PAU TO ST. GAUDENS, 61½ MILES
(99 KILOMETRES)
DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE
Kil. Miles.
=Pau= to Tarbes =38= 23½
[=Pau= to Lourdes via St. Pé-de-Bigorre =39= 24¼]
[=Lourdes= to Tarbes =19= 11¾]
=Tarbes= to Tournay =18= 11¼
=Tournay= to Lannemezan =17= 10½
=Lannemezan= to Montrejeau =16= 10
=Montrejeau= to St. Gaudens =10= 6¼
NOTES FOR DRIVERS
=Casabieille= (19 kilometres from Pau).--A sharp ascent.
=Ibos.=--The winding descent to near this village in the plain of
Tarbes is dangerous.
=Pau to Lourdes.=--The shortest route is along the road to Tarbes as
far as Soumoulou, and then through Pontacq. The longer way
mentioned above is more beautiful.
=Tarbes to Montrejeau.=--A steep climb out of the plain of Tarbes;
then several ascents and descents from one valley to another.
=Montrejeau to St. Gaudens.=--Level after the steep descent on
leaving Montrejeau.
PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE
=Pau.=--A large modernized health resort, with splendid views of the
Pyrenees; numerous first-class hotels, winter garden, and places of
amusement; interesting château, built by Gaston Phœbus between 1373
and 1380, and altered by Henri d’Albret.
=Lourdes.=--Pilgrimage town, visited annually by thousands of Roman
Catholics since 1858, when a child said she had seen the Virgin in
a grotto; medieval castle, modernized; fine mountain scenery.
=Tarbes.=--A rather uninteresting town, famous for horse-breeding;
modern streets of small houses; public gardens of 30 acres, more
worth seeing than the ungainly cathedral.
=Tournay.=--A small town; is without any particular interest.
=Lannemezan.=--A small town, with a church partly Romanesque.
=Montrejeau.=--Picturesque little town; castle keep now the church
tower; quaint market-hall on pillars; arcaded houses.
PAU
In its situation Pau is most fortunate, for, being raised high above the
rushing Gave, the views of the splendid chain of white mountain peaks
are uninterrupted, and most of the modern hotels have their balconies
commanding the great panorama of the Pyrenees, with the Pic du Midi
d’Ossau in the centre. The impressive scenery, coupled with a mild and
genial climate and much winter sunshine, has lifted Pau from the
obscurity into which history had allowed it to fall into one of the
most popular inland resorts in France.
[Illustration: TOWN PLAN NO. 16.--PAU.]
It is a clean and healthy town, having had much attention paid to its
sanitation, the authorities knowing that the English and American
visitor has a strong antipathy to a tainted atmosphere. The town even
has a supply of pure drinking-water, and besides the indoor attractions
of a modern Winter Palace, there are golf, tennis, polo, and a pack of
foxhounds.
There is a season all through the year, for tourists follow the winter
visitors; then there are the crowds of the ‘faithful’ on their way to
Lourdes, and those who come to immerse themselves in the thermal waters
for which the Pyrenean range is famous.
In its history Pau is chiefly interesting during the sixteenth century.
Before that there was a fortress rebuilt between 1373 and 1380 by Gaston
Phœbus, the keep of which can be seen to-day; but Pau only rose to
importance when it became the capital and the residence of the
Sovereigns of Béarn.
In 1527 Marguerite de Valois, the charming young sister of François I.,
was married to Henri d’Albret of Béarn. She not only obtained architects
from Italy to remodel the castle on the Renaissance style, and made what
was then considered the most beautiful garden in Europe, but attracted
to her Court the leading artists, poets, and savants, as well as the
best of the nobility of her time. Further than this, Marguerite
encouraged the Reformation movement so warmly that Calvin and Clément
Marot, whose psalms were sung by the Huguenots, found a refuge with her
at Pau. Marguerite’s daughter was the famous Jeanne d’Albret, who
became the mother of Henry of Navarre, the great Protestant champion who
eventually became Henri IV. of France. Jeanne’s husband, Antoine de
Bourbon, died in 1562, leaving her the ruler of Béarn and Navarre; and
being free to act as she chose, Jeanne made a public declaration of her
belief in Protestantism, and then made the mistake of endeavouring to
force her people to take the same step. It therefore became necessary
for Charles IX. to send an army against Béarn; but Jeanne d’Albret,
assisted by the Prince of Condé and the English, raised a strong force,
commanded by Montgomery, and defeated the Catholics. These victories, as
already mentioned in connection with Orthez, were marred by the savage
treatment of the Catholics, including a massacre at a feast held on
August 24, 1569, of ten lords whose lives Montgomery had promised to
spare. The apartment of the château in which this bloody deed was
carried out is hung with tapestry, and is called the _Grand Salon de
Réception de Henri II. (of Navarre)_.
Under Louis XIII. Navarre and Béarn were made into a province, and Pau,
no longer possessing a royal Court, soon dropped into an obscurity in
which it remained until English visitors began, in 1850, to draw
attention to the attractions of the climate and scenery.
