A Midsummer Drive Through the Pyrenees Part 16

The kitchen itself is roomy and neat; the floor is of large, flat stones, the square embrasures of the windows are relieved with earthen pots of flowers. Full panoply of tins and trenchers and other implements of cheer hang in order against the walls or line the worn wooden shelves,--many of them strange in shape and of unconjectured use. Over all, there is that deft, subtle knowledge of place displayed by its busy inmate, a lifelong wontedness to surroundings, indefinable and unconscious, which fascinates us, and which reminds us that the same scene may be to one habituated to it the most iterated of commonplace and to new-comers often alive with novelty and interest.

At the window, meanwhile, other tragedies are enacted. The daughter is not idle. Here is a low, tiled shelf, with three square, sunken hollows, each lined with tiling and bottomed by an iron grating. Into these have been thrown small embers from the fire; the draught fans them into a flame, and above, three flat pans make their toothsome holdings to sizzle and sputter with infinite zest. This arrangement serves to the full every purpose of an oven, and does away with the range and all its c.u.mbrous accompaniments. One is impressed with its obvious but effective simplicity.

In very brief time an appetizing dejeuner of seven courses is being ceremoniously served in the now airy dining-room,--interrupted throughout, to the good woman's unlessened wonder and our own enjoyment, by the journeys of some of us across to the kitchen at the end of each course to watch the preparation of the next.

The dame thaws out momently under our evident good-will, and as she brings in the cherries and cakelets, she ventures in turn to stand near the door, and is even pleased when we renew the conversation. Her husband, we learn, used to have charge of a little customs-station near the frontier; now they have this inn; it is pleasanter for him; one offends so many in a customs-post. They put by something each year; it is not much; many pause here during the summer, coming from Eaux Bonnes or Cauterets. Some seasons there are diligences running, which is better; for without them many go around by the railroad.

"But you, madame," I ask,--"you have traveled too by the railroad?"

"Yes, monsieur, a little; we have been several times to Pau; once we were at Bayonne."

"And do you prefer the cities?"

"We like better the mountains, monsieur; one can breathe here, and is not dependent."

The charge for the luncheon would be three francs each; she is glad that her visitors have been pleased; and our extra gratuity is the more appreciated because it seems wholly unexpected.

There is a monastery just out from the town. It is but a short walk, we are told, so while the horses are brought around, two of us explore. We follow a shaded avenue, triply garnished at the left with a brook, a foot-path and a long-row of small cottages; and soon mount a short hill, pa.s.s through an open gateway, and are before the churchly pile. Not a soul is about the place, and we have to look into the building entirely unciceroned. An apartment opening wide from the main hall is evidently some priest's oratory. We venture to peer tentatively in through the doorway. The room is plain, containing beside other furniture a small crucifix, a shrine, and a praying-chair,--and nearer us a recent number of _Figaro_ open on the table. Thus it goes: the secular blending harmoniously with the spiritual.

The place is known as _Poey le Houn_ or Hill of the Fountain; its site commands an extensive view, but otherwise there appears little about it that is distinctively interesting,--save as it is one of the fortunate Catholic inst.i.tutions of the Lavedan spared from Montgomery's Huguenot raids. The chapel, entered from without by another portal, is sombre and rather large. We feel lonesome and intrusive without some guide, and do not examine it very carefully. A few towels are bleaching in the sun, on the paved court before the chapel,--the only sign of recent human presence. It is the home of brotherly deeds, and we piously turn the towels to bleach on the other side.

V.

We start again on the afternoon's drive with renewed zest. The hostess allows herself the luxury of several friendly smiles as the carriages move, and we give her farewell and good wishes in return. Umbrellas and parasols quickly go up to screen from the sun, and we lean restfully back, in contented antic.i.p.ation of the remaining half of the day's ride.

At our right, for a while, at the far end of a valley, we have a mountain in view, whiter than common with excess of snow. This is the _Balatous_, craggy, irregular and weird, too far off to be imposing, yet one of the highest of the range. It is not an easily accessible mountain, nor is it often climbed. There is deemed to be something uncanny about it. Its ascent is very dangerous, they say. Accidents have occurred there; a strange ill omen, it is believed, invests those ghostly snows; the death-clutch of the Balatous holds many a brave mountaineer. As seen from here, it has an indefinably spectral, repellent look; there seems something almost hideous in its white and wrinkled cerements.

The road has now an easy course before it. We are but eight miles from the town of Argeles, where we shall be on the floor of the Lavedan valley; and the downward slant is slight. From Argeles, it will be but ten miles more to Cauterets. The scenery has softened greatly; cliffs and peaks are out of view, and we have rounded hills and easy, green, swelling curves and here and there a basking village.

