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A BOOK OF THE PYRENEES
* * * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
THE TRAGEDY OF THE CÆSARS
STRANGE SURVIVALS
SONGS OF THE WEST
A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG
OLD COUNTRY LIFE
YORKSHIRE ODDITIES
OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES
A BOOK OF GHOSTS
THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW
A BOOK OF NURSERY SONGS AND RHYMES
A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES
AND
(_Uniform with this Volume_)
A BOOK OF BRITTANY
A BOOK OF CORNWALL
A BOOK OF DEVON
A BOOK OF NORTH WALES
A BOOK OF SOUTH WALES
A BOOK OF THE RHINE
A BOOK OF THE RIVIERA
* * * * * *
[Illustration: LA VALLÉE DU LYS]
A BOOK OF THE PYRENEES
by
S. BARING-GOULD
Author of “A Book of Brittany,” “A Book of the Riviera,” etc.
IT IS THE SOUL THAT SEES; THE OUTWARD EYES
PRESENT THE OBJECT, BUT THE MIND DESCRIES.
_LONGFELLOW_
With Twenty-Five Illustrations
Methuen & Co.
36 Essex Street W.C.
London
First Published in 1907
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PYRENEAN CHAIN 1
II. GASCONY 15
III. BAYONNE 30
IV. S. JEAN-PIED-DE-PORT 51
V. ORTHEZ 66
VI. PAU 85
VII. OLORON 114
VIII. THE VAL D’OSSAU 124
IX. LOURDES 134
X. THE LAVEDAN 152
XI. LUZ AND CAUTERETS 162
XII. TARBES 175
XIII. BAGNÈRES 189
XIV. THE VAL D’AURE 201
XV. LUCHON 214
XVI. COUSERANS 236
XVII. FOIX 245
XVIII. LA CERDAGNE 264
XIX. THE CANIGOU 272
XX. PERPIGNAN 286
INDEX 305
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LA VALLÉE DU LYS _Frontispiece_
PAGE
MAP OF THE PYRENEES 1
NATIVES OF ROUSSILLON 4
THE CASCADE, GAVARNIE 7
From a photograph by Messrs. Levy and Sons, Paris
THE CATHEDRAL, BAYONNE 32
THE COAST, BIARRITZ 44
SAN SEBASTIAN 48
PAS DE ROLAND 54
THE BRIDGE, ORTHEZ 66
PAU 85
THE CASTLE, PAU 92
ROOM OF JEANNE D’ALBRET, CASTLE OF PAU 100
BETHARAM 112
THE BASILICA, LOURDES 134
THE TEMPLAR CHURCH, LUZ 167
From a photograph by Messrs. Levy and Sons, Paris
LA BRÈCHE DE ROLAND 169
From a photograph by Messrs. Levy and Sons, Paris
CHOIR OF S. BERTRAND DE COMINGES 220
CLOISTERS, S. BERTRAND DE COMINGES 226
LA CASCADE D’ENFER, LUCHON 232
LE LAC D’OO 234
VERNET LES BAINS 274
CHÂTEAU DE ROUSSILLON 286
GATEWAY OF THE CITADEL, PERPIGNAN 291
CATHEDRAL INTERIOR, PERPIGNAN 294
THE CLOISTERS OF ELNE 298
NOTE.--The illustrations are from photographs by Messrs.
Neurdein frères, of Paris, except where other acknowledgment is
made.
PREFACE
This _Book of the Pyrenees_ follows the same lines as my _Book of
the Rhine_ and _Book of the Riviera_. It is not a guide, but an
introduction to the chain, giving to the reader a sketch of the History
of the Country he visits.
[Illustration: PYRENEES]
THE PYRENEES
CHAPTER I
THE PYRENEAN CHAIN
The wall of division--A triple chain--Contrasts--Deforesting--
The Catalan of Roussillon--The Basque of Navarre--Roman roads--
The three ports--Central ridge--Trough to the north--Watershed--
Glacial moraines--Lakes--Cirques--Abrupt termination of the
lower valleys--Cave dwellers--Dolmens--That of Buzy--Landes of
Pontacq--The Iberian stock--Development of language--Auxiliary
verbs--The Basque villages and people.
