A Midsummer Drive Through the Pyrenees Part 2

A few cities are suns, the rest planets. This, with regard to their importance, not their size.

If Bordeaux is the sun of southwestern French commerce, Bayonne has at least been the most important planet, with the towns and villages of a wide district for its satellites.

Here we catch the first breath of the bracing mediaeval air we shall breathe in the Pyrenees. Bayonne has still a trace of the free, out-of-door spirit of its lawless prime. Miniature epics, more than one, have cl.u.s.tered around it. The rallying-cry, "Men of Bayonne!" has always appealed to the intensest local pride to be found perhaps in France, and the boast of the city still is that it has never been conquered. Looking back to the sharp times when every near warfare centred about Bayonne,--when feudal enmities were constantly outcropping on quick pretexts,--when the issue always gathered itself into hand-to-hand encounter, and was determined by personal prowess,--the boast is not meaningless.

The Basques, who are close neighbors to Bayonne, make the same boast.

As Basques and Bayonnais were always fighting, their respective boasts seem to be continuing the conflict. But these old feuds, desperately bitter, were after all local and guerilla-like, and the advantages ephemeral. At few times did either people clash arms with the other in a general war. Thus neither conquered the other, and in peace their boasts joined hands against all comers.

III.

Bestriding both the river Nive and the swift Adour, Bayonne seems a healthy and healthful city, viewed in this June sunshine. But there is little of the new about it. The horses are taken from the breack, we leave at the hotel a requisition for lunch, and move forth for a survey.

The chief streets are wide and airy, but a turn places one instantly in an older France. We ramble with curiosity in and out among the streets and shops, finding no one preeminent attraction, but an infinite number of minor ones which maintain the equation. In fact there is little for the guide-book sight-seer in Bayonne. The cathedral leaves only a dim impression of being in no wise remarkable. The citadel affords, it is said, a wide-ranging view, but we prefer the arcades and the people to the heat of the climb. The shops along the square are small but characteristic; they are evidently for the Bayonnais themselves rather than for strangers; this gives them their only charm for strangers. But taken in its entirety and not in single effects, the town is wholly pleasing. These dark, ancient arcades, its old houses, its rough-cobbled pavements, its general appearance of fustiness, give it a charmingly individual air.

They contrast it, however, completely with Biarritz. Bayonne is a staid and serious city, Biarritz a youthful-hearted resort. Bayonne is reminiscent of the past; Biarritz is alive with its present. The genie of modern improvement has not yet come, to rebuild Bayonne. Neither fashion nor commerce has sufficiently rubbed the lamp. It holds unlessened its long-time population of about thirty thousand souls; it still drives its comfortable, trade as the second port of southwestern France; it is known as enjoying a mild commercial specialty or two, as in the line of textiles, particularly wools and woolen fabrics; and it displays an artless pride in its reputation for excellent chocolate. It even pets, a little suburb of winter visitors, and it has caught some quickening rays from the summer prosperity of its neighbor. But it will never feel the bounding impulse of rejuvenescence that has come to Biarritz. Bayonne has no potentialities. It will continue in its afternoon of peace, of easy, quiet thrift, contentedly aside from the main current of events, recounting its traditions, prodigiously and harmlessly proud of its local prestige; like a tribal chieftain of the homage of his clan.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Basques abound in the streets, and the varied costumes to be seen show the influence of that strange race. There are Spaniards here, too, and Jews in plenty, mingling with the native French element. The men wear the _berret_, a wool cap, like that of the Scotch lowlander, but smaller. It is of dark blue or brown, and in universal use from Bordeaux southward. When capping the Basque, particularly, with his rusty velvet sack, crimson sash, dark knee-breeches and stockings, and the sandals or wooden sabots worn on the feet, its effect is vividly picturesque. The poorer women, as elsewhere on the Continent, become hard-featured and muscular with age; saving a few beggars, they all seem to be busy,--carrying burdens, washing linen, watching their huckster-stalls or the dark little shops under the arcades. Here, however, the men themselves are not idle. One seldomer sees in southern France a sight frequent in Italy and many other parts of Europe,--that of a woman toilsomely dragging a hand-cart or shouldering a burden while her spouse walks idly by and smokes a thankful pipe.

Diminutive donkeys, hardy and hoa.r.s.e, are in great use, and we hear in the streets their plaintive and sonorous denunciations of men and manners. The donkey here seems to take the place of the dog, which in Holland and Scandinavia is taught the ways of constant and praiseworthy usefulness. There, with a voluble old woman for yoke-fellow, he draws the small market-carts about the streets and grows l.u.s.ty-limbed in the service. Here, the donkey does duty for both, dog and old woman, and must develop both muscle and tongue to offset their respective specialties.