Argeles is reached sooner than we expected. There is nothing to detain us here; it is a bright town, tidy and rather attractive, and we see it and all its inhabitants as we drive through. Here the journey from Eaux Bonnes to Cauterets over the road we have come, twenty-seven miles in all, is often broken for the night; many travelers and all the drivers advise a day and a half for the transit. We had seen that it could be as readily made within the day, the additional ten miles counting but little in mid-afternoon; and the horses after their long rest at Arrens now trot on, fresh and willing as in the morning.

At Argeles we meet the railroad once more. It is the Lavedan branch; it has left the main line at Lourdes, and runs southward up the valley, pa.s.sing through Argeles and penetrating as far on the road to Cauterets as the town of Pierrefitte. The arrangement is a counterpart of the branch from Pau to Laruns. Our road now turns south also, going likewise to Pierrefitte, and running mainly parallel with the tracks though at some distance away. One could take the train from Argeles to Pierrefitte, and there connect with the diligence; but very little would of course be gained.

VI.

We are now out of Bearn, and have entered the ancient province of Bigorre. In modern terms, we have pa.s.sed from the Department of the Low Pyrenees to that of the High Pyrenees. One watering-place in this Department,--Bagneres de Bigorre,--which we shall visit in its turn, still preserves the old name of the province.

This county was not a princ.i.p.ality like Bearn; though it had its own governors and government, it belonged to France and was held from the king. Bearn would not have tolerated a like state of dependence. When our old friend Gaston, Count of Foix, was living, the French king, grateful to him for previous aid in arms, offered him the control of Bigorre. The king "sent Sir Roger d'Espaign and a president of the Parliament of Paris, with fair letters patent engrossed and sealed, of the king's declaration that he gave him the county of Bigorre during his life, but that it was necessary he should become liege man and hold it of the crown of France." But the high-spirited Count of Foix declined.

He was "very thankful to the king for this mark of his affection, and for the gift of Bigorre, which was unsolicited on his part; but for anything Sir Roger d'Espaign could say or do, he would never accept it.

He only retained the castle of Mauvoisin [on its extreme confines]

because it was free land and the castle and its dependencies held of none but G.o.d."

As France and Bearn seldom quarreled, Bigorre should have been a peaceful neighbor. But its northerly portion was held for a long time by an English garrison for the Black Prince, and this kept the county in constant disturbance. The strong post of the English was the town of Lourdes, (anciently Lourde,) eight miles north of us. "Garrisoned," says one, "by soldiers of fortune in the English pay, part of whose duty and all of whose inclination it was to hara.s.s the adjoining French possessions, Lourdes became the wasps' nest of the Pyrenees; whose fierce occupants were constantly buzzing about the rich hives of the plains for thirty leagues around, and leaving ugly stings behind."

"These captains,"--hear Froissart, who traveled through Bigorre on his way to Bearn,--"made many excursions into Bigorre, the Toulousain, the Carca.s.sonois and on the Albigeois; for the moment they left Lourde they were on enemy's ground, which they overran to a great extent, sometimes thirty leagues from their castle. In their march they touched nothing, but on their return all things were seized, and sometimes they brought with them so many prisoners and such quant.i.ties of cattle, they knew not how to dispose of nor lodge them." Thus, "these companions in Lourde had the satisfaction of overrunning the whole country wherever they pleased.

Tarbes, which is situated hard by, was kept in great fear and was obliged to enter into a composition with them. On the other side of the river Lisse is a goodly enclosed town called Bagneres,[20] the inhabitants of which had a hard time of it. In short, they laid under contribution the whole country,--except the territory of the Count de Foix; but there they dared not take a fowl without paying for it, nor hurt any man belonging to the count or even any who had his pa.s.sport; for it would have enraged him so much that they must have been ruined."

[20] Now the frequented watering-place, Bagneres de Bigorre.

The count showed less respect for Lourde than Lourde for him; and he even aided the French on one occasion by a scheme to capture the place and oust the intruders. This--it is a cruel story--was when he summoned its governor, his own half-brother, Sir Pierre Arnaut, to Orthez, under pretense of desiring a visit. Sir Pierre was holding Lourde stoutly in fief for the English prince, and was in considerable doubt about going, for he knew his man and had suspicions; however, "all thynges consydred, he sayd he wolde go, bycause in no wyse he wolde displease the erle." He left the castle with his brother Jean under strict injunctions, and proceeded to Orthez, where he was handsomely received by the count, "who with great ioye receyued hym, and made hym syt at his borde, and shewed hym as great semblant of love as he coude."

