THE INTERLAKEN OF THE PYRENEES.
"_Perle enchâssée au sein des Pyrénées
Par l'ouvrier qu'on nomme l'Éternel,
Je te prédis de belles destinées;
L'humanité te doit plus d'un autel.
Car l'étranger dans ta charmante enceinte
Trouve toujours, suivant son rang, son nom,
Le bon accueil, l'hospitalité sainte,
Que sait offrir l'habitant de Luchon_."
--_Local Ode_.
We now prepare for the last and longest drive on the Route
Thermale,--that from Bigorre to Luchon. The distance is forty-four
miles; the journey can be made in one long day, but owing to the amount
of work for the horses "against collar," it is wiser to break it into
two. This can be done at the village of Arreau, the only practicable
resting-place between. There are two severe cols to cross on this trip,
one on this side of Arreau, the other beyond; the first is the most
noted of all the Pyrenean cols for the immense and striking view it
commands. This pass, the _Col d'Aspin_, is but a morning's drive from
Bigorre, and is often made an excursion even by those not going to
Luchon. Another mode of reaching Luchon from Bigorre is by rail, both
places being at the end of branches from the main line. But the charm of
mountain travel is in these magnificent roads, and few loving this charm
would wisely sacrifice it to a mere gain in time.
Allotting, then, two days for the journey, we are not impelled to drive
off from Bigorre at any unseasonably early hour. In fact it is verging
upon noon when the start is made. Our Tourmalet conveyances have long
since gone back, and we have a fresh landau and victoria duly chartered,
with two strong and capable-looking drivers. For the first half hour or
more the road retraces its steps down the valley toward the foot of the
Tourmalet, only breaking off at the village of Ste. Marie. Through this
we had passed in the late afternoon rain of the drive from Barèges, and
here our present road strikes away from the Barèges route and directs
its way toward the Col d'Aspin.
The Vale of Campan, in which we are running, has long had its praises
appreciatively sung. It is fertile and smiling, but we decide that it
does not vie with the Eden of Argelès. The remembrance of that happy
valley under the full afternoon sun, as we saw it in driving to
Cauterets, diverse in its sweet fields and silenced fortresses, will
long hold off all rival landscapes. The road twines on between pastures
and rye-fields, as we approach again nearer and nearer the mountains,
and after an easy two-hour trot, we are drawn up before the little inn
of Paillole, the last lunching-station before crossing the col. Here is
found the tidy air of nearly all these little hostelries, and our
confidence in them, born at Laruns and nowhere as yet injured save by
the demon kettle-rag of Grip, finds nothing here to further cripple it
in any way. There is an old man at hand to greet us, as at Grip, but his
wife is by, as well, and her alert, trim manner is alien to all sooty
napery. It is always unfair to carry over a suspicious spirit from past
causes of suspicion; and we prudently refrain from tampering, by
reminiscence, with present good impressions.
Pending the preparation of the repast, we wander out about the grounds.
The Campan Gave is sufficiently wide to be called a river, and flows at
the rear of the hotel kitchen-garden in a broad, rock-broken bed. It is
pleasant to stand by its cool, firm rush, and grow alive to the sound of
it and to the pushing of the wind and to the white and blue of clouds
and sky framing the sunshine. Cities and city life fall so suddenly out
of sight, as an unreal thing, in the presence of these rustlings of
Nature's garments.
From this winning little olitory plot here at the side of the house by
the river, we can see under an arbored porch the kitchen itself, open to
the world. The old woman is at work within, as we can also see, at the
needful culinary incantations; and assisting her with single-minded but
safely-controlled zeal is her husband the landlord, aproned for the
occasion.
But nearer by, close to the stream, our host has a flooded trout-box,
and he presently comes stumbling out to it along some rough boards
thrown down for a path. He unlocks the padlock, opens the lid, and we
group around to witness the sacrifice,--innocent speckle-sides butchered
to make a Pyrenean holiday. There is no fly-casting, no adroit play of
rod and reel; the old gentleman plunges in his bare arm, there is a
splashing and a struggle, and his hand has closed over a victim and
brings it up to the light,--a glistening trout, alive, breathless, and
highly surprised and annoyed. He takes the upper jaw in his other thumb
and forefinger and bends it sharply backward; something breaks at the
base of the skull and the fish lies instantly dead. This painless mode
of taking off is new to us, and we concur in approving its suddenness
and certainty. And so he proceeds, until the baker's dozen of trout lie
on the boards at his feet. Then he closes and locks the box, bows to the
spectators, and retires with the spoils; while we go back to our
communings with the river and the garden.
II.
