ORTHEZ
Court of the counts of Foix--Froissart--Gaston Phœbus--Kills
his son--And a cousin--Death of Phœbus--Evan de Foix--The
bastards of Phœbus--Tragic death of Evan--Bridge over the
Gave--Jeanne d’Albret--Her despotic actions--Flight to La
Rochelle--Charles sends La Terride into Béarn--Jeanne invites
Montgomery to her aid--He enters Béarn--Takes Orthez--
Massacre--The castle capitulates--Broken faith--Murder of
ten barons--Slaughter of priests and monks--Catholic worship
forbidden--Death of Jeanne--Castle of Belocq--Puyôo--
Battlefield of Orthez--Retreat of Soult.
Orthez has little to occupy it save to brood over its past. It is
a dull town, without characteristic features, and it sulks because
Pau the parvenue is flourishing, and flaunting, whilst itself, the
venerable Orthez, the once capital, sits as a widow, desolate.
Till the fifteenth century it was the residence of the Court of the
counts of Foix and viscounts of Béarn, whose castle of Moncada occupied
the height above the town. A splendid pile it was, erected by Gaston
VII, in 1240, after the pattern of a Spanish castle of the name that he
had taken. This had proved to him a hard nut to crack, and he hoped to
make the new Moncada by additional works wholly uncrackable. But the
tooth of Time has broken it completely, and nothing of it now remains
save the keep.
[Illustration: THE BRIDGE, ORTHEZ]
The town was astir and aglow when Gaston Phœbus resided in the
castle. Froissart so describes it. Minstrels, merchants, knights,
adventurers, swarmed in the streets, and streamed into the castle,
which they did not leave empty-handed. “I have heard him say, when the
King of Cyprus was in Béarn proposing a crusade, that if the kings of
France and of England had gone to the Holy Land, he himself would have
been the most considerable lord in the host, second only to them, and
would have led the largest contingent.”
Gaston Phœbus, Count of Foix and Viscount of Béarn, was the son of
Gaston IX and the elderly Eleanor de Cominges. On account of his beauty
he was given the name of Phœbus, and he adopted the blazing sun as his
device. He was arrested by King John of France when at Paris because he
refused to do homage for his lands, but was released and given command
of an army in Guyenne to war against the English.
Froissart visited Orthez, and lodged at the tavern “La Lune,” now
rebuilt and renamed “La belle Hôtesse.”
“I must say,” wrote he, “that although I have seen many
knights, kings, princes, and other great men, I have never seen
any so handsome as he, either in mould of limb and shape, or
in countenance, which was fair and ruddy, lit up with grey,
amorous eyes, that delighted whenever he chose to express
affection. He was so perfectly formed that it is not possible
to overpraise him. Gaston Phœbus was a prudent knight, full
of enterprise and wisdom. He never allowed men of abandoned
character to be about his person; he reigned prudently, and was
constant at his devotions. He mightily loved dogs above other
animals, and during the summer and winter amused himself with
hunting. He employed four secretaries, whom he called neither
John, Walter, nor William, but his Good-for-noughts, and to
these he gave his letters to copy out.”
But this prince was no other than a lusty, handsome animal, incapable
of controlling his passions, and whilst profuse in largesses to
wandering _jongleurs_ and travellers, who would bruit abroad his
praises, mean in money matters in other particulars.
Gaston Phœbus succeeded his father in 1343, and in 1348 married
Agnes, daughter of Philip III of Navarre. By her he had one son,
Gaston, as beautiful as Phœbus himself, and an amiable youth. Before
long the Count and his wife fell out. The quarrel was sordid--it
concerned money. Phœbus had imprisoned the Sieur d’Albret. The King
of Navarre, Charles the Bad, brother of the Countess, interceded for
his liberation, and undertook to guarantee payment of fifty thousand
francs for his ransom. Accordingly Gaston released him, and d’Albret
paid the money into the hands of the King of Navarre, who pocketed
it, and declined to send it to the Count of Foix, under the plea that
he was trustee for his sister and reserved it as her dower. The Count
resented this upon his wife, whom he called by all the bad names in his
copious vocabulary. He had taken a mistress, and he openly favoured
her in the face of his wife for her humiliation. By this woman he had
three sons. Then he ordered Agnes to visit the Court of Navarre and use
her personal influence to obtain the money due. The Countess went, but
failed to induce her brother to disburse; and knowing how ungovernable
was the temper of her husband, how little he loved her, she shrank from
returning to Orthez.
