A Book of the Pyrenees

A striking incident is remembered. One of the friars was at the altar when the Huguenots burst in. He hastily took the monstrance, folded his arms over it, and to save the Host from profanation, threw himself into the Gave. The river swept his body into the Bidouze, and the Bidouze into the Adour, and it was washed up under the walls of the Cordelier Convent at Bayonne, still clasping in its rigid arms the vessel with its sacred contents.

Terride, accompanied by the principal chiefs, had retreated into the castle, but with such precipitation that they had forgotten to take in a supply of provisions. Consequently in a few days they were forced to surrender, under oath from Montgomery that their lives would be spared.

They were sent to Pau, ten barons of Béarn in all. One evening they were invited by the Calvinist captain to dine with him at his table in the Queen’s banqueting hall. During the meal they shook off their despondency, and began to be merry over their cups, when, at a signal from Montgomery, soldiers entered and butchered all the barons about the table where they had been feasting.

“This cruel execution,” says Favyn, in his History of Navarre, “took place on 24 August, the feast of S. Bartholomew… The news angered King Charles greatly, and it is supposed that he then formed the resolution of making a second S. Bartholomew’s Day in expiation of the first.” So one crime draws on another – a Nemesis, which, however, does not fall on the criminals, but on the guiltless. Montgomery was now master of Béarn. How many priests and monks were slaughtered none knew. Nearly all the friars of Morlaas were shot down. The prior of the Carmelites at Sauveterre was hung, and the rest of the brethren thrown into a well till they choked it up. All the priests caught near S. Sever were led to the brow of a precipice and forced at the point of pikes to leap down. At Orthez the prior of the Augustines was ordered to mount the pulpit and recant. He ascended, but it was to profess his adherence to the Catholic faith, whereupon he was shot in the pulpit. All his seven brethren met their fate with like heroism. They were made to walk down a lane formed of Huguenot soldiers with swords drawn, and were hacked to pieces, one after another.

The Calvinist soldiers did not even respect the dead. They broke open the vault in which lay Gaston Phœbus, took his skull, and played skittles with it. Great numbers of gentlemen and their families, Catholics of every rank and sex, fled to the mountains or crossed into Spain.

Montgomery, having finished with Béarn, left the command with the Baron d’Arros, and departed for more active work elsewhere. Jeanne d’Albret now dispatched injunction after injunction, proclamation after proclamation, in one continuous stream, into Béarn from her refuge in La Rochelle. On 28 November, 1569, she required that Calvinistic worship should be established everywhere, in every town and parish, throughout her dominions; and in 1571 she forbade the celebration of the Mass under pain of death. She would allow an amnesty to such as had taken up arms during the late troubles, but only on condition that they adopted her form of religion.

In 1572 Jeanne died in Paris, not without suspicions of poison. She had gone there to negotiate the marriage of her son Henry with Marguerite de Valois, sister of Charles IX.

An excursion may be made to the Castle of Belocq, whose towers are visible from the high road to Bayonne, on the further side of the Gave. It is situated on a height, at the feet of which the green river sweeps past the wooded slopes on the farther bank.

The castle is ruinous. It consists of a large, irregular yard with seven towers in the wall. The entrance gateway is under a donjon. Through a little door one can mount to the top by a flight of stone steps, disturbing the bats. On the same side of the enclosure is a circular tower, octagonal within, with a vaulted chamber in the basement. On the west side is a beautiful little chamber in a tower, also vaulted. One tower towards the river, and commanding it, has been blown up and a great solid mass has fallen into the river below; on it sit the washerwomen of the village beating their linen. On the right bank, opposite Belocq, is the village of Puyôo. Puyôo in patois signifies a tumulus, and the place takes its name from a huge mound hollowed out as a cup at the top. Certainly the substructure of a Frank wooden castle, exactly like the tumps that are found in Southern Wales, and the representations of fortresses in the Bayeux tapestry. The hamlet of Puyôo is occupied mainly by Calvinists.

But that which will mainly interest an Englishman at Orthez will be to go over the ground of the battle fought on 27 February, 1814, in which Lord Wellington defeated Marshal Soult. It was, in fact, one of his most brilliant victories.