It is a trifle later than it should be when we finally start afresh; and
newly-come clouds are moping about the mountains and banking up
unwelcomely near the hills of the col ahead. The ascent begins at once
in long, gradual sweeps, and for an hour as we ride and walk
progressively higher, the view of the valley behind lessens in the haze,
and the clouds in front become thicker and thicker. There is then a
straight incline toward the last, of a mile or more; the notch of the
col is sharp-cut against the sky just ahead, and we hurry on to gain a
shred at least of the vanishing view before it is too late. In vain; we
are standing upon the Col d'Aspin,--a herd of cloud-fleeces wholly
filling the new valley ahead and now whitening also the Campan Vale
behind us.
This is not such an irremediable disappointment as might appear. We
resolve now and here to outgeneral circumstances. The view from the Col
d'Aspin is unquestionably too fine to be lost, and we decide to return
from Luchon to Bigorre by this same route, instead of leaving by rail.
Thus we shall recross this col; and vengeful care shall be taken to
await a flawless day for the crossing.
So we get into the carriages again and speed off down the long slopes
which lead into the Arreau basin, grimly regarding the clouds and
promising ourselves recoupment to the full. By the road, it is five
miles before the carriages will be on level ground again, and three
miles thence to Arreau. The drivers point out a short-cut down the
mountain, and some of us are quickly on foot, crossing the road's great
arcs with steep descent, stepping lower and lower over pastures and
ploughed ground and through reappearing copses and thickets, until we
are at last upon the road again in the floor of the valley. Here at a
stone bridge the party finds us, and soon after, all are bowling into
Arreau and traversing its one long street to the low door of the Hotel
d'Angleterre.
There is naught of the pretentious about the Hotel d'Angleterre. It is
listless and antique and not worldly wise, but we very soon find that it
is in good order and quite able to entertain Americans unawares. There
is a stone hallway with a large, square staircase in the centre;
upstairs, the rooms, though low-ceiled, are commodious and airy; and we
find a tolerable reception-room below, near the entrance. In the rear is
a charming garden of terraces and rose-beds and flat-topped trees and
odd nooks for café-tables; and later in the evening a neat service of
tea and tartines brightens our pathway to the wider gardens of sleep.
III.
Arreau, as we find it in the morning, has little more to show than the
long street through which we drove on arrival. Age-rusted eaves overhang
the white-washed walls of the houses; there are queer, primitive little
shops and local _cabarets_ or taverns, the latter sheltering their
outside benches and deal tables behind tall box-plants set put in
stationary green tubs upon the pavement. Midway down the street is a
venerable market-shelter, a roomy structure consisting simply of a roof
and countless stone pillars. Its parallels may not infrequently be seen
elsewhere in Europe,--as at Lucerne and Annécy and Canterbury; there is
no side-wall, no enclosure; all is public and out of doors, a habit of
many years back, and on market-days it is the centre of interest for the
entire district. There is little to tempt, in the stores; beyond dry
tablets of Bayonne chocolate and some time-hardened confectionery sold
in a musty little shop below the church, we find nothing to buy
combining the interest and lastingness of a proper memento. Arreau is in
short an old-fashioned town in all particulars, unawakened even by the
thoroughfaring of the Route Thermale.
[Illustration: "THERE IS NAUGHT OF THE PRETENTIOUS ABOUT THE HOTEL
D'ANGLETERRE."]
The church, with its sculptured arms and round chancel, is another work
of the Templars,--one of several in this valley, for the territory was
once assigned by a Count of Bigorre to their order, and one town in the
district, Bordères by name, was even erected by them into a commandery.
On the destruction of the order in 1312, nearly all the Templars
throughout the county of Bigorre, with their commander, Bernard de
Montagu, were seized, and were executed at Auch and their possessions
confiscated. Afterward, the valley passed to the Counts of Armagnac,
whose wickedness and family pride were intense enough to have prompted
that most transcendent of boasts, "In hell, we are a great house!" and
who waged more than one stiff feud with Béarn and the Counts of Foix.
We drive off toward Luchon after the survey, not leaving a final
farewell, since we shall pass through once more in returning to cross
again the Col d'Aspin. The col before us now, cutting off the Arreau
valley from that of Luchon, is the _Col de Peyresourde_, the last of the
throes of the Route Thermale; and up the sides of the mountain the
carriages unceasingly climb during the forenoon until the crest is
reached. From this the road lowers itself again by the usual complicated
zigzags. The dauntless Highway of the Hot Springs here completes its
work and allows itself a last well-earned rest along the smoother
valley, until by two o'clock we see it find its final end in the broad
avenue leading into Luchon.
IV.
Luchon is easily the queen of all these beautiful Pyrenean resorts. We
very soon concur in this. I have called it the Pyrenees Interlaken, and
this perhaps describes it more tersely, than description. It is in fact
surprisingly like Interlaken; its broad, arbored highways or _höhewegs_,
its rich hotels, its general enamel of opulence and leisure, suggest the
charm of that Swiss paradise at every turn. Only the great glow of the
Jungfrau is missing; but one need not go far, as we shall later see, to
view almost its full equal.