The boy Gaston at the age of fifteen entreated leave to visit his
mother at Pampeluna. The lad was distressed at the estrangement, and
pined for his mother. Accordingly his father gave him a splendid
retinue of gallant youths, and the Bishop of Lescar as his chaplain.
Charles the Bad resolved on a diabolical act of treachery. When the
boy was leaving he drew him aside, assured him of his distress at
seeing the lad’s father alienated in heart from his mother, and gave
him a bag of arsenic, which he informed him was a love powder. This he
was to strew on his father’s meat, or drop into his cup, when Phœbus’s
love for his wife would infallibly revive. But on no account, said
Charles, was Gaston to breathe a word of this to any one, and he must
be cautious to seize the right moment for the administration of the
dose, when unobserved. Gaston, fully believing what his uncle said,
hung the bag round his neck under his dress, and returned to Orthez.
Now it happened that Gaston and his half-brother, the bastard Evan,
slept in the same room. They were nearly of the same age and size, and
dressed alike. Evan did not fail to notice the silk bag and questioned
Gaston about it, but was put off with evasive answers.
Three days after Evan and Gaston quarrelled over a game of tennis, and
Gaston boxed his half-brother’s ears. Evan ran to his father and told
him that Gaston carried in his bosom a mysterious pouch of which he
would give no account.
At dinner Phœbus was served by his son, Gaston, and looking hard at
him observed the string about his neck. Laying hold of him, he tore
open his vest, and discovered the bag of powder. He cut the string,
and gave some of the white contents on a piece of meat to a dog, that
ate it and died. Then in a paroxysm of rage, knife in hand, he leaped
over the table, swearing that he would kill Gaston, who had purposed to
poison him. He would have slain him on the spot had not his servants
interposed and disarmed him.
The Count then ordered the boy to be thrown into a dungeon. At the same
time he had all the attendants of the youth who had been with him in
Navarre arrested and tortured, and fifteen of them were forthwith hung.
“Which was a pity,” says Froissart, “for there were not in all Gascony
such handsome and well-appointed squires.” The Bishop of Lescar had
timely warning, and took to his heels.
The Count assembled the Estates of Béarn and laid before them his
charge against the boy, and they unanimously decided that the prince
must not be executed, but kept in durance for awhile; nor would they
separate till they had extorted from Phœbus a solemn undertaking to
submit to their decision.
But the poor lad, knowing his innocence, wounded to the quick at the
manner in which he had been duped by his uncle, at the blind conviction
of his guilt entertained by his father, at the barbarity with which his
companions had been racked, and strung up, refused all food. He was
confined in a narrow dungeon, badly lighted, and his gaoler at first
did not observe that the meals he brought him remained untouched. But
on the tenth day--I quote Froissart--
“The person who served him, looking about the cell, saw all the
meat unconsumed with which he had been previously supplied.
Then, shutting the door, he went to the Count of Foix and said,
‘My lord, for God’s sake, look to your son, he is starving
himself in his prison. I do not believe that he has eaten a
morsel since his confinement.’ On hearing this the Count was
enraged, and without saying a word went to his son’s prison. In
an evil hour he had a knife in his hand, with which he had been
paring his nails. He held it so close by the blade that of the
point scarcely so much as the size of a groat showed.
“Thrusting aside the tapestry that covered the door of the
dungeon, through ill luck he struck his son on the jugular
vein, as he shouted, ‘Ha, traitor! why dost thou not eat?’ and
instantly flung out of the chamber without saying or doing
more. The lad was frightened at his father’s violence, and was,
moreover, weak through long fasting. The point of the knife,
small though it was, had severed the artery, and when he felt
what had been done, he turned himself on one side on his pallet
and expired.