Leaving Sir John Hope and Admiral Penrose to invest Bayonne, Wellington, with the main force, had pushed on in pursuit of the French under Soult. These were drawn up at Sauveterre, but whilst Wellington demonstrated upon the front of the line on which Soult rested, and whilst the attention of the marshal was wholly engaged by the movements in his front, Sir Rowland Hill crossed the Gave d’Oloron at Villenave without opposition on 24 February and turned his left. Upon this Soult hastily abandoned his ground, transferred his headquarters to Orthez, and took up a formidable position behind the Gave de Pau.

The position chosen by him was well selected and apparently impregnable. A half-moon of heights of sandstone and rubble, steep towards the west, and with gullies torn in the sides, was occupied by him. His right rested on the bluff above the village of S. Boës. The left flank rested on the town of Orthez. A reserve of two divisions of infantry and a brigade of cavalry were drawn up on an elevated and commanding height by the road to Sault de Navailles. The French marshal disposed of eight divisions of infantry and one of cavalry, but these had been wasted from their former strength, and hardly mustered forty thousand sabres and bayonets, with forty guns.

Wellington was able, unopposed, to cross the Gave in three places, in three advancing columns.

At daybreak on the 27th Beresford, with the left wing, commenced the action by turning the enemy’s extreme right at S. Boës, whilst at the same time Picton assaulted the centre. Hill, with the second British and Le Cor’s Portuguese brigade, was to endeavour to force the passage at Orthez and attack the enemy’s left. There was an interval of a mile and a half between Beresford’s and Picton’s columns, and here was a conical hill occupied by a Roman camp on the summit, and separated by a marsh from the semilunar range held by the French. On this height in the midst of the camp Wellington took his station with his staff, having the whole battle spread out like a map before him. Beresford, having overlapped the French right, commenced a vigorous attack in front and flank on the village of S. Boës. At length the English reached the top of the hill, and, pursuing the enemy, began to move along the narrow ridge which stretched from S. Boës to the centre of the French position. But they failed to dislodge the enemy, who kept up a rolling fire upon their pursuers, and the artillery raked both flanks, occasioning dreadful carnage, so that the English were brought to a stand-still. At the same time a Portuguese brigade, completely unnerved, turned and fled in disorderly rout, throwing our own men into confusion.

Happily a brigade was moved up to cover the retreat of the Portuguese and allow our own men to recover and re-form. “At last I have him!” exclaimed Soult exultantly. Wellington, from his point of observation, saw that the effort to dislodge the French and roll them back on their centre had failed. He then executed one of those sudden and masterly changes of attack which exhibit the ready resource of a great general. He at once ordered up the third and sixth divisions to assail the centre of the enemy’s position, and turn and take the right wing in flank. Simultaneously Picton was to mount the ridge where the French had their right centre, and, breaking the line of formation, drive it back on to the left. The gallant troops crossed the swamp, with the water up to their knees, and mounting the hill through the brushwood unperceived by the foe, amidst the smoke, with a loud shout and a withering fire plunged into the opening at the very moment that the French on the right were pressing their advantage against Beresford, and were driving the fourth division before them.

At the same time Picton reached the summit of the ridge in the middle, drove the French down the slope, and, planting his guns, plunged through the enemy’s masses from one end of his position to the other.

Soult saw that the day was lost, and ordered the army to retreat, which it did in regular echelons of divisions, and they held the several positions taken up till the allies closed on their front and moved upon their flank, Hill having by this time crossed above Orthez and cut off the retreat by the road to Pau. Then the French broke their formation, and ran for Sault de Navailles with such speed that the great body of them passed over the bridge in a wild, terror-stricken crowd. However, nearly two thousand prisoners were taken in the pursuit, and several guns. The French loss in killed, wounded, and taken, exceeded six thousand, and some hundreds afterwards deserted, or rather disbanded, and went to their homes. The loss of the allies amounted to 2300.

It is pleasing to know what excellent discipline was maintained by Wellington in his march through the Gascon land from Bayonne to Toulouse. This was due not solely to humanity towards the peasantry, but also as a precaution to obviate insurrectionary movements in his rear. He issued a proclamation, authorizing the people of the country, under the mayors of the villages, to arm themselves, and arrest all stragglers and marauders from the army. Allison says: —

“Nor did his proclamation remain a dead letter, for on the night of the 25th the inhabitants of a village on the high road leading from Sauveterre, having shot one British soldier who had been plundering, and wounded another, he caused the wounded man to be hung, and sent home an English colonel who had permitted his men to destroy the municipal archives of a small town on the line of march. ‘Maintain the strictest discipline; without that we are lost,’ said he to General Freyre. By this means tranquillity was preserved in his rear during this critical movement; and the English general reaped the fruits of the admirable discipline and forbearance he had maintained in the enemy’s country, by being enabled to bring up all his reserves, and hurl his undivided force upon the hostile army.”