"It is not possible to be silent about Luchon," declares the
enthusiastic essayist who described so appreciatively the fair valley of
Luz, "Luchon is a capital. No other place in the world represents beauty
and pleasure in the same degree; no other town is so thoroughly typical
of the district over which it presides. One can no more imagine the
Pyrenees without Luchon than Luchon without the Pyrenees; neither of
them is conceivable without the other; together, they form a picture and
its frame. A region of loveliness, amusement and hot water needed a
metropolis possessing the same three features in the highest degree; in
Luchon they are concentrated with a completeness of which no example is
to be found elsewhere. No valley is so delicious; nowhere is there such
an accumulation of diversions; nowhere are there so many or such varied
mineral springs. If it be true that a perfect capital should present a
summary of the characteristics and aspects of its country, then Luchon
is certainly the most admirable central city that men have built, for no
other represents the land around it so faithfully as Luchon does.
Neither Mexico nor Merv, nor Timbuctoo nor Lassa, nor Winnipeg nor
Naples, attain its symbolic exactness."
We find super-luxurious quarters at the Richelieu, one of the handsomest
of the handsome hotels, and groan at the narrowing limitations of the
calendar. Before us is a wide, leafy park, with rustic pavilions, and an
artificial lake enlivened with swans; these grounds are a constant
pleasure; you stroll under the trees and listen to the music and see all
humanity unroll itself along the paths about you. Here stands the
Establishment, a low, many-columned building, whose effect from without
is unusual and pleasing. Within, the noticeable feature is the great
entrance stairway and hall, the latter with the proportions, of a Roman
church and adorned with wall-paintings in large panels. Beyond, still in
the park, is a graceful rustic kiosque, where other than sulphureous
drinks are dealt out and where many people contrive to linger in
passing. Here, in the mellow afternoon, Luchon is unfurling itself, as
we saunter along; the broad space abutting on the Establishment is the
focus of the throng, silk-sashed children are playing, boy's selling
bonbons or the illustrated papers, fashionable French messieurs and
mesdames and mesdemoiselles taking the air and portraying the modes.
We turn to the right, and emerge from the park, into the main promenade
of the town. This is the Allée d'Étigny. It sets the type of these noted
Luchon streets,--unusually broad, overhung with a fourfold row of
immense lime-trees, and bordered with hotels and with enticing and
polychromatic shops and booths quite equal to those of Interlaken. These
wide Allées give to the village one of its individual charms. There are
several of them,--among others, the Allée de la Pique and the Allée de
Piqué, starting one from each end of the Allée d'Étigny; these meet in
an irregular figure, edged by villas and _pensions_, and everywhere
green and shaded. Others lead out along the streams. This plenitude of
shade is another of the place's attractions; foliage is nowhere more
abundant; trees stock the park, the streets, all the avenues of
approach,--their cool canopy gratefully filtering the July sun.
The D'Étigny is clearly the chief of the Allées, and we make slow
progress past its tempting booths and flower-stalls and solider
emporiums. Promenaders are out in force; carriages are rolling forth
from the town for a late afternoon drive or returning from an earlier;
the omnibuses come clattering up from the arriving train; we have
scarcely found such a joyous stir south of the boulevards of Paris.
It is of its own kind, this midsummer fashion, and, whether in its beach
or mountain homes, as worthy to be absorbed and appropriated in its turn
as the antiquity of Morlaäs or the silence of the Cirque. We enjoy it
unresistingly, as we idle down the bright street, eyes and ears alert to
its beauties and its harmonies.
But there is the seamy side to Luchon, as to many things on earth: you
go but a few paces from these opulent Allées and you find poverty.
Frowsy women stare at us from rickety houses in the old part of the
town; children, no longer silk-sashed but dirt-stained and ignorant,
play in the mud-heaps; patient old tinkers and cobblers are seen in the
dim shops at work. The very poor rarely gain by the growth of their
neighbors. These in Luchon seem not to feel envy, but they have no part
nor heart in the pride of civic progress around them. They keep on along
their stolid, uncomplaining ways, having long ago faced the fact that
they were immovably at the bottom of Fortune's wheel, and having
forgotten since even to repine over it.
Turning off into the second Allée of the triangle, we find ourselves
presently in view of the Casino, which stands back in a park of its own,
set in trees, and possessing a theatre and concert-room, drawing-room or
conversation-hall, and the usual café and reading-apartments. There is
opera every second night and a small daily entrance-charge to the
building, which may be compounded by purchasing a ticket for the month
or the season.