The Pyrenees stand up as a natural wall of demarcation between two
nations, the French and the Spaniards, just as the mountains of
Dauphiné sever the French from the Italians. It has been remarked that
these natural barriers are thrown up to part Romance-speaking peoples,
whereas the mountain ranges sink to comparative insignificance between
the French and the Germans. Over the Jura the French tongue has flowed
up the Rhone to Sierre, above the Lake of Geneva, so the Spanish or
Catalan has overleaped the Pyrenees in Roussillon, and the Basque
tongue has those who speak it in both cis-Pyrenean and trans-Pyrenean
Navarre. The Pyrenees are the upcurled lips of the huge limestone
sea-bed, that at some vastly remote period was snapped from east to
west, and through the fissure thus formed the granite was thrust,
lifting along with it the sedimentary rocks.
Consequently the Pyrenees consist of from two to three parallel chains.
The central and loftiest is that of granite, but where loftiest is
hidden on the north side by the upturned reef of limestone. On the
south the calcareous bed is lifted in great slabs, but split, and does
not form so ragged and so lofty a range.
The Pyrenees start steeply out of the Mediterranean, which at a
distance of five-and-twenty miles from Cape Creuse, has a depth of
over 500 fathoms, and there the limestone flares white and bald in the
line of the Albères. But to the west the chain does not drop abruptly
into the Atlantic, but trails away for 300 miles, forming the Asturian
mountains, and then, curving south, serves to part Galicia from Leon.
The range of the Pyrenees dividing France from Spain is 350 miles in
length.
The chain to the west wears a different aspect from that in the east.
The Basque mountains are clothed with trees, pines and birch, walnut
and chestnut, and above them are turf and heather. But the eastern
extremity is white and barren. This is due to the fact that the Western
Pyrenees catch and condense the vapours from the Atlantic, whereas the
Oriental Pyrenees do not draw to them heavy and continuous rains. The
boundary between the regions and climates is Mont Carlitte. In the
Western Pyrenees the snow line lies far lower than in the east. On the
former of these glaciers hang in wreaths, whereas there are none in the
east.
The contrast between the northern and southern slopes is even more
marked than that between the extremities of the chain. On the French
side are snow, ice, running streams, fertile vales, luxuriant meadows
and forests, and valleys and hillsides that sparkle with villages
smiling in prosperity. But on the southern slope the eye ranges over
barren rocks, sun-baked, scanty pastures, and here and there at long
intervals occur squalid clusters of stone hovels, scarce fit to shelter
goats, yet serving as human habitations.
To the mountaineers the French side is _bach_, that in shadow; the
Spanish is _soulane_, the sunny. At one time this latter slope was
not as arid and desert as at present, but the thriftlessness of man
has shorn down the forests and the teeth of the goats have nipped
off or barked every seedling or sapling thrown up by nature to cover
its nakedness and redress the evil. Thereby the rainfall has been
diminished, and the soil is exposed to be carried away into the plain
by every storm that breaks over the heights.[A] Trees are the patient
workers that reconstitute the flesh over the bones of the mountains.
They derive their elements from the air and the rock, and they perform
transformations far more wonderful than those attributed to the
philosopher’s stone. As Victor Hugo sang:--
“Les arbres sont autant de mâchoires qui rongent
Les aliments épars dans l’air souple et vivant;
Ils dévorent la pluie, ils dévorent le vent.
Tout leur est bon: la nuit, la mort. La pourriture
Voit la rose, et lui va porter sa nourriture.”
[A] É. Reclus: _Géographie universelle_, II. “La France.”
When the trees disappear from a country it shows the thriftlessness
of the inhabitants--“sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”;
with the axe and the firebrand they destroy in a day what it will take
centuries to replace.
Two non-French races occupy the extremities of the chain and the
lowlands at its feet. In the Basses Pyrénées are the Basques, in
Pyrénées Orientales are the Catalonians, speaking a dialect of the
Spanish of Barcelona.