“The Count had hardly returned to his apartment before his
servants came running after him to announce the death of his
son. ‘Dead is he? God help me!’ exclaimed the Count. ‘Dead he
is, my lord.’ The Count was greatly affected, and said, ‘Ah,
ha, Gaston! what a sorry business this has proved for me and
thee.’”
This was by no means his only crime. He induced his cousin, Pierre
Arnaut de Béarn, governor of the Castle of Lourdes, to visit him,
on the plea that he wished to discuss matters with him. Arnaut held
Lourdes for the English. Gaston Phœbus desired to acquire this
stronghold, which was the key to the Valley of Argelez. He received
Arnaut in a friendly manner, and they dined together. For three days
he showed him lavish hospitality, and then demanded the surrender of
the castle. Arnaut refused. “I hold it for the King of England. It has
been confided to my honour,” he replied, “and to no other person will
I surrender my trust.” Gaston Phœbus flew into one of his mad fits of
rage, rushed upon him, and stabbed him in five places with his dagger.
“My Lord,” said the gallant castellan, “this is ungentle treatment,
to summon me to your house as a guest, and therein to murder me.” The
Count ordered him to be flung into a dungeon, where he died of his
wounds.
The crime availed Phœbus nothing, for Jean, the brother of Pierre, had
been left in charge of the castle, and he refused to give it up.
The Viscount of Châteaubon, the Count’s cousin-germain, heir to his
lands and titles, after the death of Gaston the younger, was greatly
hated by Phœbus. He retained him in prison for eight months, and only
released him for a ransom of fifty thousand francs. Froissart gives an
account of the end of Phœbus. He had been out hunting near Sauveterre,
in the month of August, when the heat was great. He had killed a boar,
that was brought to the inn at Riou, where the Count would dine.
“The Count went to his chamber, that was strewn with rushes
and green leaves; the walls were hung with boughs freshly
cut for perfume and coolness. He had no sooner entered the
room than he remarked, ‘These greens are agreeable to me, for
the day has been desperately hot.’ When seated he conversed
with Sir Espagne du Lyon (his chaplain) on the dogs that had
best hunted. He called for water to wash, and two squires
advanced. Ernaudin d’Espagne took the silver basin, and another
knight, Sir Thibaut, the napkin. The Count rose from his seat,
and stretched out his hands to wash; but no sooner had his
fingers touched the cold water than he changed colour, from an
oppression at his heart, and his legs failing him, fell back
on his seat, exclaiming, ‘I am a dead man; but God have mercy
on me!’ He never spoke after this. He was carried to another
chamber, and laid on a bed and well covered.
“The two squires who had brought the water, to free themselves
from any charge of having poisoned him, said, ‘Here is the
water; we have already drunk of it, and will now do it again
in your presence,’ which they did, to the satisfaction of all.
They put into the Count’s mouth bread, water, and spices, but
all to no purpose, for in less than half an hour he was dead.”
No sooner was the breath out of his body than Evan de Foix, his
bastard, whom he loved dearly, galloped to Orthez to get possession
of the treasure in the tower. On his admission to the castle, before
it was known in the town that the Count was dead, he endeavoured to
open the chamber that contained the treasure, but failed; it was fast
behind three oak doors, and he could nowhere find the key. But in the
meanwhile the chaplain had found it upon the body of the Count, and
guessing the predicament in which was Evan, he also took horse and
raced off to Orthez.
By this time a vague rumour had reached the town that something had
happened to the Count, and the townsmen began to assemble in the
streets. The chaplain entered the castle, and now that he was provided
with the key Evan de Foix was able to reach the treasure. But it was
too late for him to make off with it. Before he could pack it up and
form plans for its transport, the death of Gaston Phœbus was known, and
crowds surrounded the castle and forbade egress. Evan was constrained
to show himself at a window and speak the citizens fair. They wished
him no ill, they replied, but they would neither suffer him to plunder
and carry off the treasure, nor leave the castle, till the Viscount of
Châteaubon, the lawful heir, had arrived--this latter was in Aragon at
the time. He at once started for Orthez, and a great assembly of the
Estates of Béarn was held. It was then determined that of the treasure,
the Viscount should have five thousand francs, and the bastards, who
had been put in chains till the will of the Estates was known, should
be set at liberty and allowed each two thousand francs.