IV.

An afternoon of peace, such towns as Bayonne have earned and gained.

This one has added few notable pages to universal history, but its own personal biography would be an exciting one. It is worn with adventure, and old before its time. The quarrelings of its hot youth, the tension of strife and insecurity, the life of alarms it has lived, have aged it.

They have aged many another city of Europe, and endeared the blessing of repose.

They were different days, those of the past of Bayonne. These streets are narrow, the houses stoutly walled, because they were built for siege as well as shelter. The doorways are low-browed, the stone-lined rooms little lighter than caves, because every man's hand might rise against his neighbor, and every man's hovel become his castle. Humanity was a hopeless discord; individual security lay only in individual strength.

It is hard to conceive clearly the fierce life of the Darker Ages. The rough jostling, the discomfort and pitilessness, the utter animality of it all,--it is hard to conceive it even inadequately. The curtest historical sweep from then to now, shows how far the world has come. The savage unrest of slum and faubourg to-day shows too how far the world has yet to go. Not till civilization becomes more than a veneer, will it lose its liability to crack.

The picture is not wholly dark. There were many of the humanities. There was culture and thought and refinement, much of it of a high type. Light and shade,--both were strongly limned. But in the ma.s.s, it was barbarism. For the lower cla.s.ses, occupation, brawling; mental thermometer at zero; cruelty and greed the ethical code. "You should feel here," declares Taine,[4] "what men felt six hundred years ago, when they swarmed forth from their hovels, from their unpaved, six-feet-wide streets, sinks of uncleanness, and reeking with fever and leprosy; when their unclad bodies, undermined by famine, sent a thin blood to their brutish brains; when wars, atrocious laws, and legends of sorcery filled their dreams with vivid and melancholy images." Hear him tell over one of the trenchant tales from the annals of Bayonne:

[4] _Tour Through the Pyrenees_; translated by J. SAFFORD FISKE, New York: Henry Holt & Co.

V.

"Pe de Puyane was a brave man and a skillful sailor, who, in his day, was Mayor of Bayonne and admiral; but he was harsh with his men, like all who have managed vessels, and would any day rather fell a man than take off his cap. He had long waged war against the seamen of Normandy, and on one occasion he hung seventy of them to his yards, cheek by jowl with some dogs. He hoisted on his galleys red flags, signifying death and no quarter, and led to the battle of ecluse the great Genoese ship Christophle, and managed his hands so well that no Frenchman escaped; for they were all drowned or killed, and the two admirals, Quieret and Bahuchet, having surrendered themselves, Bahuchet had a cord tightened around his neck, while Quieret had his throat cut. That was good management; for the more one kills of his enemies, the less he has of them. For this reason, the people of Bayonne, on his return, entertained him with such a noise, such a clatter of horns, of cornets, of drums and all sorts of instruments, that it would have been impossible on that day to hear even the thunder of G.o.d.

"It happened that the Basques would no longer pay the tax upon cider, which was brewed at Bayonne for sale in their country, Pe de Puyane said that the merchants, of the city should carry them no more, and that if any one carried them any, he should have his hand cut off. Pierre Cambo, indeed, a poor man, having carted two hogsheads of it by night, was led out upon the market-place, before Notre Dame de Saint-Leon, which was then building, and had his hand amputated, and the veins afterwards stopped with red-hot irons; after that, he was driven in a tumbrel throughout the city, which was an excellent example; for the smaller folk should-always do: the bidding of men in high position.

"Afterwards, Pe de Puyane having a.s.sembled the hundred peers in the town-house, showed them that the Basques, being traitors, rebels toward the seigniory of Bayonne, should no longer keep the franchises which had been granted them; that the seigniory of Bayonne, possessing the sovereignty of the sea, might with justice impose a tax in all the places to which the sea rose, as if they were in its port, and that accordingly the Basques should henceforth pay for pa.s.sing to Villefranche, to the bridge of the Nive, the limit of high tide. All cried out that that was but just, and Pe de Puyane declared the toll to the Basques; but they all fell to laughing, saying they were not dogs of sailors like the mayor's subjects. Then having come in force, they beat the bridgemen, and left three of them for dead.