The whole of Aquitaine, from the Loire to the Pyrenees, the whole of
Western Spain and Portugal, was once occupied by the Iberians, of whom
the Basques are the shrunken residue. All Eastern France and Eastern
Spain were overflowed by the Celts. The Romans recognized that Spain
was in the possession of two races totally distinct, ethnographically
and linguistically, and they termed the population of the peninsula
Celtiberians.
When the Romans arrived on the scene they carried one main causeway
from Arles to Narbonne, and thence to Toulouse, and from Toulouse to
Dax. From this, roads branched to the south and crossed the Pyrenees
into Spain by three gaps, natural doorways--one to the east, the
easiest of all, by Le Perthus, where Pompey set up a trophy; one by
Somport leading from Iluro (Oloron) to Saragossa; a third by Roncevaux
to Pampeluna.
By the first of these ports Hannibal crossed from Spain on his way to
Italy; by it also poured the Saracens to devastate the fields of Gaul.
By Roncevaux Charles the Great passed to menace the Saracen power, and
on his return met there with disaster at the hands of the Basques,
which has been immortalized in song.
East and west were debatable lands. Navarre sat astride on the
ridge, with a foot in Spain and the other in Gascony. To the east
was Roussillon, that pertained to the kings of Aragon, till ceded
definitely to France in 1659.
[Illustration: NATIVES OF ROUSSILLON]
But to revert to the geological structure of the Pyrenees. The central
chain is, as already said, composed of crystalline rocks, granite, and
micaceous schist, whereas the northern chain exhibits the upturned beds
of superincumbent deposits, and on the Spanish side the limestone
lies on the granite. In the department of Haute Garonne the chains are
soldered together by a transverse bar of mountain.
J. H. Michon, author of _Le Maudit_, says well:--
“These mountains reveal to me almost the entire history of the
successive periods in the terrestrial crust. I have but to
follow the torrent of the Arbouste, and mount to the Lac de
Seculéjo, and push farther to the Pic d’Espingo, to find myself
on the crest of the ridge dividing France from Spain. Often at
these altitudes, reaching to 3000 metres above the sea, the
prodigious force which has rent the terrestrial crust in a
fault of eighty leagues in breadth, which has upheaved, as in
the Marboré, enormous masses of limestone that once formed the
basin of seas succeeding each other at different epochs--often
has this phenomenon filled me with amazement. There in the
Marboré lie the beds, retaining their horizontality, as though
the aqueous deposits had been formed at this great elevation.
“But more commonly the central chain presents to our view
masses of granite of astounding thickness. What a terrible
cataclysm must that have been which thus reft and upset the
globe, changing an extensive plain long submerged into a
gigantic wall of granite shielded right and left with encasing
masses of sedimentary formations which the upheaved granite has
split and displaced in all directions.”
To the north of the Pyrenees lies a deep trough extending from the Bay
of Biscay to the Corbières that links the Pyrenees to the Cevennes, and
which at the present day forms the watershed between the Mediterranean
and the Atlantic. This gulf was gradually silted up by the torrents
from the Pyrenees. Masses of rubble may be seen backing and capping
isolated hills of sandstone, and forming long ridges, as that of the
Park at Pau. The drift was from east to west. All the low hills are
crowned with rolled stones. The boulders vary in size in proportion to
the distance they have travelled. At Pamiers, Tarbes, and Pau they are
of the size of a child’s head, but farther north dwindle to pebbles and
gravel, and finally we enter on a region of clay and sand, which heavy
rains convert into quagmires. Indeed, those of Armagnac, between the
Garonne and the Upper Adour, have hardly their equal in France. These
are not glacier deposits, for the stones and pebbles have been rolled,
and the clay or mud is the chewed or mumbled remains of boulders. At
a later period the entire basin thus choked was lifted high above its
original level.
That there was a glacial period in the south of France is certain,
and the glaciers have left their moraines behind them. The glacier of
Argelez extended in one stream to Lourdes, and then fanned out towards
Tarbes. At Argelez it filled the valley to the height of 4430 feet. To
morraine is due the desolate plain of detritus of Lannemezan. Separated
from the mountain spurs by the profound depression in which flows the
Neste, it is attached to the main chain solely by the isthmus that runs
out from the Pic d’Arneille towards the plains.
