SAINT-JEAN-PIED-DE-PORT AND THE COL DE RONÇEVAUX
Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, the ancient capital of Basse-Navarre, is the
gateway to one of the seven passes of the Pyrenees. To-day it is as
quaint and unworldly as it was when capital of the province. Its aspect
is truly venerable, and this in spite of the fact that it is the chief
town of a canton, and transacts all the small business of the small
officialdom of many square leagues of country within its walls.
There is no apparent approach to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, as one comes
up the lower valley of the Nive; it all opens out as suddenly as if a
curtain were withdrawn; everything enlarges and takes on colouring and
animation.
The walled and bastioned little capital of other days was one of the
_clés_ of France in feudal times, and it lives well up to its
traditions. Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port is a little town, red and rosy, as a
Frenchman--certainly a poet, or an artist--described it. There is no
doubt but that it is a wonder of picturesqueness, and its old walls and
its great arched gateway tell a story of mediævalism which one does not
have to go to a picture fairy book to have explained. All is rosy, the
complexions of the young Basque girls, their costumes, the brick and
stone houses and gates, and the old bridge across the Nive; all is the
colour of polished copper, some things paler and some deeper in tone,
but all rosy red. There's no doubt about that!
Along the river bank the houses plunge directly into the water without
so much as a skirt of shore-line. Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, its ancient
ramparts and its river, is a combination of Bruges and Venice. Its
_citadelle coiffe_ tells of things that are militant, and its
fifteenth-century church of those that are spiritual. Between the two
comes much history of the days when the little bourg was the weight in
the balance between French and Spanish Navarre.
[Illustration: _The Quaint Streets of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port_]
The streets are calm, but brilliant with all the rare colourings of the
artist's palette, not the least of these notes of colour being the milk
jugs one sees everywhere hung out, strongly banded with great circles of
burnished copper, and ornamented with a device of the royal crown,
the fleur-de-lis, the initial =H= and the following inscription: "_à le
grand homme des pays béarnais et basques_." No one seems to know the
exact significance of this milk jug symbolism, but the jugs themselves
would make good souvenirs to carry away. All around is a wonderful
wooded growth, fig-trees, laurels and all the semi-tropical flora
usually associated with the Mediterranean countries, including the
_châtaigniers_, whose product, the chestnut, is becoming more and more
appreciated as an article of food.
Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port was, and is, the guardian of one of the most
facile means of communication between France and Spain, the Route de
Pamplona via Ronçevaux; facile because it has recently been rendered
suitable for carriage traffic, whereas, save the coast routes on the
east and west, no other is practicable.
In 1523 the great tower and fortifications of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port
were razed by order of the king of Navarre. The decree, dated and signed
from "_notre château de Pau_," read in part thus:--
"_Know you that the demolition of the walls of the city of
Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port is not made for any case of crime or felony or
suspicion against the inhabitants ... and that we consider said
inhabitants still as good, faithful vassals and loyal subjects._"
The existing monuments of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port are many, though no
royal residences are left to remind one of the days when kings and
queens tarried within its walls. Instead one must be content with the
knowledge that the city grew up from a Roman bourg which in the ninth
century was replaced with the predecessor of the later capital. Its
name, even in this early day, was Saint-Jean-le-Vieux, and it was not
until the eleventh or twelfth centuries that the present city took form,
founded doubtless by the Garcias, who were then kings of all Navarre.
Saint-Jean belonged to Spain, as did all the province on the northern
slope of the Pyrenees, until the treaty of 1659, and the capital of the
kingdom was Pamplona.
Under the three reigns preceding the French Revolution the city was the
capital of French Navarre, but the French kings, some time before, as we
have seen, deserted it for more sumptuous and roomy quarters at Pau,
which became the capital of Béarn and Navarre.
The chief architectural characteristics, an entrancing mélange of French
and Spanish, are the remaining ramparts and their ogive-arched gates,
the Vieux Pont and its fortified gateway, and the fifteenth and
sixteenth century church. The local fête (August fifteenth-eighteenth)
is typical of the life of the Basques of the region, and reminiscent, in
its "charades," "bals champêtres," "parties de pelote," "mascarades,"
and "danses allegoriques" of the traditions of the past.
Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port lies in the valley of the Nive, and St.
Étienne-de-Baigorry, just over the crest of the mountains, fifteen
kilometres away, in the Val de Baigorry, is the chief town of a commune
more largely peopled than that presided over by Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.
Really the town is but a succession of hamlets or quarters, but it is
interesting because of its church, with its great nave reserved
exclusively for women, even to-day--as was the ancient Basque
custom--and the Château d'Echaux sitting above the town.
The château was the property of the ancient Vicomtes of Baigorry, and is
a genuine mediæval structure, with massive flanking towers and a
surrounding park.
One of the Vicomtes de Baigorry, Bertrand d'Echaux, was also bishop of
Bayonne, and afterwards almoner to Louis XIII. That monarch proposed to
Pope Urban VIII to make his almoner a cardinal, but death overtook him
first.
The nephew of this Bertrand d'Echaux, Jean d'Olce, was also a bishop of
Bayonne, and it was to him, in the church of St. Jean de Luz, fell the
honour of giving the nuptial benediction to Louis XIV and the Infanta
Marie-Thérèse upon their marriage.
The Château de Baigorry of the Echaux belonged later to the Comte
Harispe, one of the architects of the military glory of France. He first
engaged in warfare as a simple volunteer, but died _senateur_, _comte_,
and _maréchal_ of France.
There is a first class legend connected with the daughter of the
chatelain of D'Echaux. A certain warrior, baron of the neighbouring
château of Lasse, became enamoured of the daughter of the Seigneur
d'Echaux, Vicomte de Baigorry, and in spite of the reputation of the
suitor of being cruel and ungallant the vicomte would not willingly
refuse the hand of his daughter to so valiant a warrior, so the young
girl--though it was against her own wish--became la Baronne de Lasse.
The marriage bell echoed true for a comparatively long period; it was
said that the soft character of the lady had tempered the despotism of
her husband. One day a young follower of Thibaut, Comte de Champagne,
returning from Pamplona in Spain, knocked at the door of the Château de
Lasse and demanded hospitality, as was his chevalier's right. The young
knight and Madame la Baronne fell in love at first sight, but not
without exciting the suspicions of the baron, who, by a subterfuge,
caught the loving pair in their guilt. He threw himself upon the young
gallant, pierced his heart with a dagger-thrust, cut him into pieces,
and threw them into the moat outside the castle walls.
An improvised court of justice was held in the great hall of the castle,
and the vassals, fearing the wrath of their overlord, condemned the
unhappy woman to death, by being interred in a dungeon cave and allowed
to starve.
When the Vicomte de Baigorry heard of this, he marched forthwith against
his hard-hearted son-in-law, and after a long siege took the château.
Just previously the baron committed suicide, anticipating the death that
would have awaited him. This is tragedy as played in mediæval times.
Between Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Saint-Etienne-de-Baigorry, just by
the side of the road, is the ruined château of Farges, a famous
establishment in the days of the first Napoleon's empire, though a
hot-bed of political intrigue. Its architectural charms are not many or
great, the garden is neglected, and the gates are off their hinges. The
whole resembles those Scotch manors now crumbling into ruin, of which
Sir Walter has given so many descriptions. At Ascarat, too, is a house
bearing a sculpture of a cross, a mitre, and two mallets interlaced on
its façade, with the date 1292. It is locally called "La Maison
Ancienne," but the present occupant has given it frequent coats of
whitewash and repaired things here and there until it looks like quite a
modern structure.
Above Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, on the road to Arnéguy, is the little
hamlet of Lasse, with a church edifice of no account, but with a ruined
château donjon that possesses a historic, legendary past. It recalls the
name of the baron who had that little affair with the daughter of the
Vicomte de Baigorry.
In the heart of the Pyrenees, twenty kilometres above
Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, is Val Carlos and the Col de Ronçevaux, where
fell Roland and Archbishop Turpin in that bloody rout of Charlemagne.
