THE PAYS DE COMMINGES
On the first steep slope of the Pyrenees, bounded on one side by
Couserans and on the other by Bigorre, is the ancient Comté de
Comminges, the territory of the Convènes, whose capital was _Lugdunum
Convenarum_, established by Pompey from the remains left by the legions
of Sertorius. Under the Roman emperors the capital became an opulent
city, but to-day, known as St. Bertrand de Comminges, but seven hundred
people think enough of it to call it home.
It possesses a historic and picturesque site unequalled in the region,
but Luchon, Montrejeau and St. Gaudens have grown at the expense of the
smaller town, and its grand old cathedral church and ancient ramparts
are little desecrated by alien strangers.
The view of Comminges from a distance is uncommon and startling. One may
see across a valley the outline of every rock and tree and housetop of
the little town clustered about the knees of the swart, sturdy church
of St. Bertrand of Comminges, one of the architectural glories of the
mediæval builder. The mountains rise roundly all about and give a rough
frame to an exquisite picture.
What the precise date of the foundation of Comminges may be no one seems
to know, though St. Jerome has said that it was a city built first by
the _montagnards_ in 79 B.C. This sacred chronicler called the founders
"_brigands_," but authorities agree that he meant merely mountain
dwellers.
There is a profuse history of all this region still existing in the
archives of the Département, which ranks among the most important of all
those of feudal times still preserved in France. Only those of the Seine
(Paris), Normandy (Rouen) and Provence (Marseilles and Aix) surpass it.
In autumn St. Bertrand de Comminges is an enchanted spot, with all the
colours of the rainbow showing in its ensemble. It is grandly superb,
the panorama which unrolls from the terrace of the old château,
succeeding ranges of the Pyrenees rising one behind the other, cloud or
snow-capped in turn. St. Bertrand, the ancient bishop's seat of
Comminges, with the fortress walls surrounding the town and towering
cathedral is, in a way, a suggestion of St. Michel's Mount off the
Normandy coast, except there is no neighbouring sea. It is a townlet on
a pinnacle.
The constructive elements of the grim ramparts are Roman, but mediæval
additions and copings have been interpolated from time to time so that
they scarcely look their age. In the _Ville Haute_ were built the
cathedral and its dependencies, the château of the seigneurs, and the
houses of the noblesse. Beyond these, but within another encircling
wall, were the houses of the adherents of the counts; while outside of
this wall lived the mere hangers-on. This was the usual feudal
disposition of things. Eighty thousand people once made up the
population of St. Bertrand. And three great highways, to Agen, to Dax,
and to Toulouse, led therefrom. This was the epoch of its great
prosperity. It is one of the most ancient Roman colonies in Aquitaine,
and its history has been told by many chroniclers, one of the least
profuse being St. Gregoire, Archbishop of Tours.
[Illustration: _St. Bertrand de Comminges_]
After a frightful massacre in the ninth century the city, its churches,
its château and its houses became deserted. It was a century later that
Saint Bertrand de l'Isle, who had just been sanctified by his uncle
the archbishop at Auch, undertook to reconstruct the old city on the
ruins of its past. He re-established first the fallen bishopric, and
elected himself bishop. This gave him power, and he started forthwith to
build the singularly dignified and beautiful cathedral which one sees
to-day. Comminges was made a comté in the tenth century, and the fief
contained two hundred and eighty-eight towns and villages and nine
castellanies, all owing allegiance to the Comte de Comminges. The
episcopal jurisdiction varied somewhat from these limits, for it
included twenty Spanish communes beyond the frontier as well.
One enters St. Bertrand to-day by the great arched gateway, or Porte
Majou, which bears over its lintel the arms of the Cardinal de Foix. As
a grand historical monument St. Bertrand commences well. Narrow,
crooked, little streets climb to the platform terrace above where sits
the cathedral. It is a sad, grim journey, this mounting through the
deserted streets, with here and there a Gothic or Renaissance column
built helter-skelter into a house front, and the suggestion of a barred
Gothic window or a delicate Renaissance doorway now far removed from its
original functions. At last one reaches a great mass of tumbled stones
which one is told is the ruin of the episcopal palace built by St.