“The Viscount of Châteaubon, on his arrival at Orthez, set at
liberty all prisoners confined in the castle. They were very
numerous; for the Count of Foix was very cruel to any person
who incurred his indignation, never sparing them, however high
their rank, but ordering them to be flung headlong over the
walls, or confined on bread and water during his pleasure; and
such as ventured to speak for their deliverance ran the risk of
being treated in like manner.”
Gaston Phœbus was born in 1331, and died in 1391. He left three
bastards; of these Bernard married Isabella de la Cerda, and became the
ancestor of the dukes of Medina-Celi. The eldest son, Evan, he who had
unwittingly brought about the death of his half-brother Gaston, met
with a tragic fate. A marriage was to take place between a squire in
whom the King, Charles VI, was interested and a damsel of the Queen’s
household, and it was arranged that there should be a masque of savages
in the evening, 29 January, 1392-3, in which the King was to take part.
There were to be six of these savages in chains, and they were to
perform a dance before the wedding party, and one of these maskers was
to be the Bastard of Foix. The performers were to be dressed in coats
of linen covered with flax, stuck on by means of pitch, and these linen
vests were to be stitched on so as to fit the person tight as a glove.
Sir Evan de Foix, with some foresight, entreated the King to forbid any
one approaching the dancers with torches. Such an order was accordingly
issued, and when the maskers entered the room, the serjeants commanded
all torch-bearers to withdraw. But, unhappily, whilst the savages were
capering, and producing much merriment, the Duke of Orleans entered
attended by four knights and six torches, they being not aware of the
King’s order, and so amused were those present with the dance that this
infraction of the royal command was not noticed. No one knew who the
maskers were, and various conjectures were offered. Happily for him
the King quitted the others, by unhooking his chain, and danced up to
the Duchess of Berri, who laid hold of him exclaiming, “You shall not
escape me till I have learned your name.”
At that very moment the Duke of Orleans, young and thoughtless, ran
forward with a torch to examine the savages more closely. In an instant
the flax on one ignited, in another moment the flame was communicated
to the others, for those five were chained together; only the King was
unlinked. The shrieks of those enveloped in flames were awful. Some
knights rushed forward and did their utmost to disengage the dancers,
but the pitch burnt their hands so severely, and so impossible did they
find it to rip away the habits, that they were constrained to desist.
One of the five, Jean de Nantouillet, recollected that the buttery was
near at hand. Exerting all his force, he snapped the chain, and flying
thither, plunged into a large tub of water prepared for the washing of
plates and dishes. This saved him, but he ever after bore the scars of
his burns.
The Duchess de Berri, the moment that she saw what had occurred, with
presence of mind, threw her mantle over the King, and retained him in
her arms, as he was rushing off in thoughtless generosity to endeavour
to save his companions. “Quick,” said she, “leave the room and assume
another dress.”
Evan de Foix, when enveloped in flames, cried aloud, “Save the King!
save the King!”
Of the four that were on fire, two died on the spot. The other two--the
Bastard of Foix and the Count de Joigny--died two days after in great
agony.
Orthez contains the Calvinist University established here by Jeanne
d’Albret, a building of the sixteenth century, now no longer used for
the purpose designed.
The bridge over the Gave is picturesque; it has one broad arch spanning
the river, and three pointed arches sustaining the road leading to it,
raised high to avoid floods. On the main pier is a tower, whence in
1569 the Calvinist soldiery of Montgomery precipitated the priests who
would not abjure the faith, upon the pointed rocks below.
Jeanne d’Albret, after the death of her husband, Antoine de Bourbon,
threw off the mask, and set diligently to work Protestantizing her
dominions. She put one of her pastors in the see of Oloron; her
kinsman, d’Albret, Bishop of Lescar, apostatized and married. She found
in many places that the people were ready for a change, especially such
as had been subject to exactions from the monasteries, which owned much
land and exercised extensive jurisdiction. In many, however, there was
strong resistance. In 1566 she was about to absolutely interdict the
exercise of the Catholic religion in Béarn, Foix, and Bigorre, when the
resistance of the Estates and the threatening attitude of the people
alarmed her and she withheld the edict for a time. In 1568, finding
that Charles IX was about to send troops into her land to protect the
oppressed Catholics, and fearing lest she should have her children
taken from her, she fled to La Rochelle, the Geneva of French Calvinism.