Blood flowed in rivers. Literature more than history, though the event
was epoch-making in the latter sense, has made the story famous. The
French call it a _drame militaire_, and this, as well as anything, gives
a suggestion of its spectacular features all so fully set forth in a
cycle of chivalrous legends in the famous Song of Roland.
The Alps divide their warlike glories with Napoleon and Hannibal, but
the Pyrenees will ever have Charlemagne for their deity, because of this
affair at Ronçevaux. Charlemagne dominated everything with his "host of
Christendom," and the people on the Pyrenees say to-day: "There are
three great noises--that of the torrent, that of the wind in the pines,
and that of the army of Charlemagne." He did what all wise commanders
should do; he held both sides of his defensive frontier.
"When Charlemagne had given his anger room,
And broken Saragossa beneath his doom,
And bound the valley of Ebro under a bond,
And into Christendom christened Bramimond."
All who recall the celebrated retreat of Charlemagne and the shattering
of his army, and the Paladin Roland, by the rocks rolled down upon them
by the Basques will have vivid emotions as they stand here above the
magnificent gorge of Val Carlos and contemplate one of the celebrated
battle-fields of history.
The abbey of Ronçevaux, a celebrated and monumental convent, has been
famous long years in history. The _royale et insigne collegiale_, as it
was known, was one of the most celebrated sanctuaries in Christendom,
and takes its place immediately after the shrines of Jerusalem, Rome,
and St. Jacques de Compostelle, under the immediate protection of the
Holy See, and under the direct patronage of the king of Spain, who
nominates the prior. This dignitary and six canons are all that exist
to-day of the ancient military order of Ronçevaux, called by the Spanish
Ronçevalles, and by the Basques Orhia.
There's not much else at Ronçevaux save the monastery and its classic
Gothic architectural splendours, a few squalid houses, and an inn where
one may see as typical a Spanish kitchen as can be found in the depths
of the Iberian peninsula. Here are all the picturesque Spanish
accessories that one reads of in books and sees in pictures, soldiers
playing guitars, and muleteers dancing the fandango, with, perhaps, a
Carmencita or a Mercédès looking on or even dancing herself.
Pamplona in Spain, the old kingly capital of Navarre, is eighty
kilometres distant. One leaves Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port by diligence at
eleven in the morning, takes _déjeuner_ at Val Carlos, and at two in the
afternoon takes the Spanish diligence and sleeps at Burgette, leaving
again at four in the morning and arriving at Pamplona at eight.
This is a classic excursion and ought to be made by all who visit the
Pyrenees. Val Carlos is the Spanish customs station, and soon after one
passes through the magnificent rocky Défile de Val Carlos and finally
over the crest of the Pyrenees by either the Port d'Ibañeta or the Col
de Ronçevaux, at a height of one thousand and fifty-seven metres.
The route from Ronçevaux to Pamplona is equally as good on Spanish soil
as it was on French--an agreeable surprise to those who have thought the
good roads' movement had not "arrived" in Spain.
The diligence may not be an ideally comfortable means of travel, but at
least it's a romantic one, and has some advantages over driving from
Saint Jean in your own, or a hired, conveyance, as an expostulating
Frenchman we met had done. He freed the frontier all right enough, but
within a few kilometres was arrested by a roving Spanish officer who
turned him back to the official-looking building--which he had no right
to pass without stopping anyway--labelled "Aduana Nacional" in staring
letters, that any passer-by might read without straining his eyes.
"Surely he would never have driven by in this manner," said the dutiful
functionary, "unless he was intending to sell the horse and carriage and
all that therein was, without acquitting the lawful rights which would
enable a royal government to present a decent fiscal balance sheet."
Pamplona is the end of our itinerary, and was the capital of Spanish
Navarre. It's not at all a bad sort of a place, and while it doesn't
look French in the least, it is no more primitive than many a French
city or town of its pretentions. It has a population of thirty thousand,
is the seat of a bishop, has a fine old cathedral, a bull ring--which is
a sight to see on the fête day of San Sebastian (January twentieth)--and
a hotel called _La Perla_ which by its very name is a thing of quality.