The remaining avenue crosses back to the beginning of the first, ending
with a long building given up to a species of universal bazaar, whose
divisions and stands, festooned with crimson cambric, display
confectionery, worsted goods, paper-weights of Pyrenean marbles, and
nick-nacks of high and low degree. Opposite is a large store
comfortingly called "Old England"; it augurs the presence and patronage
of at least a few of the British race at Luchon, and offers a homelike
stock of Anglo-Saxon goods. The walk has brought us out once more at
the corner facing our hotel, and the hour for table-d'hôte strikes
elfinly on the ear.
V.
Luchon owes much to one man. This was a certain Intendant of the
province and of Bigorre arid Béarn, who lived about the middle of the
last century and was the most practical and enterprising governor the
region ever had. The Luchonnais honor the name of the Baron d'Étigny. He
believed in his Pyrenees; he believed in their future, and set himself
to speeding it with all his heart. He not only expended his salary but
his private fortune; he wrought extraordinary changes in facilities both
for trade and travel, and, curiously enough, made an extraordinary
number of enemies in doing so. Towns and districts were spurred up to
their duty; tree-nurseries established, agriculture stimulated, sheep
and merinos and blooded horses imported for breeding; lawlessness found
itself, suddenly under ban; and in especial, paths and roads were cut
through the country in all directions, two hundred leagues of them,
opening up to trade and fashion spot after spot only half accessible
before. Thus Eaux Chaudes, Cauterets, St. Sauveur, Barèges, Luchon,
previously gained only by footways, were by D'Étigny made accessible for
wheeled vehicles; uncertain trails were made over into good
bridle-paths; and routes also over some of the cols were begun which
have been since gathered up into the sweep of the Route Thermale.
On Luchon particularly, D'Étigny's kind offices fell; and Luchon
resented them the most acridly. But the fostering hand was quite able to
close into a fist. D'Étigny pushed his plans firmly, despite
opposition. Pending the construction of a road from Montréjeau opening
full access to the valley, the town itself was taken in hand. The main
street, now the Allée d'Étigny, was projected; the springs,--from which
the town was then some little, distance away,--were rehabilitated; and
to replace the rough path leading to them he proceeded to level the
ground between and open three additional avenues, each planted with
quadruple ranges of trees. But this last innovation wrought trouble; it
focused the growing opposition; every chair-carrier and pony-hirer in
Luchon, together with every owner of the lands condemned, spitefully
resented the opening of the new routes. Combining with the neighboring
mountaineers, they rose one night and utterly demolished all three of
the avenues, uprooting the young trees, leaving the ways strewed with
débris and wholly impassable.
D'Étigny calmly built them up anew, and with increased care.
They were demolished again.
Even the Intendant's patience failed then. He built the roads the third
time, but in addition to trees he studded them with troops.
They were not molested after that. Their enemies found they had a man
against them who meant what he said and was prepared to stand by it.
Eventually they veered around even into respect; Luchon in the end grew
to rejoice in her Allées unreservedly; they stand to this day, and
D'Étigny's name is all but canonized under the lindens which once heard
him vigorously cursed.
VI.
Luchon is undoubtedly over-petted. The belle of the spas is a
trifle spoiled. The inblowing of fashion has been fanning her
self-appreciation for years. Prices are crowded to the highest notch,
for the season is short and one must live; the hotels are expensive,
though _pensions_ and apartment-houses mitigate this; the cost of living
is high for the region, though always low when judged by home standards;
articles in the shops are chiefly of luxury, and even carriages and
guides are appraised at advanced rates. It is the extreme of French
fashion which comes to Luchon. Eaux Bonnes and Cauterets are close
rivals, but Luchon is the queenliest of the triplet. As a consequence,
the place shows a touch of caprice, of vanity, even of arrogance;
prosperity is a powerful tonic, but sometimes its iron enters into the
soul.
Notwithstanding, the bright little town ends by enchaining us
completely. During the days we pass in its Allées and vallées, we come
to agree that there could be fewer more captivating spots for a summer
wanderer, singly or _en famille_, seeking a six weeks' resting-place in
the mountains. It will grow at length into the recognition of the
English and Americans, now so unaccountably unknowing of this
mountain-garden; the prediction lies on the surface that in time it must
open rivalry almost with that much-loved Interlaken it so happily
resembles.
The finishing charm of Luchon is its nearness to the great peaks. Ice
and snow are but scantily in sight from the valley itself, but a short
rise upon any of the surrounding hills shows summits and glacier fields
on all sides but the north, and more ambitious trips quickly place one
among them. The range culminates in this region; from east and west it
has been gradually rising to a centre, and south from Luchon it finds
its climax, attaining in the bulky system of the Maladetta to its full
stature of over eleven thousand feet. This mountain mass is the lion of
the Pyrenees. It lies in Spanish territory, on the other side of an
intervening chain; but from a noted port in the crest of the latter,
three hours from the town, the eye sweeps it from base to brow, and its
ascent is made from the Luchon valley as headquarters.