The true watershed, between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, lies
far to the east, on the frontier between Ariège and the Pyrénées
Orientales. All the streams and rivers to the west of the insignificant
chain there flow into the Bay of Biscay. The rivers to the east are
comparatively unimportant, the Aude alone being of a respectable
size; and this does not derive its waters from the main chain of the
Pyrenees, its sources are in the spur that acts as the watershed.
[Illustration: THE CASCADE, GAVARNIE]
The lakes of the Pyrenees are nothing more than mountain tarns; the
largest is the Lac Lanoux, in Pyrénées Orientales, lying below an
irregular cirque, commanded by the Pic Pédroux. It stands 6500 feet
above the sea-level, and is about two and a half miles long. It is
usually frozen over from September to the end of June.
But if the lakes be insignificant, the cirques are of the most imposing
character. There are none in Europe comparable to that of Gavarnie.
This consists of an immense cul-de-sac, a vast amphitheatre, the stages
of limestone capped with snow and ice, and above it tower five huge
snow-clad mountain crests. The arena is heaped up with rubble brought
down by the cascades. The mighty walls are wept over by water from
the thawing glaciers. The highest fall of all is that in the lap of
the cirque; it is a stream that precipitates itself from a height of
1270 feet, and, speedily resolving itself into spray, waves in the air
like an ostrich plume. Superb as is the Cirque de Gavarnie in summer
its appearance in winter is even more sublime. Especially is it so
when the mountain-tops are enveloped in vapour. Then the aspect is as
of a series of walls with snow bars intervening, mounting as a giant
staircase into heaven; and the cascades are transformed into crystal
columns.
There are other cirques deserving of notice, as that of Estaubé,
commanded by the Pic de Pinède, behind which rises the Mont Perdu, on
Spanish ground.
Troumousse, to the east of Estaubé, is a basin of pasture, girded about
by a rampart 3000 feet in height, above which soars the Munia, a mass
of snow and ice.
From the French side long lush valleys run to the roots of the first
chain between the buttresses, but above this the character of the
scenery changes abruptly. The melted snows descending from peak
and terrace have sawn their way through the barrier imposed by the
northern belt of limestone, feeling for and finding faults, through
which they have torn their way, and debouch abruptly on to the lower
broad valleys out of restricted ravines. Above these gorges we light
on basins, such as that of Luz, green, in spring a sheet of gold from
the crocuses. These were lake-beds, dried up when the torrents had
contrived their escape. The rich vale of Ossau, between monotonous
spurs, ends abruptly above Laruns, and there, through a cleft in the
precipice, rages forth the Gave. It is much the same with the other
Gave. Above Lourdes it glides through a broad, well-cultivated valley,
but at Pierrefite, the mountain barrier is cleft in two places, through
one of which roars forth the river from Luz, through the other the
Gave from Cauterets. The Val de Campan, the Val d’Arreau, and that of
Luchon, have much the same character.
Of the mountains, undoubtedly the Pic de Midi d’Ossau is the most
conspicuous, not on account of its height, for it attains only to 8700
feet, but from its form, resembling a dog’s tooth, cleft near the
summit, glittering with snow, and rising in singular majesty above the
Val d’Ossau, where the mountains fall back respectfully to allow a full
view of its majesty. There are many noble mountains,--the Pic de Midi
de Bigorre, 9436 feet; the Vignemale, 10,820 feet; Mont Perdu, 11,168
feet; Maladetta of the same height almost to a foot; but these last
hold themselves screened behind the inferior but snow-clad northern
range. The Canigou, however, belongs to this latter range, and is
afflicted with none of the retiring qualities of the crystalline range.
It steps boldly, ostentatiously forth above the plain of Roussillon,
and for long was supposed to be the highest peak of the Pyrenees,
though actually reaching only to 8360 feet. M. Élisée Reclus says of
it:--
“Like Etna, the Canigou is one of those mountains which rise
vigorous as masters over a wide stretch of country. From below
this grey pyramid, cleft with ravines, streaked with detritus
between salient ribs of rock, of every tint, is not a whit less
striking in aspect than the Sicilian volcano.”