For the sequel, let us go back for once to an earlier translation[21] of the Chronicles than the one best known. The cruel story gains in effect of cruelty from the quaint, childlike telling.

[21] The translation made in 1523 by John Bourchier, Lord Berners, at the request of Henry VIII. The one I have elsewhere quoted from is that of Thomas Johnes.

"The thirde daye after, the Erle (Count) of Foiz sayd aloude, yt euery man might here hym:

"'Cosyn Pierre, I sende for you and ye be come; wherefore I comaunde you, as ye wyll eschewe my displeasure, and by the faith and lignage that ye owe to me, that ye yelde vp the garyson of Lourde into my handes.'

"Whan the knyght herde these wordes, he was sore aba.s.shed, and studyed a lytell, remembringe what aunswere he might make, for he sawe well the erle spake in good faithe; howebeit, all thynges consydred, he sayd:

"'Sir, true it is, I owne to you faythe and homage, for I am a poore knyght of your blode and of your countrey; but as for the castell of Lourde, I wyll nat delyuer it to you; ye have sent for me to do with me as ye lyst; I holde it of the Kyng of Englande; he sette me there; and to none other lyueng wyll I delyuer it.'

"When the Erie of Foiz herde that answere, his blode chafed for yre, and sayd, drawyng out his daggar:

"'A treator! sayest thou nay? By my heed, thou hast nat sayd that for nought,'--and so therwith strake the knight that he wounded hym in fyue (five) places, and there was no knyght nor barone yt durst steppe bytwene them.

"Than the knyght sayd:

"'Ah, sir, ye do me no gentylnesse to sende for me and slee me!'

"And yet, for all the strokes that he had with the daggar, therle (the earl) comauded to cast him in prison, downe into a depe d.y.k.e; and so he was, and ther dyed, for his woundes were but yuell (ill) loked vnto."

It is a satisfaction to record that Gaston gained nothing by his dastardly act. Pierre's brother, Sir Jean, stood to his post in Lourde as stoutly as Pierre had done; and the count did not obtain the fortress. In fact he does not seem even to have pursued his attempt upon it farther. He doubtless thought he had done enough to clinch Lourde's respect for his pugnacity.

It was in return for this well-meant a.s.sistance that the French king offered Gaston the whole of Bigorre, Lourde and all, which he so politely declined. He was shrewd as well as high-spirited; he was not covetous for the garden if the wasps' nest remained undemolished. So Sir Jean and his robber band buzzed merrily on in their castle.

Our chronicler naturally asks his informant:

"'Dyde this Jean neuer after go to se the Erie of Foiz?'

"He answered and sayd: 'Sithe the dethe of his brother, he neuer came there; but other of his company hath been often with the erle,--as Peter Danchyn, Ernalton of Restue, Ernalton of Saynt Colome, and other.'

"'Sir,' quod I, 'hath the Erie of Foiz made any amendes for the dethe of that knight or sorie for his dethe?'

"'Yes, truely, sir,' quod he, 'he was right sorie for his dethe; but as for amendes, I knowe of none, without it be by secrete penauce, ma.s.ses or prayers; he hathe with hym the same knighte's sonne, called Johan of Byerne, a gracyous squyer, and the erle loueth hym right well.'"

VII.

Lourdes itself can be shortly reached by rail, here from Argeles, or from Pau. It would undoubtedly deserve the visit. Besides its robber reminiscences, it has developed another and contrasting specialty: it has become one of the most famous places of religious pilgrimage in Europe. Thirty years ago it was made the scene of a noted "miracle." At a grotto near the town, the Virgin appeared several times in person to an ardent peasant-girl; caused a healing spring to burst from the rock, and stipulated for a church. The girl published the miracle; its repute instantly spread far and wide, and the bishop of Tarbes, after examination, publicly declared it authentic.[22] Since that time, devotees throng the town annually; Murray states that one hundred and fifty thousand persons visited the scene in the six months following the apparition. The character of the place has been transformed; a tide of enthusiastic pilgrimage has swept over it like a whirlwind; everything in and about the city has taken the garb of this religious fervor. The grotto is lined with crutches cast away by the cured; the church is built, and is rich with votive offerings; every house lodges the shifting comers, a thousand booths sell souvenirs of piety; and,--last impressive mingling of mercantile and miraculous,--the waters are regularly bottled and shipped for sale to all parts of the world!