"Pe said nothing, for he was no great talker; but he clinched his teeth, and looked so terribly around him that none dared ask him what he would do nor urge him on nor indeed breathe a word. From the first Sat.u.r.day in April to the middle of August, several men were beaten, as well Bayonnais as Basques, but still war was not declared, and when they talked of it to the mayor, he turned his back.

"The twenty-fourth day of August, many n.o.ble men among the Basques, and several young people, good leapers and dancers, came to the castle of Miot for the festival of Saint Bartholomew. They feasted and showed off, the whole day, and the young people who jumped the pole, with their red sashes and white breeches, appeared adroit and handsome. That night came a man who talked low to the mayor, and he, who ordinarily wore a grave and judicial air, suddenly had eyes as bright as those of a youth who sees the coming of his bride. He went down his staircase with four bounds, led out a band of old sailors who were come one by one, covertly, into the lower hall, and set out by dark night with several of the wardens, having closed the gates of the city for fear that some traitor, such as there are everywhere, should go before them.

"Having arrived at the castle, they found the draw-bridge down and the postern open, so confident and unsuspecting were the Basques, and entered, cutla.s.ses drawn and pikes forward, into the great hall. There were killed seven young men, who had barricaded themselves behind tables and would there make sport with their dirks, but the good halberds, well pointed and sharp as they were, soon silenced them. The others, having closed the gates, from within, thought that they would have power to defend themselves or time to flee; but the Bayonne marines, with their great axes, hewed down the planks, and split the first brains which happened to be near. The mayor, seeing that the Basques were tightly girt with their red sashes, went about saying, (for he was unusually facetious on days of battle,) 'Lard these fine gallants for me! Forward the spit into their flesh justicoats!' And, in fact, the spits went forward so that all were perforated and opened, some through and through, so that you might have seen daylight through them, and that the hall, half an hour after, was full of pale and red bodies, several bent over benches, others in a pile in the corners, some with their noses glued to the table like drunkards, so that a Bayonnais, looking at them, said, 'This is the veal market!' Many, p.r.i.c.ked from behind, had leaped through the windows, and were found next morning, with cleft head or broken spine, in the ditches.

"There remained only five men alive, n.o.blemen, two named D'Urtubie, two De Saint-Pe, and one De Lahet, whom the mayor had set aside as a precious commodity. Then, having sent some one to open the gates of Bayonne and command the people to come, he ordered them to set fire to the castle. It was a fine sight, for the castle burned from midnight until morning. As each turret, wall or floor fell, the people, delighted, raised a great shout. There were volleys of sparks in the smoke and flames, that stopped short, then began again suddenly, as at public rejoicings, so that the warden, an honorable advocate and a great literary man, uttered this saying: 'Fine festival for Bayonne folk; for the Basques, great barbecue of hogs!'

"The castle being burned, the mayor said to the five n.o.blemen that he wished to deal with them with all friendliness, and that they should themselves be judges if the tide came as far as the bridge. Then he had them fastened two by two to the arches, until the tide should rise, a.s.suring them that they were in a good place for seeing. The people were all on the bridge and along the banks, watching the swelling of the flood. Little by little it mounted to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then to their necks, and they threw back their heads so as to lift their mouths a little higher. The people laughed aloud, calling out to them that the time for drinking had come, as with the monks at matins, and that they would have enough for the rest of their days. Then the water entered the mouth and nose of the three who were lowest; their throats gurgled as when bottles are filled, and the people applauded, saying that the drunkards swallowed too fast and were going to strangle themselves out of pure greediness.

"There remained only the two men D'Urtubie, bound to the princ.i.p.al arch, father and son, the son a little lower down. When the father saw his child choking, he stretched out his arms with such force that a cord broke; but that was all, and the hemp cut into his flesh without his being able to get any further. Those above, seeing that the youth's eyes were rolling, while the veins on his forehead were purple and swollen, and that the water bubbled around him with his hiccough, called him baby, and asked why he had sucked so hard, and if nurse was not coming soon to put him to bed. At this, the father cried out like a wolf, spat into the air at them, and called them butchers and cowards. That offended them so, that they began throwing stones at him, with such sure aim that his white head was soon reddened and his right eye gushed out; it was small loss to him, for shortly after the mounting wave shut up the other.

"When the water was gone down, the mayor commanded that the five bodies, which hung with necks twisted and limp, should be left a testimony to the Basques that the water of Bayonne did come up to the bridge and that the toll was justly due from them. He then returned home amidst the acclamations of his people, who were delighted that they had so good a mayor, a sensible man, a great lover of justice, quick in wise enterprises, and who rendered to every man his due."

VI.

