THE VAL D’OSSAU
The gap of the Val d’Ossau--Gan--Original course of the Gave--
Buzy--Gorges de Germe--Arudy--Destruction of forests--Boxwood--
Cromlechs--Bielle--Independence of the Republic of Ossau--
Costume--Dances--Laruns--Eaux Chaudes--Beggary--Gabas--Eaux
Bonnes--Death of the Rev. Merton Smith.
Looking south from the terrace at Pau one sees a noble portal in
the mountain chain apparently leading to the roots of the Pic du
Midi d’Ossau. But it is a mistake to suppose that the drainage of
those snowy crests can descend at once into the Gave at one’s feet.
Between the Val d’Ossau and that of the Gave de Pau a region of hills
intervenes. Moreover, the valley that gapes does not lead to the foot
of that noble pyramid. It leads to Laruns only, and there the broad
trough ends, and above that the Gave descends through a cleft painfully
cut through intervening strata.
On the railway from Pau to Laruns the first station is at Gan. In this
village, as I remember it fifty years ago, there were but two houses
with glass windows, the parsonage and a Renaissance dwelling that
belonged to Corisande d’Andouins, one of the many mistresses of Henri
Quatre. When cold weather arrived, then the peasants closed their
shutters, perforated with a few holes--a heart, a cross, an S--and
through this opening derived their light. The train clambers up the
heights past Buzy, and then all at once bursts on the sight the broad
Val d’Ossau--rich, fertile, smiling with maize and vines, and villages,
and beyond the Pic du Midi. The Gave d’Ossau descending from the snowy
range on the frontier of Spain ran due north, as if to reach Pau in one
direct channel, but was arrested by the hills, and turned along the
depression at Buzy and turned westward where now goes the branch line
to Oloron. But dissatisfied with this bed, it tore at the rocks near
Arudy, and sawed for itself the Gorges de Germe, a savage ravine, very
tortuous, cut through hills covered with woods. The abandoned bed was
taken possession of by man. It lies at a lower level than the actual
channel, and the river must have been deflected by immense piles of
rubbish brought down from the mountains. At the west end of the church
at Buzy may be seen a huge boulder rounded by rolling, used as the
pedestal to the village cross. The ancient channel furnishes turf for
fuel, and in it are grown beds of rank bulrushes.
Beyond Buzy, on the way to Arudy, is a dolmen already referred to, but
not on its original site. When the road was altered it was removed and
re-erected.
The train halts again at Arudy, only interesting for the view, and for
the tomb of a bishop, and a fifteenth-century church with a reredos.
The Val d’Ossau in its lower parts is a wreck. The mountain spurs on
each side were once clothed with magnificent forests of pine.
“The Pyrenees,” says Michelet, “exhibit to us the disappearance
of the Old World. Antiquity is no more, the Middle Age is at
the point of death. The mountains themselves, strange as it may
seem, have their very existence attacked. The fleshless peaks
reveal the fact that they are in their senile decay. It is not
that they have failed to withstand the blows of the storm, it
is man who has assisted in their ruin from below. That deep
girdle of forests which veiled the nakedness of the ancient
mother, has been plucked away by man. The vegetable soil, which
the herbage retained on the slopes, is now carried below by
the waters. The rock stands up bare; chapped, exfoliated by
the glare of the sun, by the tooth of frost, undermined by
the melting snow carried down by avalanches. In the place of
succulent pastures nothing remains but a dry and ruined soil.
The agriculturist who has driven away the hunter, gains nothing
thereby. The water which formerly trickled down gently into
the valley athwart pastures and forests, now roars down in
devastating torrents, and covers the fields with the ruins it
has made. A vast number of hamlets in the high valleys have
been abandoned, through lack of fuel, and the inhabitants take
refuge in the lowlands, flying from the results of their own
improvidence.