There is a peculiar attraction in the proximity of the highest mountain
of a range. But if Luchon in this resembles Chamouni, in all other
respects it holds its parallel with Interlaken. Here, as there, other
groups of important peaks are scattered within reach of attack;
explorations on the higher glaciers are facile; the Vallée du Lys is its
Lauterbrunnen, the Port de Vénasque its Wengern Alp. Within reach of the
idler majority, there is a walk, a drive, or a point of view for each
day of the month. The roads now pierce every adjoining valley, and paths
climb up to all the summits that fence them in.
VII.
A day or two pass uneventfully over us as we linger under the trees at
Luchon, and then we shake off the spell, to look for its mountain
neighbors. One of the peaks from which the panorama of the Maladetta
chain can be best seen is the _Pic d'Entécade_, a noted point for an
object-lesson of the mountains' relief. Some of us accordingly resolve
to ascend it. We have at last begun to recognize the truth of a
truism,--that of early rising among the mountains. Always given in all
"Advice to Pedestrians," in all "Physicians' Holidays," in all
hand-books and guides, it had worn off into a commonplace, founded
chiefly, it seemed, on _a priori_ health-saws and on repetition. But
there is reason, we find, in this worthy acquaintance, and a reason
quite apart from health-saws, for it is a weather reason. The great
proportion of these Pyrenean days, barring the rainy ones, run a uniform
career: gold in the morning, silver at noon, gold again at night. The
early mornings are brilliantly cloudless; by nine or ten o'clock the
horizon whitens,--it is the dreaded _brouillard_; faint cloud-balls are
taking shape; they roll lightly in, bounding like soap-bubbles along the
peaks, finally clinging softly about them; and by noon, though the
zenith holds still its rich southern blue, the circle of the hills is
broken, the higher summits thickly hung with misty gauze. In the late
afternoon, the breeze dislodges the intruders, and softly polishes the
rock and ice of the peaks until at dusk they are free again from even a
shred of vapor.
Thus, even on fine days, a fine view is rare unless it is an early one.
We deplore this unhappy trait of the weather and deeply resent its
arbitrariness. But resentment is fruitless under a despotism. And there
is after all a certain glow of superciliousness in being up early; the
feat once accomplished, it brings its own reward; one feels a comforting
disdain for the napping thousands who are losing the crisp, unbreathed
freshness in the air and on the mountains; one speedily ceases
regretting the missing forty winks, as he opens eyes and lungs and heart
to the spirit of the morning.
We accordingly arrange for an early start, not precisely resigned, but
resolved nevertheless. The guide, as instructed, knocks at our doors in
the morning, just before six o'clock. We hear the fatal words: "It makes
fine weather, monsieur;" we awake, imprecating but still resolved; we
call out a response of assent, still imprecating; nerve ourselves to
rise,--struggle mentally to do so,--struggle more faintly,--yield
imperceptibly,--forget for an instant to struggle at all,--and in
another instant we are restfully back beyond recall in the land of
dreams.
Our resentment was stronger than we knew.
When the carriage finally carries us out from the town, it is the fifth
hour at least after sunrise and more than three after our time for
starting. We should have had half of the Entécade beneath us, and are
but just quitting Luchon. The inevitable thin lines of mist are already
cobwebbing the horizons; but there is a good breeze abroad to-day and
the clouds are not resting so quietly in the niches as usual. So we
comfort us greatly, and the horses urge forward up the valley,
themselves seemingly full of hope that the day is not lost.
The base of the Entécade is six miles from Luchon. For some distance the
road runs up the Vallée du Lys, whose continuance merits a separate
excursion. Then we turn off, under the old border-tower of Castel Vieil,
and soon the carriage is dodging up a cliffy hill, the road hooded with
beeches and pines and playing majestic hide-and-seek with the sharp
mountains ahead. It is only an hour and a half, and we are at the
Hospice de France. Here the road ends. The horses stop before the plain
stone structure, low, heavily built, and not surpassingly commodious,
and we alight to prepare for the climb. The building is owned by the
Commune of Luchon, which rents it out under conditions to an innkeeper;
and its object, like that of the St. Bernard, is to serve as a refuge
for those crossing the pass near which it lies. There are no monks in
it, however; it is simply a rough mountain _posada_, offering a few poor
beds in emergencies, and finding its chiefer lifework in purveying to
the Luchon tourists.
The hospice is situated in a deep basin of mountains open only on the
Luchon side. Directly in front of it, high above us, is located the pass
referred to,--the _Port de Vénasque_: the notch in the chain from which
the Maladetta is so strikingly revealed. It is itself another noted
excursion from Luchon. A great sweep of rocky ridges rises to it, not
perpendicular but sharply inclined. There is a savage black pinnacle
shooting up on the left, remarkable for its uncompromising cone of rock,
its rejection of all the refinements of turf and arbor and even of snow.