CHAPTER VI

PAU

Situation – Climate – Stillness of the air – Castle – Abd-el-Kader – Thackeray on his imprisonment – View of the Pyrenees – Henry II of Navarre – His escape from Pavia – Marguerite des Marguerites – What Henry II did for Béarn – Refugee Huguenot preachers – Solon and his many wives – Clement Marot – His Psalms – The Queen an odd mixture – Story of Mlle. de la Roche – Jeanne d’Albret – Marries the Duke of Cleves – Then Antoine de Bourbon – His murder planned – Birth of Henry IV – Cradle – Bilhère – Reared at Coarraze – Death of Antoine – Intolerance of Jeanne – Meeting with Charles IX – Gondin’s unfortunate pleasantry – Marguerite de France’s visit to Pau – The Count of Moret – A mysterious hermit – Henry IV tolerant – The Baron d’Arros – Demand for the columns of Bielle – La Poule au Pot – Lescar – Mosaics – A Roman villa – Gassion – Bernadotte – Morlaas – Pont-long – Legend – Coarraze – Betharam – A flying Virgin – Jurançon wine.

The situation of Pau is singularly favoured, and one can appreciate the judgment of Henry II of Navarre in transferring thither the court residence from Orthez. Pau occupies the back of a rubble ridge stretching east and west, facing the south, and drinking in the sunlight and warmth. It does not suffer from cold winds. The land rises behind it to the north, and one may see the clouds fly overhead without feeling the air stir at Pau. The calmness of the atmosphere often persists for weeks together.

In this it has an advantage over some of the towns of the French Riviera, where the mistral cuts like a knife that has been frozen in an ice-pail. The bitter winds that sweep down on the Riviera are produced by the snows of the Maritime Alps. But there are no snows at the back of Pau. When there is no breeding ground for icy winds, no icy winds are hatched.

But, on the other hand, a good deal of rain is brought up and discharged over Pau, coming from the Atlantic; and a whole month may elapse without the promenaders on the terrace being able to catch a glimpse of the Pic du Midi d’Ossau. The Girondin climate is notoriously rainy, especially in spring; but nothing can surpass the splendour of the days in summer and autumn.

Mrs. Ellis, who wrote her Summer and Winter in the Pyrenees in 1841, says: —

“At the foot of the woody range of high ground forming the promenade runs the broad, shallow river Gave, with a perpetual low murmur that lulls the senses to repose. It is, in fact, the only sound we hear, for there is so little wind in this climate that not a leaf is seen to move, and we therefore distinguish at a greater distance the toll of the matin and vesper bell in the neighbouring villages, and the tinkling sounds which tell when the flocks are led to and from the fields. There appears at first a sort of mystery in this universal stillness. It seems like a pause in the breath of Nature, a suspension of the general throb of life, and we almost feel as if it must be followed by that shout of joy which the language of poetry has so often described as the grateful response of Nature for the blessings of light and life. And never, surely, could this response be offered more appropriately than from such a scene as this rich and fertile land presents.”

It was due to this climatic condition that in the first half of last century patients in the early stages of consumption were dispatched to Pau. Now that the treatment of phthisis is revolutionized, it is no longer a resort for such as suffer from pulmonary complaints, but serves as a refuge from the stormy English winters for those who desire pleasant resting places where there are races, fox-hunting, and good company. The climate, however, does not agree with all constitutions. It is enervating, a land of lotus-eaters —

“In which it seemed always afternoon.”

Pau, the old Pau, is attached on the north to the dreary lande of the Pont-long that has belonged from time immemorial to the inhabitants of the Val d’Ossau, and which is strewn with tumuli. But from this plateau it is in part cut off by the stream Hédas, that has cleft for itself a valley dividing the town into two parts. New Pau has spread and is spreading to north and east, so that its extremities have to be reached by electric trams. Happily, to the west it cannot encroach on the rubble ridge occupied by the park. Between this park and the castle which occupies the extreme west of the town the ridge has been sawn through by the stream, but the gap has been widened artificially, and is now spanned by a bridge.

