,' UN t); - T. AUGUSTINE <> *'7V.* .0 j-IBRARY OF CONGRESS 030 222 818 8