This is the _Pic de la Pique_. On the right starts up another summit,
sharp also, though less precipitous; and the short ridge between the two
has in it the notch, itself not to be seen from below, which constitutes
this pass, the gateway into Spain,--the Port de Vénasque.
This is one of the most used of all these mountain portals; hundreds of
persons cross it annually, herdsmen, mule-drivers, merchants with their
small caravans of horses, Spanish visitors coming to Luchon, French
tourists seeking the view of the Maladetta,--and most often of all,
despite surveillance, the shadowy contrabandista, whose vigilance is
greater than the vigilance of the law and the custom-house. We can
plainly trace the path as it zigzags upward over the snow and débris,
and can outline its general course until it vanishes into the break in
the ridge. The line of the ridge itself is just now cut out clearly
against the sky, but soft puffs and ponpons of cloud are loitering near
it with evident intentions.
[Illustration: PIC DE LA PIQUE, AND PATH TO THE PORT DE VÉNASQUE.]
But our present quest is the Entécade. This mountain stands farther to
the left in the circle of the basin; its own flanks hide its summit
from the hollow, so we go forth not knowing whether into the blue or the
grey. Impedimenta are abandoned, sticks are grasped, and the guide leads
to the assault.
The path turns to the rear of the hospice and crawls up a green slope,
commanding finely the black sugar-loaf of the Pic de la Pique opposite.
As we advance, the mist has finally closed in upon the crest of the
Vénasque pass at its right; the ridge is completely hidden, and we turn
and look ahead, somewhat solicitous for our own prospects. Before us, up
the mountain, long streamers of hostile vapors are swinging over the
downs, trailing to the ground and at times brushing down to our own
level; but the wind keeps hunting them off, and so far their tenure is
hopefully precarious. There is scarcely a tree above the hospice; we
have left the line even of pines.
An hour passes. We come to a table-land stretching lengthily forward,
covered with the greenish yellow of pastures, and alive with cattle
browsing on a sparse turf. The way winds on among the herds; we form in
close marching order, with the guide in front and spiked staffs ready
for use; for these neighbors are a trifle wild and not used to
strangers. They feed on unconcernedly, jangling their bells, but one or
two of the bulls cast inquiring glances upon us, and we prudently retire
to our pockets the bright red sashes bought in Cauterets until we have
passed the zone of porterhouse.
In this plateau is a boundary-stone, and we pass anew into
Spain,--stopping to cross and recross the frontier several times, with
grave ceremony, and to the unconcealed mystification of the guide. The
path slopes up again, passes a dejected little mountain tarn, and
another half hour brings us to the final cone, the summit just
overhead. The mists are still whirling down, but as often lift again;
the Pic de la Pique has disappeared under a berret of cloud, but other
and greater peaks beyond it are still cloudless; so, as we push on up
the last slope of rock and scramble upon the summit, we see that the
panorama is not gone after all and that the climb will have its reward.
For the view is a wide one from the Pic d'Entécade. The summit, 7300
feet above the sea, is an island in a circle of valleys. The hospice
basin has dwindled into insignificance. Behind is the trough of the
Luchon depression, its floor invisible but the main contour traceable
for miles. The Valley of Aran, which opens out below us on the east,
shows the fullest reach in the view; its entire course lies under the
eye, and the lines of rivers and roads are marked as on a map, while we
count no less than fourteen villages spotting its bottom and sides.
Beyond and about roll the mountains, in swells and billows of green,
roughening into grey and the finishing white.
But it is their culminating summit at the right that at once absorbs
attention; it is the monarch of the Pyrenees; we are looking at last
upon the Maladetta. It stands in clear view before us, well defined
though distant. It is rather a mass than a mountain; it shows no
accented, unified form; the wide crests rise irregularly from its wider
shoulders of granite and glacier, and fairly blaze for the moment in the
break of sunlight.
At nearer quarters, as from the Port de Vénasque, the true dimensions of
the Maladetta are better realized. There one sees it from across a
single ravine, as the Jungfrau is seen from the Wengern Alp. But here
from the Entécade also, we can seize well its proportions,--
"In bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove."
The highest point of the Maladetta, the Pic de Néthou, is 11,165 feet
above the sea. The mountain has always been regarded superstitiously;
the name itself,--_Maladetta, Maudit_, the Accursed,--tells of the
traditions of the mountaineers. For long, no one dared the ascent.
Ramond finally attempted it in 1787, but failed to gain the highest
point. In 1824, a party renewed the attempt, and were worse than
unsuccessful, for one of the guides, Barreau by name, was
lost,--precipitated into a crevasse almost before the eyes of his
son,--and the body was never recovered. This added to the evil repute of
the mountain; years passed before the cragsmen would have anything
further to do with it. It was not until 1842 that M. de Franqueville, a
French gentleman, accompanied by M. Tchihatcheff, a Russian naturalist,
and by three determined guides, successfully gained the summit,--taking
four days and three nights for the enterprise. Since then the ascent has
a number of times been made.