Bertrand himself. But what would you? It is just this atmosphere of
antiquity that one comes here to breathe, and certainly a more musty and
less worldly one it would be difficult to find outside the catacombs of
Rome.
Another city gate, the Porte Cabirole, still keeps the flame of
mediævalism alive; and, near by, is the most interesting architectural
bit of all, a diminutive, detached tower-stairway, dating at least from
the fifteenth century. It is an admirable architectural note, quite in
contrast with all the grimness and sadness of the rest of the ruins.
Opposite the entrance to the walled city is a curious monumental
gateway, better described as a _barbacane_, or perhaps a great
watch-tower, through which one has still to pass. The upper town had no
source of water supply, so a well was cut down in the rock, and this
tower served as its protection. There is another gate, still, in the
encircling city walls, the third, the Porte de Herrison. After this, in
making the round, one comes again to the Porte Majou, by which one
entered.
Rising high above all, on the top of the hill, as does the tower of the
abbey on St. Michel's Mount, is the great, grim, newly coiffed tower of
the cathedral of St. Bertrand, one of the most amply endowed and
luxuriously installed minor cathedrals in all France. Its description in
detail must be had from other works. It suffices here to state that the
cathedral is of the town, and the town is of it to such an intermingled
extent that it is almost impossible to separate the history of one from
that of the other. The site of the cathedral is that of the old Roman
citadel. Of the edifice built by St. Bertrand nothing remains but the
first arches of the nave and the great westerly tower, really more like
a donjon tower than a church steeple. In fact it is not a steeple at
all. The whole aspect of St. Bertrand de Comminges, the city, the
cathedral and the surroundings is militant, and looks as though it might
stand off an army as well as undertake the saving of men's souls.
The altar decorations, sculptured wood and carved stalls of the interior
of this great church are very beautiful. Its like is not to be seen in
France outside of Amiens, Albi and Rodez. The cloister, too, is superb.
The happenings of the city since its reconstruction were not many, save
as they referred to religion. Two bishops of the see became Popes,
Clement V and Innocent VIII. The end of the sixteenth century brought
the religious wars, and Huguenots and Calvinists took, and retook, the
city in turn. With the Revolution came times nearly as terrible; and, in
the new order of things following upon the Concordat, the bishopric was
definitely suppressed. The few hundred inhabitants of to-day live in a
city almost as dead as Pompeii or Les Baux.
The word Comminges signifies an assembly inhabited by the Convenæ in the
time of Cæsar. The inhabitants of feudal times were known as
Commingeois. "The Commingeois are naturally warriors," wrote St.
Bertrand de Comminges, and from this it is not difficult to follow the
evolution of their dainty little feudal city, though difficult enough to
find the reason for its practical desertion to-day.
The Comtes de Comminges were an able and vigorous race, if we are to
believe the records they left behind. There was one, Loup-Aznar, who
lived in 932, who rode horse-back at the age of a hundred and five, and
one of his descendants was married seven times. It was a Comte de
Comminges, in the time of Louis XIV, who was compared by that monarch to
a great cannon ball, whose chief efficiency was its size. Subsequently
cannon balls, in France, came to be called "Comminges." Not a very great
fame this, but still fame, and it was still for their warlike spirit
that the Commingeois were commended.
Jean Bertrand, a one-time Archbishop of Comminges, became a Cardinal of
France upon the recommendation of Henri II. The king afterwards
confessed that he was persuaded to urge his appointment by Diane de
Poitiers, who was distributing her favours rather freely just at that
time.
The "Mémoires du Comte de Comminges" was the title borne by one of the
most celebrated works of fiction of the eighteenth century--a
predecessor of the Dumas style of romance. It is a work which has often
been confounded by amateur students of French history with the "Mémoires
de Philippe de Commines," who lived in another era altogether. The
former was fiction, pure and simple, with its scene laid in the little
Pyrenean community, while the latter was fact woven around the life of
one who lived centuries later, in Flanders.