“In 1673 the mischief done caused alarm. Orders were issued by
Government that every inhabitant should annually plant at once
one tree in the domain, and two in the communal lands. In 1669
and 1756 and still later new regulations made give evidence
to the panic caused by the progress of the evil. But, at the
Revolution, every barrier gave way, the population being poor,
set to work to enrich itself by completing the destruction
of the forests. They climbed, axe and firebrand in hand, to
the nests of the eagles, they swung over abysses, hacking
and destroying. Trees were sacrificed to the most trivial
needs. Two pines were cut down to make one pair of sabots. At
the same time the sheep and goats, multiplying, fell on the
forests, gnawed the trunks, devoured the young trees, destroyed
the shrubs, killed the future. The goat above all, that most
destructive of all creatures, and the most daring of all,
introduced a reign of terror into the mountains. That was not
one of the least of the labours of Bonaparte, when he set to
work to control the ravages of this beast. In 1813 the number
of goats had been reduced to a tenth of the number that they
had been in the year X. But he was not powerful enough to put a
finish to the war against Nature.”
The pines have been succeeded by boxwood that brings in a certain
revenue. It is not cut till the stem has attained a girth of three
inches; but it would be well if it were allowed to reach a girth of
four or five, as it serves as a valuable cover for young pines where
attempts are made to replant. The box never grows very high, but some
bushes arrive at the height of fifteen feet, and a girth of trunk of
fifteen inches. The wood is made use of for the turning the beads of
the rosaries, made at Betharam, Saumur, and Lalouvesc in the Boutierès.
It cannot be utilized till the stem has arrived at the diameter of a
two-franc piece. In 1892 the boxwood from Laruns sold for 3185 francs,
but in 1895 for not more than a thousand francs.
At Louvie Juxon and above Bielle and Bilhères, near the entrance of
Benon, are what the French call cromlechs, circles of stones, supposed
to be prehistoric monuments. These are, however, very small, the stones
insignificant, and the shepherds of the district state that precisely
similar stones are planted by themselves about temporary huts of
branches and turf that they erect when obliged to spend nights as well
as days on the mountain.
Bielle was the ancient capital of Ossau. This valley was a republic
under the suzerainty of the viscounts of Béarn. It governed itself, and
had its own courts of justice, and absolutely refused to suffer the
soldiers of the viscount to enter their little republic. He himself was
not recognized till he had sworn to respect its rights and privileges
as contained in the ancient _fors_.
At the present day a candidate for election to the Assembly addresses
the electors always as “Messieurs d’Ossau.” It was by this title that
the princes of Béarn spoke to them. In Ossau there were no nobles;
there was no appeal from the judgment of their court to Viscount of
Béarn or to the King of France.
The constitution of former days still exists in regard to communal
property. This is divided into two categories: the particular mountains
belonging to each separate commune, and the general mountains in the
canton of Laruns pertain to a syndicate formed of representatives
of seventeen parishes. In addition the Ossalois own the lande of
Pont-long, of which I have already spoken. In recognition of their
having ceded to Gaston Phœbus, or before him to the first viscount who
built a castle at Pau, sufficient ground for his castle and park, they
obtained the privilege to sit at table with their viscounts.
The valley bottom is fertile, but tillage is pursued only there. Cattle
and sheep spend the summer on the high pastures, and the sheep are
driven in winter to the Pont-long.
Costume is fast disappearing. On Sunday at Bielle and Laruns may be
seen the old women still wearing their scarlet _capulets_ lined with
silk and edged with black velvet; the black corset is faced on the
breast with crimson silk. A woollen skirt descends in symmetrical folds
to a little way below the calf; the leg is clothed in white stockings,
unfooted, that widen over the foot. The male costume is quite gone. The
only part retained is the _beret_. It is a pity, for the costume was
admirably adapted to the men’s life in the mountains. The thick, red,
brown, and white jackets, waistcoats, and breeches were of home make
and handloom weaving, from the wool of their own sheep, and lasted for
years without becoming threadbare.
Even the musical instruments general when there was a dance have gone,
the _tambouri_ of six strings, struck by a fiddlestick, whilst a piper
played a flageolet of four holes, from which he could draw six or seven
notes. The great fête at Laruns is on 15 August, and if the charm of
this is gone with the abandonment of the pretty costumes, it is still
an animated and gay scene.