This mountain is said to give forth at times a low murmuring sound
distinctly audible.
"There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petal from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass."
"One of the most impressive features of the scene on the ridge of
Vénasque on this memorable morning," so relates one E.S., a traveler of
sixty years ago, "was the peculiar, solemn noise emitted from the
mountain. The only sound which broke upon our silence while we stood
before it without exchanging a word, was an uninterrupted, melancholy
mourning, a sort of Æolian, aerial tone, attributable to no visible or
ostensible cause.[28] The tradition of the Egyptian statue responding to
the first rays of the morning sun came forcibly to my recollection. In
her voice, this queen of the Pyrenees 'Prince Memnon's sister might
beseem,' and superstition if not philosophy might have persuaded some
that this sudden glare of brightness and warmth, glistening with
increasing intenseness on every ridge and eastern surface, might call
forth some corresponding vibrations, and therefore that the plaintive
tones we heard were in fact a sort of sympathetic music,--the
Maladetta's morning hymn."
[28] "_Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_, No. XVI; _The Peculiar
Noises Heard in Mountains_."
Far to the west, over other ranges, the guide points out the glaciers of
Mont Perdu and the Vignemale. We are looking off also from this point
upon the beginnings of Aragon and of Catalonia; there is nothing smiling
about Spain as seen from the Entécade; sterile hills solely heap
themselves to the horizon.
We linger on the small knoll, a few feet only in width, which caps the
mountain beneath us. Clouds scud over the summits and pass on, and turn
by turn we have seen the full view. Finally they come streaming in more
resolutely, and eventually defeat the breeze; then we turn downward at
last, at a brisk pace, race down the slopes and re-enter France; and
warily recrossing the long pasture of the corniculates, hasten on until
the hospice appears in sight once more below.
It is far past mid-day now, and we are more than ready for suggestions
of alimentation. There is a sheltered table with benches just out of
doors before the hospice, and here we seat ourselves, flanked by with
two massive dogs, and soon are discussing a nondescript repast which is
too late for lunch and too early for dinner but which is remarkably
appetizing in either view. An hour later, we are again in Luchon,
greeted by the deferential head-waiter of the Richelieu, whose starchy
bosom expands with hourly welcome for each who comes or who returns.
VIII.
There are divers other trips near Luchon which should be taken by the
time-wealthy. It is a centre of more excursions than any of the other
resorts; to count those which are _très recommandées_ alone needs all
the fingers. There is the much praised drive into the Vallée du Lys,
with its white cascades, its "Gulf of Hell," its fine view of the
ice-wastes of the Crabioules. There is the ascent to Superbagnères, an
easy monticule overshading Luchon, whose view is ranked with that from
the Bergonz. There is the day's ride through the Valley of Aran, which
opened out below us from the Entécade,--a truly Spanish valley, though
in France; its natives, its customs, its inns, all Hispanian, and
unwontedly unconventional. There is the ride and climb to the Lac d'Oo,
a mate of the trip from Cauterets to the Lac de Gaube. And for a longer
jaunt, one can remount to the Port de Vénasque and pierce down upon the
Spanish side to the village of Vénasque itself, returning next day by
another port and the Frozen Lakes. Or this trip can be prolonged by
making the tour of the Maladetta, passing on from Vénasque entirely
around that mountain system and returning within the week by still
another route to Luchon. The views on this last tour are described as
remarkable, though it is a trip seldom made; the accommodation is
doubtless uncomforting, but the tour, in outline at least, strongly
resembles the tour of Mont Blanc, which ranks with the finest excursions
in the Alps.
In short, there is a bewilderment of alternatives, each of the first
rank in interest and heavily endorsed. Luchon is as easily the belle of
the spas in location as in beauty; and one might strongly suspect that
the charms of its climbs cure quite as many ills as its springs. Good as
the waters may be, one does not become well by drinking merely, and
sitting in wait for health; it needs precisely the invigoration of these
tempting outings to quicken languid pulses and inspire sluggish systems.
Even in winter, many of these Pyrenees mountain-trips are entirely
practicable. The Cirque of Gavarnie is reputed a double marvel under a
winter robe, when its cascades are stiffened into ice and the eye is
lost in the sweep of the snow-fields. Cauterets is hospitable throughout
the winter, and so are both of the Eaux. Even the Vignemale has been
ascended of a February, and the more ordinary excursions can be
undertaken in all seasons. One cannot help thinking that the invalid of
Pau's winter colony could better tell over the benefits of this Pyrenees
climate if he would but test it,--if he would seek its pure, sharp,
aromatic stimulus in in-roads upon the mountains themselves, in place of
his mild promenadings along the Terrace in view of them with a heavy fur
coat on his back and another on his tongue.