The Castle of Pau was built at various dates. The four towers and the curtain uniting them, except the south and east faces, are the oldest part, and were erected by Gaston Phœbus in or about 1363. The donjon to the east is of brick, and is furnished with slots. The work begun by Gaston Phœbus was continued by his successor, but the magnificent south façade, the state buildings, and the enrichment of the court within, in the style of the Renaissance, are due to Henry II of Navarre; and the sixth tower was set up by Louis Philippe.

The whole castle, especially the interior, has gone through a complete restoration, for it had been plundered and gutted by the Revolutionists. The tapestries that now cover the walls were collected from various places. The furniture, to a large extent modern, is a clumsy imitation of old work; there are, however, some fine ancient cabinets. In this castle was confined for a while Abd-el-Kader. In 1848 I visited him there several times. He had with him a suite and his wives, all insensible to the stateliness of the castle and the glorious panorama from the windows. They lounged about the rooms silent and smoking, sulky, without occupation and without interests. Their habits were so dirty that the tapestries and rich furniture had all to be removed. Abd-el-Kader had maintained a long and gallant resistance against the French, and when he surrendered to the Duc d’Aumale and General Lamorcière, it was on the stipulation that he should be allowed to retire in freedom to Egypt or into Syria. The terms were accepted and broken. He was removed a prisoner to Toulon, then to Pau, and in November, 1848, he was transferred to Amboise. Napoleon III released him in 1852, and he finally settled in Damascus. In the terrible massacre of the Christians at Damascus in the summer of 1860, by Turks and Druses, Abd-el-Kader acted with such energy to protect the Christians that the Emperor of the French sent him the gold cross of the Legion of Honour. Possibly enough he may have been moved to this intervention on behalf of the Christians by recollecting the kindness that was shown him in his captivity by both English and French residents at Pau, sending him fruit and flowers for the ladies of his harem.

It was during his imprisonment at Toulon that Thackeray wrote his stirring lines: —

“No more, thou lithe and long-winged hawk, of desert life for thee;
No more across the sultry sands shalt thou go swooping free;
Blunt idle talons, idle beak, with spurning of thy chain,
Shatter against the cage the wing thou ne’er mayst spread again.

* * * * *

“They gave him what he asked; from king to king he spake
As one that plighted word and seal not knoweth how to break;
‘Let me pass from out my deserts, be’t mine own choice where to go,
I brook no fettered life to live, a captive and a show.’

“And they promised and he trusted them, and proud and calm he came,
Upon his black mare riding, girt with his sword of flame:
Good steed, good sword, he rendered unto the Frankish throng;
He knew them false and fickle – but a Prince’s word is strong.

“How have they kept their promise? Turned they the vessel’s prow
Upon Acre, Alexandria, as they have sworn e’en now?
Not so: from Oran northwards the white sails gleam and glance,
And the wild hawk of the desert is borne away to France.

“They have need of thee to gaze on, they have need of thee to grace
The triumph of the Prince, to gild the pinch-beck of their race.
Words are but wind, conditions must be construed by Guizot:
Dash out thy heart, thou desert hawk, ere thou art made a show.”

With the exception of the castle there is nothing of architectural interest in Pau. The churches are modern, and the predominant feature of the place is hotels, monster hotels that even dwarf the castle.

But the great glory of Pau is the view of the chain of the Pyrenees from the terrace and the park. That from the Schänzle above Berne of the giants of the Oberland is beautiful, but not comparable with the prospect from Pau. All the middle distance in the view from Berne is filled up with rolling hills, and it is over them that one catches glimpses of the snowy heads of the Alps. But from Pau one has in front the broad trough of the Gave, beyond which are the coteaux, not too high, and not obscuring the lower parts of the mountains. It is true that an obnoxious swell to the south-west cuts off the prospect of the range to the Bay of Biscay, but the mountain range can be traced eastward till it fades into vapour, and the mountains on that side are by far the boldest and loftiest. Moreover, one can look from Pau right up the gap of the Val d’Ossau to the roots of the Pic du Midi, an exquisitely beautiful mountain, only surpassed by the Matterhorn; and it has this advantage over its rival, that it can be seen from a great distance, which the other cannot.

Below the terrace of the castle rises the insignificant tower of la Monaye, where the specie for circulation in Béarn and the annexed counties was coined.

In the second chapter I told the story of the House of Foix and Béarn down to the death of Catherine, who ate out her heart with rage because she could not acquire the kingdom of Upper Navarre, to which she laid claim. Her son and successor was Henry II of Navarre.