At Laruns the broad trough of the Val d’Ossau comes abruptly to an
end. Here from the left comes down the Valentin of Eaux Bonnes in a
series of cascades, the drainage of the snows of the noble mountains
at the head of the Val d’Azun, where they spill westward. But the Gave
d’Ossau, that has its source under the Pic du Midi, has sawn for itself
a way through rocks, and gushes forth through a notable chasm directly
above Laruns. This, the ravine in which lies the thermal establishment
of Eaux Chaudes, is by far the most interesting, it gives access to
the elevated village of Gabas, and to the Col d’Aneou, by which one
can pass into Spain. All the upper part of the course of the Gave is
of surpassing beauty, and the Alpine pastures yield rich spoil to the
botanist, owing to the variety of geological formation, limestone,
schist, granite, and porphyry.
The road to Eaux Chaudes, made in 1847, has been in part superseded by
one made later, but for pedestrians it is the most pleasant, as it is
the shortest. It enters the Gorge du Hourat, and runs the whole way
between precipitous walls of rock, beside the torrent which roars down
with tremendous velocity. At one point the road has had to be built
up against the side of the precipice as a bridge, to allow a torrent,
which falls from a height of several hundred feet, to pass under it,
and so join the Gave, the river that has formed the cleft of the
valley. At Eaux Chaudes there is little space; in winter hardly any
sun, in summer there is a sense of oppression from the contraction of
the mountains and the exclusion of distant view. But many delightful
excursions may be made from it. Eaux Chaudes owes its origin to
Henri Quatre, who required his chancellor, the Bishop of Oloron, to
build there an establishment for one of Henri’s many mistresses, la
Fousseuse, that she might there drink the waters.
The sturdy independence and self-respect of the peasantry of Ossau
have been broken down sadly by the influx of visitors. Mr. Blackburn
observes truly enough:--
“It is said that English visitors have completely demoralized
the Valley of Chamounix, and that the _curés_ are in despair;
but whatever sins we have committed in Switzerland, the French
people have done worse, the difference between the two nations
being this, that the latter enjoy indiscriminate almsgiving,
and we do not. The result in this valley is demoralizing
to an extent that would scarcely be credited excepting by
eye-witnesses. As we drive along we see the peasantry leaving
their work in the fields at the sound of approaching wheels,
and crouching at the roadside in attitudes of pain and misery;
girls and boys leave their play to follow the carriages, and
whine for _quelquechose_; crops are half-gathered, and work of
all kinds is neglected during the season of the sous; the cry
is everywhere, ‘Give, give!’
“A girl of sixteen, well dressed and evidently well-to-do,
comes up with a bouquet of wild flowers; she asks ten sous for
it (about the wages of a day’s work), but will take no less;
and on receiving the money will immediately ask for the bouquet
back again, to sell to some one else.
“And this is not all, for those of the inhabitants who have
not brought up their children to the liberal profession of
begging, have invented another ingenious and profitable mode of
life, that of turning the cascades in the neighbourhood into
penny peepshows, shutting them off so that they can only be
approached by a wicket gate kept by one of themselves.”[G]
[G] Blackburn (H.), _The Pyrenees_. London, 1867.
One of the pleasantest short walks is to the Grotte des Eaux Chaudes,
passing before a little cave from which issues a stream that proceeds
at once to dash headlong down the crags into the Gave. Beyond this is
the large cave opening in the face of a cliff. This grotto is traversed
by a stream which may be crossed by a bridge of wood to where, in the
depth of the cave, it leaps down out of a fissure in the wall in a
cascade. It is probably fed by the drainage of the Plateau d’Anouillas,
where the water descending from the Pic de Gers disappears. When the
stream has left the cavern it again dives underground, and flows below
the rocks in stages that descend to the bottom of the valley, and
reappears only just before it enters the Gave. But the finest excursion
from Eaux Chaudes is to Bious-Oumettes, a plateau whence a superb view
is obtained of the Pic du Midi d’Ossau. This peak is 9800 feet high,
of porphyry and granite, cleft by a profound vertical fissure, and is
perhaps the finest, certainly the quaintest, of the Pyrenean mountains.
