OUT TOWARD THE PLAIN.
"How the golden light
On those mountain-tops makes them strangely bright."
--_The Pyrenees Herdsman_.
We revolve an unhappy fact, as we ramble on along the brilliant Allée,
this clear summer evening. We are no longer among the time-wealthy. With
Barcelona and the Mediterranean in prospect, we cannot draw further in
Luchon upon our reserve of days. The evening is flawless; the stars
blaze overhead like the burst, of a rocket; the promise of the morrow is
beyond doubt, and the Col d'Aspin is yet to be reconquered. We come back
across the park to our pleasant rooms in the Richelieu; and a conclave
ends in a summons to a livery-man and the order for carriages for a
to-morrow's return to Bigorre.
Early rising is therefore enforced, without regard to resentment, the
next morning, for we are to drive through within the day, not making a
night's break as before at Arreau. There are thus the two hard cols to
cross, one in the forenoon, the other in the afternoon; and the horses
must have a long mid-day rest to accomplish the task. So the
Allée-d'Étigny is just taking down, the shutters, as we prepare to drive
away from the hotel; the dew is still dampening the walks; domestics are
scouring entrance-ways and windows, a few early guides and drivers look
wistfully at the departing possibilities. We are unfeignedly sorry to
leave Luchon. But we exult in compensation over an unclouded day for the
Col d'Aspin.
By the usual mysterious Continental system of telegraphy, the fact has
spread that we are going, and even at this unseasonable hour the entire
working force of the Richelieu, portier, waiter, head-waiter, maids,
buttons, boots and bagsman line up to do us reverence. We pass from hall
to carriages through a double row of expectants. It is a veritable
running of the gauntlet, save that in running it we give rather than
receive. Unlike recipients in most other parts of Europe, however, the
servants here have the air of expecting rather than of demanding, and
take what is given more as a gift than as a right. So we depart in the
comfortable glow of benefaction, rather than in the calmer consciousness
of indebtedness baldly paid.
We reach the foot of the first col, the Peyresourde, with views at the
left of the distant glaciers above the Lac d'Oo, wind up to the crest as
the morning wears on, and by noon have scudded down by the other side
and are again at Arreau. It is a fête-day throughout France, and as we
drive into the town we find the plain little street transformed into a
bloom of flags and flowers and tri-colored bunting. On every side, as we
stroll out later from the inn, the shops and houses are fluttering the
red, the white and the blue, colors as dear to the American eye as to
the French. Boughs and garlands festoon the archways; the neighborhood
has flocked to the town in holiday finery, the _cabarets_ or taverns are
driven with custom, the nun-like town is become a masquerader. The scene
is so different from that of the cold, grey morning on which we left for
Luchon, that we vividly see how impressions of place as of person may
change with the change of garb and mood.
The air is warm, even sultry, but not oppressive. In fact, the
thermometer has not throughout the tour given any markedly choleric
displays of temper. The Pyrenees, lying as they do so far toward the
south, had held for us vague intimations of southern heat: linked
closely in latitude with the Riviera and with mid-Italy, we had half
feared to find them linked as well with Mediterranean and Italian
temperatures, and so far ill adapted for summer traveling. But the fear
was uncalled for. The weather has, on infrequent days, been undeniably
warm, but no warmer than the summer heat of the valleys of the Alps or
the Adirondacks. In fact, as a matter of geography, the Pyrenees lie in
the same northerly latitude as the Adirondacks themselves. In point of
elevation above the sea, the belt, even in its lowlands, is everywhere
higher than the neighboring parallels of Nice or Florence; the air is
fresher, shade and breeze are more abundant, as always among mountains;
our trip, aiding, to verify this, convinces us that apprehensions as to
excess of heat will here find gratifyingly little fulfilment.
II.
We beguile the three hours' wait with a lunch, a walk, and an idiot
beggar with an imposing wen or goitre. This creature crouches
persistently by the carriages while the horses are reharnessed and we
are taking our places. The form is misshapen, the face distorted and
scarcely human; we can get no answer from the mumbling lips save a
sputter of gratitude for our sous; it is cretinism, hideous, hopeless, a
horror among these beautiful valleys, yet as in the Alps pitifully
common.
In the presence of this frightful disease, destroying every semblance of
fair humanity, one can see some reason also for the belief in
witchcraft and diabolism once so intense in the Pyrenees. If the body
and mind of an "innocent" can thus come to part with the last vestige of
its holy lineage, the soul of a "wicked" might with good reason seem to
be capable of growing into full fellowship with the devil himself. So
late as 1824, not far from this spot, they nearly burned an old woman
for alleged sorcery; and in 1862, one was actually so burned, in the
town of Tarbes, a few leagues away. This superstition of witchcraft has
here been strong in all eras, but it is at last becoming extinct;
cretinism, as anachronous and as horrible,--a fact, not a
superstition,--remains unaccounted for and unlessened.