The mountains are nearer him, besides, than they formerly were. They
have been opened to approach. Once there was no Route Thermale over the
cols; no facile pass to Vénasque or the Lac de Gaube; no iron bars in
the difficult spots en the Pic du Midi d'Ossau. That day is gone by.
Parts at least of the wild mountains are tamed; danger has been driven
back, hardly the daunt of difficulty remains. D'Étigny and Napoleon and
the Midi Railroad have smoothed all the ways; there is no longer reason
to dread the lumbering diligence, the rough char-roads, the pioneer
cuttings through the pine-brakes. The buoyant mountain trips we have
touched upon, and more, are within almost instant call of every
dispirited Pau valetudinary, and of farther travelers as well. They have
but to go forth and meet them.
That this is becoming known is shown by the yearly increasing tide of
visitors. The cultured modern world enjoys reading the book of
nature,--especially so, provided some one has cut the leaves.
IX.
In the evening, we repeat the stroll down the Allée d'Étigny. The lights
twinkle brightly down upon the street; the shops are open, the hotels
lit up, the cafés most animated of all. Here on the sidewalks, around
the little iron tables, sits Luchon, sipping its liqueurs and tasting
its ices. It is the café-life of Paris in miniature,--as
characteristically French as in the capital. To "_Paris, c'est la
France_," one might almost add, "_le café, c'est Paris_." France would
not be France without it. It is its hearthstone, its debating-club, the
matrix of all its national sentiments.
There is an "etiquette" of Continental drinks. By the initiate, the code
is rigorously observed; each class of beverages has its hour and
reason, and your true Frenchman would not dream of calling for one out
of place and time. In the cafe-gardens of the large hotels you will see
the waiters' trays bearing one set of labeled bottles before dinner and
another after; one at mid-day, another in the evening. There is also a
ritual of mixing; syrups and liqueurs all have their chosen mates and
are never mismated.
From, an intelligent waiter in Lyons, a double fee extracted for me on
one occasion some curious if unprofitable lore on the subject, since
expanded by further queryings. The potations in-demand divide
themselves, it appears, into two main classes: _apéritifs_ and
_digestifs_. The former are simply appetizers, usually of the bitters
class, and are taken before meals. The latter, as their name shows, come
after the repast, for some supposed effect in aiding digestion. These
liquors are often, exceedingly strong, but it is to be remembered that
the quantities taken are minute; when brought not mixed with water or
syrups, a unit portion might hardly fill a walnut shell.
The favorite _apéritifs_ are:
Price in
centimes.[29]
Absinthe, mixed with Orgeat and seltzer-water, 50
Bitter, " " Curaçao " " " 50
Vermouth, " " Cassis " " " 40
" " " Curaçao " " " 40
" " " Bitter " " " 40
" " " Gomme " " " 40
Amer Picon, " " Curaçao " " " 50
" " " " Grenadine" " " 60
" " " " Sirop ordinaire " 50
Madeira, Malaga, Frontignan, Byrrh, Quina or
Ratafia, unmixed 60
[29] A centime is one-fifth of a cent.
After meal-time come the _digestifs_:
Price.
Curaçao Fokyn, unmixed, 60
Maraschino, " 60
Kümmel, " 30
Kirschwasser, " 50
Chartreuse, " (yellow or green,) 60 or 80
Anisette, with seltzer, 80
Menthe, (Peppermint,) unmixed, or with seltzer, 50
Mazagran, or goblet of black coffee, with water, 40
Café noir, or small cup of black coffee, 35
" " with Cognac, 50
Limonade gazeuse, 40
Bière, bock or ordinaire, 30
Later in the evening, the ices come into play; returning from concert or
promenade, one can choose from the following to recruit the wasted
frame:
Price.
Sorbet au Kirsch, 80
" " Rhum, 80
" " Maraschino, 80
Bavaroise au lait, 60
" à la vanille, 70
" au chocolat, 70
Glace vanille or other flavors, 50 and 75
Café glacé, 50
Grock or Punsch, 60
And last, the inevitable
Eau sucrée, with orange-flower, 35
The above sketchy division may perhaps add to the visitor's alien
interest in Continental café-life, showing something of its system and
rationale. These elaborate and varied concoctions, noxious and
innoxious, are not, it must be understood, tossed off in the frenzied
instantaneity of the American mode; before a tiny glassful of Curaçao
or sugar and water, the Gallic "knight of the round table" will sit for
hours in utter content, reading the papers, talking, smoking, or
clicking the inoffensive domino. Intoxication is almost unknown in the
better cafés; their patrons may sear their oesophagi with hot
Chartreuse, derange the nerves with Absinthe, stimulate themselves
hourly with their little cups of black coffee and brandy; but they never
get drunk. Frenchmen are temperate, even in their intemperance. An
English gin-mill and probably an American bar causes more besotment than
a dozen French cafés.