Charles IX announced his resolution to take possession of Béarn.
Bigorre was in revolt against her reforms, and a good many of the
seigneurs of Béarn could not endure them. The King commissioned the
terrible Monluc to pacify Bigorre, and the Baron de Terride to do
the same in Béarn. The Béarnais were in difficulties. They were to a
man loyal to their Viscountess, the titular Queen of Navarre, but a
considerable number of them were opposed to her religious policy, and
did not relish the taste of Calvinism. If they joined the forces of
the King they were rebels to their sovereign. If they took up arms for
her they fought for a religion that their soul abhorred. Nay, Pontacq,
Morlaas, shut their gates against the royal forces, and were reduced.
Lescar, Sauveterre, and Salies opened their gates to them.
Béarn was rapidly reduced. Clearly the object at which the King aimed
was to bring it completely under the crown of France. Two syndics of
Béarn addressed the King in the name of the Estates to declare that for
eight centuries the viscounty had been independent, that the King of
France was the protector but not the sovereign of the land. The Queen
of Navarre now gave commission to the Count of Montgomery to drive the
French out of her territories, and to establish throughout them the
reform of Calvin as the sole religion permissible. Montgomery was the
lieutenant of the Scottish Guard, who, in a tournament, in 1559, had
inadvertently killed Henry II, King of France. Obliged to fly the land,
he placed his sword at the disposal of any prince who was disposed to
smite the Catholics and the Royalists hip and thigh. Obeying the orders
of Jeanne, communicated to him from La Rochelle, Montgomery raised a
body of sturdy Huguenots and entered Béarn.
Alarmed at the rapidity of his movements, and himself at the head of
but a small body of men, the Baron de Terride retreated to Orthez, and
shut himself up in the Castle of Moncada.
Montgomery arrived at Pontacq on 6 August, 1562, crossed the Gave, and
advanced on Orthez. There, taking advantage of the gates being opened
to receive fugitives from the villages round, some of his soldiers
thrust in. Simultaneously the walls were escaladed, and the town was
given up to indiscriminate slaughter. In the name of their queen, all
the inhabitants were put to the sword.
The Gave rolled down the dead and flowed crimson with blood. The
Protestant historian Olhagaray says: “The river was full of blood,
the streets were heaped up with corpses. The convents were burnt. The
cries of the dying and the shouts of the murderers, the lamentations
of women and children filled the air with piteous sounds.” The Convent
of the Cordeliers offered a theatre for barbarities. The friars were
made to leap from the windows into the river, and were shot if they
endeavoured to gain the bank.
No excuse offered for this massacre will avail. The town was not taken
after a siege; it was not stormed by night; it was entered without
offering resistance, in broad day. The butchery at Orthez leaves an
indelible stain on the brow of Jeanne d’Albret.
A striking incident is remembered. One of the friars was at the altar
when the Huguenots burst in. He hastily took the monstrance, folded his
arms over it, and to save the Host from profanation, threw himself into
the Gave. The river swept his body into the Bidouze, and the Bidouze
into the Adour, and it was washed up under the walls of the Cordelier
Convent at Bayonne, still clasping in its rigid arms the vessel with
its sacred contents.
Terride, accompanied by the principal chiefs, had retreated into the
castle, but with such precipitation that they had forgotten to take in
a supply of provisions. Consequently in a few days they were forced to
surrender, under oath from Montgomery that their lives would be spared.
They were sent to Pau, ten barons of Béarn in all. One evening they
were invited by the Calvinist captain to dine with him at his table
in the Queen’s banqueting hall. During the meal they shook off their
despondency, and began to be merry over their cups, when, at a signal
from Montgomery, soldiers entered and butchered all the barons about
the table where they had been feasting.