To the lover of flowers the Pyrenees present greater attractions
than even the Alps. They lie farther to the south, enjoy more sun,
and exhibit a greater luxuriance of vegetation and more variety in
species. We meet in the Pyrenees with all old Alpine friends and
make fresh acquaintances. Nowhere does the _Saxifraga longifolia_ or
_pyramidalis_ throw up such a _jet-d’eau_ of blossom. I have grown
it at home, but it does not equal the beauty and abundance of flower
as here wild. Nowhere are the geraniums in greater abundance and
variety, springing up among the tufts of sharp-scented box. The crimson
_Erodium manescavi_, the yellow _Hypericum mummularium_, the imbricated
_Dianthus monspessulanus_, and the still more tattered _Dianthus
superbus_, the purple toothwort, the blue stately aconite or monkshood,
the lemon-coloured _Adonis vernalis_, the violet _Ramondia pyrenaica_,
the _Primula viscosa_ and _P. auricula_, the _Lilium bulbiferum_,
the _Lilium pyrenaicum_, and a thousand more. Strange is it that the
Alpen rose, the _Rhododendron ferrugineum_, should be as capricious a
plant as it is. It luxuriates on the Alps, in the Pyrenees, and in the
Dauphiné Alps; but does not appear in the Cevennes, the mountains of
Auvergne, or Corsica. The great central plateau of France, though the
heights rise to considerable altitudes and the constituent rocks are
the same as those of the Pyrenees and the Alps, yet are totally devoid
of this beautiful shrub.
The earliest inhabitants of the chain of the Pyrenees have left their
traces in the limestone caverns. They were contemporary with the
reindeer, the cave-bear, and hyena. Hardly a grotto that has been
explored does not reveal that these men had lived there.
There are not many megalithic monuments to the north of the chain,
but sufficient remain to show us that the dolmen-builder occupied the
land from sea to sea. At Buzy, near the entrance to the Val d’Ossau,
is a fine dolmen. I saw it first in 1850; it had been recently dug out
by a treasure-seeker. A peasant told me that the man who had rifled
it had found a bar of gold so soft that he could bend it. In fact, it
consisted of pure gold without alloy. Near the dolmen lay a slab of red
sandstone, with circles carved on it, some concentric, much like the
carvings on the stones of Gavr’innis, in Brittany, and in the great
covered way at Drogheda, in Ireland. Not having a drawing book with me
nor a scale, all I could do at the time was to sketch the sculpture on
my cuff. Three weeks later I revisited Buzy to make a careful drawing
to scale of the slab, and found that in the meantime it had been broken
up by the road-menders.
The road from Pau to Tarbes traverses a vast plateau, rising 300 feet
above the plain of the Adour. It is composed of marshy moorland covered
with fern and gorse. This is actually the old moraine deposited by the
glacier of Argelez. It is made up of angular blocks brought down from
the mountains, excellent material from which to construct mortuary
cells. And on this plateau we find tumuli in remarkable abundance.
This, as well as Lannemezan, must have served as huge cemeteries. Of
late these cairns have been excavated, and prove to cover dolmens
and covered avenues; one, the Grande Butte of the lande of Pontacq,
contains a megalithic chamber, recalling the finest monuments of the
kind in Brittany.
The tumulus of La Hallade had been violated in the Iron Age, and used
then as a place of interment; but underneath the cinerary urns of the
Early Gaulish period was discovered the prehistoric monument intact--a
long low gallery of stones set on edge and covered with flat slabs. It
was subdivided into eight cells, and contained twenty-three vases, some
of which contained burnt bones, flakes of schist and quartz, a handful
of turquoise beads, and a little blade of gold.
That the people of the rude stone monuments have their modern
representatives in the Basques is probable. All this region was held by
the Vascones, who gave to it their name--Gascony. They were driven over
the Pyrenees by the Gauls, but in the sixth century they forced their
way back to their old dwelling places and the tombs of their fathers,
and falling on Novempopulania, as the territory was then called,
defeated the Duke Bladastus, in 581, and settled down on the plains.
But they were beaten in their turn, and, abandoning the plains, settled
in those districts known as Labourde, Soule, and Lower Navarre.