One asks where were the preceding ages of civilization. Where was the influence of Babylonia and Egypt, of Athens and of Rome? Here in mid-Europe, nearly two thousand years after Socrates, and in the second millenary of the white light of Christianity, men were like wolves, nay worse, rending their prey or each other not under the lashing of hunger but from very ferocity.

By way of contrast, take a fete given in Bayonne in happier years. An account of it, garnered from old records, I translate from the French of Lagreze.[5] Elizabeth, sister of Charles IX and wife of Philip of Spain, was returning from the Baths of Cauterets and pa.s.sing through the city; the fete was in her honor. Charles was there, the King of France, with the queen-mother, Catherine de Medici; Marguerite of Valois, and her future husband, the young Henry of Navarre.

[5] LAGReZE: _La Societe et les Moeurs en Bearn._

"The place for the fete had been well chosen: it was an isle of the Adour. In the centre, a border of ancient oaks encircling a gra.s.sy glade framed it round into a kind of arboreal parlor. Under the shade of these great trees, in the mult.i.tude of their leafy nooks, were disposed the tables. That of royalty rose in the midst, elevated above all the rest; it was reached by four gra.s.sy steps.

"Decorated barges transported the guests to the enchanted isle; at their approach, in honor of the arrival, strains of soft music fell upon the ear. The musicians represented Neptune, Arion, six tritons, three sirens, and numberless minor marine deities; the sirens chanted sweet songs of romance and chivalry, seeking to approve the fabled charm of siren voices.

"Rivulets of water, skillfully led in along tiny grooves, serpentined among the parterres, half hidden in rare and brilliant flowers. Dainty shepherdesses in waiting line stretched hand in hand to the water's edge, and formed a species of avenue leading to the table of honor.

"In advance of the retinue went Orpheus and Linus, accompanied by three nymphs, reciting verses to their Majesties,--who had, however, at this moment, more eyes than ears, and could not cease admiring the bevy of shepherdesses in their picturesque costumes, brightly colored and so varied. These shepherdesses, forming afterward into separate groups, each group the graceful rival of the next, wore the costumes of the different provinces and danced to music the respective dances there in usage: those of Poitiers to the music of the bagpipe, those of Provence to the kettle-drums, the Champenoises to the small hautboys, the violins and the tambourines, and so for the rest.

"The aged trees which covered with shade the banqueting tables formed a vast octagonal hall, in the centre of which rose in all its majesty a gigantic oak-tree. At its base vaulted the jet of a fountain, the limpid waters springing from a basin of glittering sh.e.l.ls.

"The table of honor was taken by the king; his mother, Catherine de Medici; the Duke of Anjou, who was afterward to become Henry III; the Queen of Spain; Henry of Navarre, (afterward Henry IV,) and Margot, his future wife.

"The repast was served with promptness. Six proficient bagpipe-players went before five shepherds and ten shepherdesses, who advanced three by three, each bearing a salver. Six stewards guided them by crooks ornamented by flowers. Following this, eight shepherds and sixteen shepherdesses made the service at the other tables; one and two advanced at a time, depositing their salvers and retiring to make way for others.

"At the latter part of the repast, appeared six violin-players, resplendent in tinseled garb; also nine nymphs of a marvelous beauty; a swarm of musicians accompanied them, disguised as satyrs.

"Toward nightfall, to the astonishment of all, suddenly shone out a luminous rock lit up with fantastic glow; out of which came forth as by magic countless naiads, their soft robes glistening with jewels; they dart out upon the sward and join in a fair and lissome dance."

But one thing was wanting to crown this princely picnic,--a storm. It came. Says the queen Margot, who was pleased to relate herself the details of this fete: "Envious Fortune, unable to suffer the glory of this fair dance, hurled upon us a strange rain and tempest; and the confusion of the sudden evening retreat by boat across the river brought out next day as many mirthful anecdotes as the lavish festival itself had brought gratifications."

Such was a _fete champetre_ in the sixteenth century,--filled in with all the luxuriant pomp and splendor which the French love so dearly.

Yet, only seven years after this scene of flowers and song, France was in blood, and the age had darkened once more; the evil-minded De Medicis, queen-mother and king, had given the signal for the Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew.

VII.

It was Bayonne, too, whose governor, when ordered in advance by the king to arrange for ma.s.sacring the Huguenots in his city on that epoch-making night, dared to send back a prompt and spirited refusal. "Your Majesty,"

he reported, "I have examined those under my command touching your mandate; all are good citizens and brave soldiers, but I am unable to find for you among them a single executioner!"