“This cruel execution,” says Favyn, in his _History of Navarre_,
“took place on 24 August, the feast of S. Bartholomew.... The news
angered King Charles greatly, and it is supposed that he then formed
the resolution of making a second S. Bartholomew’s Day in expiation of
the first.” So one crime draws on another--a Nemesis, which, however,
does not fall on the criminals, but on the guiltless. Montgomery was
now master of Béarn. How many priests and monks were slaughtered none
knew. Nearly all the friars of Morlaas were shot down. The prior of
the Carmelites at Sauveterre was hung, and the rest of the brethren
thrown into a well till they choked it up. All the priests caught near
S. Sever were led to the brow of a precipice and forced at the point of
pikes to leap down. At Orthez the prior of the Augustines was ordered
to mount the pulpit and recant. He ascended, but it was to profess his
adherence to the Catholic faith, whereupon he was shot in the pulpit.
All his seven brethren met their fate with like heroism. They were made
to walk down a lane formed of Huguenot soldiers with swords drawn, and
were hacked to pieces, one after another.
The Calvinist soldiers did not even respect the dead. They broke open
the vault in which lay Gaston Phœbus, took his skull, and played
skittles with it. Great numbers of gentlemen and their families,
Catholics of every rank and sex, fled to the mountains or crossed into
Spain.
Montgomery, having finished with Béarn, left the command with the
Baron d’Arros, and departed for more active work elsewhere. Jeanne
d’Albret now dispatched injunction after injunction, proclamation after
proclamation, in one continuous stream, into Béarn from her refuge
in La Rochelle. On 28 November, 1569, she required that Calvinistic
worship should be established everywhere, in every town and parish,
throughout her dominions; and in 1571 she forbade the celebration of
the Mass under pain of death. She would allow an amnesty to such as
had taken up arms during the late troubles, but only on condition that
they adopted her form of religion.
In 1572 Jeanne died in Paris, not without suspicions of poison. She had
gone there to negotiate the marriage of her son Henry with Marguerite
de Valois, sister of Charles IX.
An excursion may be made to the Castle of Belocq, whose towers are
visible from the high road to Bayonne, on the further side of the Gave.
It is situated on a height, at the feet of which the green river sweeps
past the wooded slopes on the farther bank.
The castle is ruinous. It consists of a large, irregular yard with
seven towers in the wall. The entrance gateway is under a donjon.
Through a little door one can mount to the top by a flight of stone
steps, disturbing the bats. On the same side of the enclosure is
a circular tower, octagonal within, with a vaulted chamber in the
basement. On the west side is a beautiful little chamber in a tower,
also vaulted. One tower towards the river, and commanding it, has
been blown up and a great solid mass has fallen into the river below;
on it sit the washerwomen of the village beating their linen. On the
right bank, opposite Belocq, is the village of Puyôo. Puyôo in patois
signifies a tumulus, and the place takes its name from a huge mound
hollowed out as a cup at the top. Certainly the substructure of a Frank
wooden castle, exactly like the tumps that are found in Southern Wales,
and the representations of fortresses in the Bayeux tapestry. The
hamlet of Puyôo is occupied mainly by Calvinists.
But that which will mainly interest an Englishman at Orthez will be to
go over the ground of the battle fought on 27 February, 1814, in which
Lord Wellington defeated Marshal Soult. It was, in fact, one of his
most brilliant victories.
Leaving Sir John Hope and Admiral Penrose to invest Bayonne,
Wellington, with the main force, had pushed on in pursuit of the French
under Soult. These were drawn up at Sauveterre, but whilst Wellington
demonstrated upon the front of the line on which Soult rested, and
whilst the attention of the marshal was wholly engaged by the movements
in his front, Sir Rowland Hill crossed the Gave d’Oloron at Villenave
without opposition on 24 February and turned his left. Upon this Soult
hastily abandoned his ground, transferred his headquarters to Orthez,
and took up a formidable position behind the Gave de Pau.
The position chosen by him was well selected and apparently
impregnable. A half-moon of heights of sandstone and rubble, steep
towards the west, and with gullies torn in the sides, was occupied by
him. His right rested on the bluff above the village of S. Boës. The
left flank rested on the town of Orthez. A reserve of two divisions
of infantry and a brigade of cavalry were drawn up on an elevated and
commanding height by the road to Sault de Navailles. The French marshal
disposed of eight divisions of infantry and one of cavalry, but these
had been wasted from their former strength, and hardly mustered forty
thousand sabres and bayonets, with forty guns.