Gabas, the last village on the French side of the chain, is a
halting-place for travellers and for muleteers conveying goods from
Spain. It is a cantonment of custom-house officers; and here may be
seen picturesque groups of shepherds in their fleecy jackets, Spaniards
in their richly-coloured blankets, and the uniformed douaniers. The
path leading to the plateau is lined with fir trees, but on all sides
may be seen the ravages of fire, the axe, and winter storm, in charred
stumps, twisted or hewn-down trunks, thrown down to be floated by the
Gave through its stages to the lower valley.
The distance from Laruns to Eaux Bonnes is much the same as it is to
Eaux Chaudes. On reaching the former watering-place--“Je comptais
trouver ici la campagne,” wrote M. Taine. “Je rencontre une rue de
Paris et les promenades du Bois de Boulogne!” It is a place of big
hotels, baths, pensions, shops where toys, trinkets, and trumpery are
displayed for sale, and, of course, a casino.
“In whichever direction we turn,” says Mr. Blackburn, “there
are houses built into and often forming part of the mountain,
resting on ledges of rock, like to eyries; but so cleverly
contrived is the arrangement of the place, so admirably has
space been economized, that there is a feeling of freedom about
it, quite inconsistent with living in a bird’s nest.
“Thus, with the mountains several thousand feet above our
heads, and the Val d’Ossau stretching away for many miles at
our feet, with rocks overhanging and tree-tops waving, through
which we can see the blue sky--with scarcely a foot of level
ground anywhere, save the Promenade Horizontale, with cascades
and waterfalls at our windows, we find ourselves as comfortably
and luxuriously housed as in any modern city.”
Speaking of the church Taine says: “Cette église est une boïte ronde,
en pierre et plâtre, faite pour cinquante personnes, ou l’on en met
deux cents.” This box of stone and plaster has disappeared to make room
for one of more suitable dimensions in what is caricature of Romanesque.
There is a good carriage road from Eaux Bonnes over a fine pass into
the Val d’Aruns and to Argelez. The chief excursion is to the Pic de
Gers, 8570 feet high.
The Eaux Bonnes springs have been known for centuries. The Béarnais
soldiers wounded in the battle of Pavia in 1525, were sent here to
be healed; and for some time after that the springs went by the name
of les Eaux d’arquebusades. But they owe their modern renown to the
works of Théophile Bordeu. There are seven sources of sulphurated
waters, which are good for throat disorders, wounds, sores, and morbid
maladies.
The Eaux Bonnes was the scene of a sad accident in 1883, that happened
to the Rev. Merton Smith, vicar of Plympton S. Mary, in Devonshire.
He had gone to the Pyrenees for his month’s holiday, and visited this
watering-place. On 8 August he left his hotel at 3 p.m., in his usual
spirits, to walk to Eaux Chaudes, and never returned. He had intended
to return the same evening.
Nothing could be heard of him. Inquiries were made in all directions,
search parties were organized; he could nowhere be found. Months
passed, and his disappearance remained unexplained. The Bishop of
Exeter was in perplexity what to do. He could not institute to the
living without certain knowledge that Mr. Merton Smith was dead, and
this knowledge could not be obtained.
Uncharitable tongues wagged. Some said that he had fallen a victim to
the fascinations of a Pyrenean shepherdess, and that he was picking
edelweiss and playing a flute on some high Alp to the delectation of
the damsel. Some said that he had been captured by Roman Catholics and
interned in a monastery. Some said that he had been murdered by Ossau
mountaineers for the sake of his money.
Not till eighteen months after his disappearance was the mystery
cleared up. His body was found on the mountainside, buried among thick
bushes of box that had concealed it. He had apparently been stooping
to pick a flower and had fallen over a precipice and been killed
instantaneously. His watch and purse were intact. It was by chance only
that a woodcutter discovered the remains whilst clearing the boxwood.