The Basques are a people of great interest to the ethnologist, as
the last shrunken remains of that Iberian race that once occupied
all Western Europe from Scotland to Portugal and Spain, and, indeed,
overleaped the Straits and spread as Kabyles and Berbers in Northern
Africa. Although overlapped by other races this Basque element forms
the main constituent of the French race in the south-west.
Every cook knows what “stock” is. It is the basis on which almost every
known kind of soup is built up, whether Julienne, soupe claire, à la
marquise, à la vermicelle, and Mrs. Beeton only knows how many more.
The Iberian has been the stock out of which the English, Irish, Welsh,
French, Italians, and Spaniards have been concocted. In France there
was a dash of Gaulish, a smack of the Roman, a soupçon of Frank, _et
voilà_; the Frenchman of to-day is at bottom an Iberian.
This same Iberian was an accommodating personage. He was ready to
abandon his own rudimentary tongue and adopt the language of his
conquerors. He cast his agglutinative tongue behind his back, took in
as much Latin as he could swallow, and produced the French language. In
Wales he adopted the British tongue, in Ireland the Gaelic.
He was wise in so doing, for his own language, as represented by
the Basque of the present day, is crude, unformed, and wanting in
flexibility. The first stage in the formation of speech is in the
utterance of nouns substantive. A child embraced by a stranger says,
“Man kiss baby.” Kiss is a noun substantive. The child has not as yet
arrived at the formation of a verb; and baby is a substantive, he has
not yet attained to the use of a personal pronoun. The Chinese language
remains in this primitive condition. In it the position of the words in
a sentence governs the signification.
The second stage is that reached by the agglutinative tongues, where a
differentiation of the parts of speech has taken place, and pronouns
and particles acting as prepositions are tacked on to the nouns and
verbs, but in such an elementary manner as never to become fused into
them so as to affect and alter them. Always their separate existence is
manifest. The third stage is where they are united and interpenetrate
each other. The soldering has been so close that only a skilled eye can
discover that an inflexion in a verb, a case in a noun, are composite
words.
_Amo_, _amas_, _amat_, are actually formed of the root _ama_, love,
with primitive pronouns welded on to them so as to distinguish the
person who loves.
In Basque the auxiliary verbs alone undergo conjugation, and they
exhibit a peculiarity that deserves notice. Take an instance: the
auxiliary verb _izan_, to be. “I am” may be rendered in four different
ways, according to the person addressed. In speaking to a male
familiarly “I am” is _nuk_; but a woman addressed in like manner is
_nun_; “I am,” when used in address to a person highly respected of
either sex, is _nuzu_; “I am” spoken without any particular reference
to any one is _niz_. So “he or she is” may be rendered _duk_, _dun_,
_duzu_, _da_; and “we are” by _gaituk_, _gaitun_, _gaituzu_, _gare_.
The Basque language is capable of an incredible amount of agglomeration
in the formation of words, and of indefinite modification of times,
conditions, forms of words.
_Etche_ is a house; _argizagi_ is the moon; _elhur_ is snow; _chori_ is
a bird; _sagar_ an apple; _oski_ a shoe; _aurhide_ a child; _arrolze_,
an egg.
We feel at once that we meet here with a language which has no
relations that we can detect with any of the European tongues with
which we are familiar.
The Basque has not distinguished himself in literature. It is true that
a set of poems pretending to be ancient has been produced and published
as relics of Early Basque poetry, but they were forgeries, like
Macpherson’s _Ossian_.
The nucleus of the Basque country may be said to be S. Jean-de-Luz.
Formerly it was Ustaritz (i.e. the Oak of Judgment), where the Elders
assembled in Council; but at the French Revolution this oak was cut
down.
The Basque villages have a character of their own. Erected by a people
who do not feel eagerness to look in at one another’s windows, a
people pushing independence to fanaticism, the villages consist rather
of isolated buildings loosely united than of close agglomeration of
houses. Like the Welsh, the Basques love whitewash, but paint their
shutters brilliant red. The churches stand in the midst of a clump
of trees, their towers surmounted by three points, symbolical of the
Trinity. They are a healthy people, clean in mind and clean in body,
religious and honest. The whole population has been described as “la
plus belle, la plus saine, la plus alerte, la plus joyeuse qui se
puisse se trouver en Europe.”