Wellington was able, unopposed, to cross the Gave in three places, in
three advancing columns.
At daybreak on the 27th Beresford, with the left wing, commenced the
action by turning the enemy’s extreme right at S. Boës, whilst at the
same time Picton assaulted the centre. Hill, with the second British
and Le Cor’s Portuguese brigade, was to endeavour to force the passage
at Orthez and attack the enemy’s left. There was an interval of a mile
and a half between Beresford’s and Picton’s columns, and here was a
conical hill occupied by a Roman camp on the summit, and separated by
a marsh from the semilunar range held by the French. On this height
in the midst of the camp Wellington took his station with his staff,
having the whole battle spread out like a map before him. Beresford,
having overlapped the French right, commenced a vigorous attack in
front and flank on the village of S. Boës. At length the English
reached the top of the hill, and, pursuing the enemy, began to move
along the narrow ridge which stretched from S. Boës to the centre of
the French position. But they failed to dislodge the enemy, who kept
up a rolling fire upon their pursuers, and the artillery raked both
flanks, occasioning dreadful carnage, so that the English were brought
to a stand-still. At the same time a Portuguese brigade, completely
unnerved, turned and fled in disorderly rout, throwing our own men into
confusion.
Happily a brigade was moved up to cover the retreat of the Portuguese
and allow our own men to recover and re-form. “At last I have him!”
exclaimed Soult exultantly. Wellington, from his point of observation,
saw that the effort to dislodge the French and roll them back on their
centre had failed. He then executed one of those sudden and masterly
changes of attack which exhibit the ready resource of a great general.
He at once ordered up the third and sixth divisions to assail the
centre of the enemy’s position, and turn and take the right wing in
flank. Simultaneously Picton was to mount the ridge where the French
had their right centre, and, breaking the line of formation, drive it
back on to the left. The gallant troops crossed the swamp, with the
water up to their knees, and mounting the hill through the brushwood
unperceived by the foe, amidst the smoke, with a loud shout and a
withering fire plunged into the opening at the very moment that the
French on the right were pressing their advantage against Beresford,
and were driving the fourth division before them.
At the same time Picton reached the summit of the ridge in the middle,
drove the French down the slope, and, planting his guns, plunged
through the enemy’s masses from one end of his position to the other.
Soult saw that the day was lost, and ordered the army to retreat, which
it did in regular echelons of divisions, and they held the several
positions taken up till the allies closed on their front and moved upon
their flank, Hill having by this time crossed above Orthez and cut off
the retreat by the road to Pau. Then the French broke their formation,
and ran for Sault de Navailles with such speed that the great body of
them passed over the bridge in a wild, terror-stricken crowd. However,
nearly two thousand prisoners were taken in the pursuit, and several
guns. The French loss in killed, wounded, and taken, exceeded six
thousand, and some hundreds afterwards deserted, or rather disbanded,
and went to their homes. The loss of the allies amounted to 2300.
It is pleasing to know what excellent discipline was maintained by
Wellington in his march through the Gascon land from Bayonne to
Toulouse. This was due not solely to humanity towards the peasantry,
but also as a precaution to obviate insurrectionary movements in his
rear. He issued a proclamation, authorizing the people of the country,
under the mayors of the villages, to arm themselves, and arrest all
stragglers and marauders from the army. Allison says:--
“Nor did his proclamation remain a dead letter, for on the
night of the 25th the inhabitants of a village on the high
road leading from Sauveterre, having shot one British soldier
who had been plundering, and wounded another, he caused the
wounded man to be hung, and sent home an English colonel who
had permitted his men to destroy the municipal archives of
a small town on the line of march. ‘Maintain the strictest
discipline; without that we are lost,’ said he to General
Freyre. By this means tranquillity was preserved in his rear
during this critical movement; and the English general reaped
the fruits of the admirable discipline and forbearance he had
maintained in the enemy’s country, by being enabled to bring up
all his reserves, and hurl his undivided force upon the hostile
army.”