III.
By four o'clock, we are at the base of the Col d'Aspin and commence on
the long curves that lead to its top. The valley behind extends as we
rise; new breaks and depressions appear, branching off right and left on
all sides. After a half hour, peaks begin to peep over the hills at our
rear; they come up one by one into sight, each whiter and sharper than
the last, until the southern line is a serrate row of them, gradually
lifted wholly above the nearer hills. The promised panorama is truly
taking shape. We near at length the crest of the col. The Pic du Midi de
Bigorre will loom up beyond it, unclouded to-day, the drivers assure us,
and we watch for a glimpse at last of that mythical peak, which we have
skirted in cloud from Barèges to Bigorre and never yet once seen. We are
just below the top of the col; twenty feet farther will place the
carriages on the summit, when lo a huge rounded dome begins to rise
slowly up beyond the edge, and as we advance lifts itself into the full
form of the long sought Pic,--ten miles away to the west, yet looming
out as clearly as if but across the valley. It stands alone against the
horizon; there is no summit near to rival it; the sides are dark and
steep and almost snowless; the summit is looking down upon
Gavarnie,--upon Pau,--upon the wide march of the plains of France,--as
upon us on the Col d'Aspin, eying us with its stony Pyrenean stare.
Behind, the southern view is now in its entirety. The full line of the
Arreau and Luchon depressions is traceable, and of all their tributaries
as well; the giant humps of the hills marshaled to form their walls. The
separate pinnacles beyond them are countless. The chief array is
compacted directly south, a fraise of bristles numbering the white
Crabioules, the Pic des Posets, the Monts Maudits,--and at the left the
summits of the Maladetta, a "citadel of silver" in a sky of gold, its
glaciers fierce against the late afternoon sun.
At the right above the col is a wider point of view; we ascend for some
twenty minutes over the pastures to the top, led by a herd-boy. The view
now sweeps a new quarter of the horizon,--that of the northeast; and the
full plain of Toulouse is spread at our feet, shading off in the far
distance into a faint hazy transparence where a few soft clouds seal it
to the line of the sky.
"Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains."
The Dark Ages were strangely dark in one respect: they had forgotten the
admiration for Nature. Save as to unaccustomed manifestations,--quakes
and comets and like portents,--they seem to have noticed little of her
higher or more unfamiliar moods. The sensation of the sublime was not
in their range of emotions; it is distinctively a modern growth.
Froissart traveled through this region on his way to Orthez; the
Pyrenees peaks were in sight before him, day after day, near and
distant; and they shone upon him for weeks from the hills about Gaston's
castle. Not once does he mention their presence to admire it. Scarcely
once do other writers of his or neighboring centuries notice even their
existence, except as hunting-grounds or boundary-lines; "_le spectacle
des Alpes ne dit rien à Racine, et l'aspect des glaciers fait froid à
Montaigne_." All the historian's of the time of Henry IV speak of his
having been born in "a country harsh and frightful,"--"_un pays aspre et
affreux_." Even the early troubadours and trouvères, poets and
rhapsodists, loving to admire and enlarge and extol, are silent
concerning the mountains. Despourrins, the poet of the Pyrenees, sang of
love and lyric inspiration; but he rarely looked up to seek the higher
inspiration of their hills and snows. It is inexplicable that the power
of the sublime should have been withheld from the age of romance and
poetry and nearness to nature, and bestowed in growing measure upon our
commercial and unenthusiastic era. It is not all wholly prosaic, after
all, this nineteenth century of ours, when it has so ardently this high
emotion, scorned by its intenser predecessors.
As we descend to the carriages, facing another tall Pic which shoots up
from the farther side of the col, the sun has neared the clouds in the
west; it strikes the far-off Maladetta glaciers with a light no longer
white, but rose-tinted; the snows glow softly under it like fields of
tremulous flame; the mountains gleam almost as something supernal, as we
take a final gaze before turning away down the valley.
IV.
It is the last of our midsummer drive through, the Pyrenees. We realize
it almost suddenly, and with regret. We seek to absorb and enjoy every
minute as we drive down the long hills and on through the Vale of Campan
in the evening light toward Bigorre. It is a chaotic, delightful array
of memories that our minds are whirling over and over in their busy
hoppers,--incidents and scenes, grains of legend, kernels of history,
gleanings of quick, nearer life,--all the intermingled associations now
sown for us over the region.
Instinctively we summon up recollections of the Alps for comparison with
the mountains we are leaving. And the comparison is not found to be
entirely a sacrilege. The Alps are first and preeminent among European
mountains; the repose of their immensity, the sense of power, the
indefinable, spell they exert, lesser ranges cannot in general features
attempt to rival. But this is not to say that a lesser range, is a
wholly inferior range,--that even in this effect of immensity, of power,
it may not at certain points bear almost full comparison. The Pyrenees,
we agree, are far from lacking material for a parallel. As we think of
the briefly glimpsed cliffs of the Pic du Midi d'Ossau, or of the
ice-fields seen about the Balaïtous, the Vignemale, the Taillon, the
Crabioules, we set them in thought almost against the crags of the Mont
Cervin, or the Eismeer and the glaciers of the Bernina. We instance, as
Alpine impressions, the prospects, among others, from the Aubisque and
the Entécade; the snow-peaks, named and unnamed, in their sight, the
heights and depths revealed by the view. We traverse again the gorges
leading to Eaux Chaudes and Cauterets, and the winding road through the
Chaos; we confront the amazing wall of the Cirque of Gavarnie, which
has nothing of its own order in Switzerland that is even commensurate;
we rehearse the account of the scaling of Mont Perdu and of the outlook
from its summit, as first recorded by Ramond nearly a century since,
when he finally succeeded in that initial ascent; we recall the
descriptions of the illimitable desolations of the Maladetta fastnesses,
more recently explored by Packe and Russell; and while these are single
effects, and those of the Alps are beyond count, they are in character
not to be excluded from almost equal rank. And over all the lowlands we
throw that luxuriance of vegetation and of foliage, and a certain
softness and richness of landscape, which cannot be found nearer the
north, and which, in the contrast with the snow-peaks in sight beyond
adds so strangely to the height and aloofness of the latter,--as in the
view of the Pic de Ger from Eaux Bonnes, and the wider sweep from the
Pau Terrace or the Col d'Aspin behind us. In fine, as genial Inglis long
ago made summary, "the traveler who is desirous of seeing all the
various charms of mountain scenery, must visit both Switzerland and the
Pyrenees. He must not content himself with believing that having seen
Switzerland he has seen all that mountain scenery can offer. This would
be a false belief. He who has traversed Switzerland throughout has
indeed become familiar with scenes which cannot perhaps be equaled in
any other country in the world; and he need not travel in search of
finer scenes of the same order. But scenes of a different order,--of
another character,--await him in the Pyrenees; and until he has looked
upon these, he has not enjoyed all the charms which mountain scenery is
capable of disclosing to the lover of nature."
V.
Lights twinkle out everywhere over the valley, as we roll on toward
Bigorre; every village and hamlet we pass is aglow with colored lanterns
and varied illuminations, and all the Pyrenees seem to be keeping high
holiday. Stalwart songs are resounding from porches and through the
windows of the local cafés when the carriages reach Ste. Marie; we
respond with the notes of _America_, as we drive out from the village,
and catch an answering cheer in return. Everyone is determinedly happy,
but happy or not, they have always a good word for our country. Other
songs and scenes are caught as we whirl on over the valley-road and
through the settlements; peasants peer at us from the wayside or from
the occasional chalets near by, with pleasant salute and good wishes. At
last, and with real regret, we have reached our destination; Bagnères de
Bigorre is before us, and we are speeding into its streets.
[Illustration]
It is here that we find the climax of the fête. The entire Promenade des
Coustous is a blaze of light. Arches have been erected, rows of tiny
glass lamps swing across from the trees, flags and bunting stream out
over the music-stand and the hotels and shops on each side. The place is
a mass of people; the bordering cafés are thronged; the band is playing
clearly above the hum and buzz, and as we enter the street it happens to
be just striking the signal for the _Marseillaise_. In an instant, the
thousands of throats join in the sound; the roll of song deepens to a
diapason; the solemn, forceful march of the melody is irresistible; all
France seems to be joining with prayer and power in her loved anthem.
Quickly we have greeted our welcoming hostess once more, congratulated
the drivers for their good day's work, and hurried out to the
Coustous,--there to sit and sip ices and steep in the exhilaration of
the festival until far into the night.
* * * * *
And so ends our mountain faring; and when, the next day, we turn to the
morning train for Toulouse and the open plain, it is with anticipation
still, yet with an unrepressed sigh at leaving these mountains and
laughing valleys of the Pyrenees, of whose charms we had once so
inadequately known.