The Château (_open every day between 10 and 5 from April 1 to September
30, and between 11 and 4 from October 1 to the end of March_). The
fourteenth-century keep of red brick, built by Gaston Phœbus, as already
mentioned, stands to the left on entering the courtyard through the open
arches of the east side. On the left--that is, overlooking the river--is
the beautiful façade restored by Henri d’Albret (Henri II. of Navarre).
It contains the _grand salon_ where the massacre mentioned above took
place, and also the _Chambre de Henri IV._, where the Protestant king
was born on December 13, 1553. His cradle, in the shape of a large
tortoiseshell, is still preserved in the room.
An interesting story concerning the birth of the child is told by Miss
Sichel in her work on Catherine de Medici.
‘His birth was the occasion ... of Jeanne’s [his mother’s] winning
of a bet by a song.... Henri II. [Jeanne d’Albret’s father] knew
full well that Jeanne felt great curiosity about his will. Suddenly
he rose and opened a coffer, from which he took a long neck-chain
fastened to a small gold box. “_Ma fille_,” he said, “you see this
box? Well, it shall be your own, with my last will, which it
contains, provided that, when your child is about to enter the
world, you will sing me a Gascon or a Béarnais song. I do not want
a peevish girl or a drivelling boy.” Jeanne was charmed, and her
father ordered his faithful servant Cotin to sleep in her
dressing-room, and to fetch him at the eventful moment. When it
came, between two and three on a bleak winter morning, she
remembered to keep her promise, and despatched Cotin to her father.
Not long after she heard King Henri’s step upon the stair, and in a
strong sweet voice she began to sing the ballad of the
country-side, “Notre Dame du bout du pont, aidez moi à cette
heure”--an invocation to the miraculous image of the Virgin, the
patron-saint of matrons, which stood in the chapel at the end of
the Bridge of Pau. Henri was in time to receive the baby into his
arms. With great circumspection he wrapped it in the skirts of his
robe, and then conscientiously placed the gold box in his
daughter’s hand. “There! that is thine, my girl,” he said, as he
did so; “but this”--pointing to the child--“is mine.” With these
words he carried it away to his own apartments, where the nurse
awaited him. But before he gave it to her he fulfilled the old
custom of Béarn, and first rubbed its little lips with clove of
garlic; next offered the new-comer wine in a golden cup. Legend
says that the precocious Prince smelled the wine, and raised his
head joyously with other “signs of satisfaction”--that he swallowed
the rich red drops which his grandfather put upon his tongue. “Va,
tu seras un vrai Béarnais!” exclaimed the delighted Henri.’
It is a pity that the château has been so much restored. The work was
chiefly carried out, with poor taste, under Louis Philippe.
In No. 5, Rue Bernadotte, which is marked with an inscription,
Bernadotte, King of Sweden, was born on January 26, 1764.[H] He was a
lawyer’s son, who entered the army, and, at the early age of thirty
years, had become General of Brigade. When the heir to the throne of
Sweden died, Bernadotte was chosen, in 1810, as his successor, Napoleon
thinking that his late General would submit to his wishes. Bernadotte,
having no friendly feeling towards Napoleon, acted with complete
independence, and in the fatal Battle of Leipsic the Swedish troops
under him had a large share in Napoleon’s defeat. The lawyer’s son
became Charles XIV. of Sweden in 1818.
THE ROAD TO TARBES
goes as straight as an arrow, except where it ascends and descends from
the high ground that encloses the plain of Tarbes. The chief features
are the huge views of the Pyrenees and the roadside houses, which very
often have curiously thatched roofs.
At Soumoulou a turning to the right goes, through Pontacq, to the Roman
Catholic Mecca of Lourdes.
Before 1858 this famous pilgrimage centre was a village of no importance
at all. It can now be
[Illustration: No. 14. PAU TO ST. GAUDENS.]
reached by a railway and by good roads, and there are large hotels for
the thousands of Catholics who flock there every year. Unlike
Rocamadour, there is no architectural charm, nor is there any
peculiarity of situation, about Lourdes. It stands in one of the many
picturesque valleys that open out from the main Pyrenean chain, and its
medieval castle, mentioned in the previous chapter, has been much
modernized. No, Lourdes became famous because a little village girl,
fourteen years of age, named Bernadette Soubirous, who minded pigs,
stated that she had seen and conversed with the Virgin on several
occasions. Roman Catholic apologists admit that Bernadette was a
diseased, asthmatic, and underfed child, and also that ‘she was not
particularly intelligent.’ On the first occasion when the girl claimed
to have seen the Virgin she was accompanied by her sister Marie and
another companion, but neither of them saw any vision, nor did they hear
the sound of wind which Bernadette thought she heard. The crowds who
watched her during the numerous other occasions in the same month
(February, 1858), when she went to the grotto by the Gave to see the
Virgin, are said to have been impressed with the change which came over
the child’s features, but she alone claimed to see anything appear in
the grotto. Zola’s book pointing out the absurdity of the belief in the
miraculous visions was scarcely needed; but, like Joan of Arc, the girl
seems to have believed implicitly in the hallucinations which had come
to her, and no doubt her consistent attitude gave the superstitious
people of the neighbourhood the confidence which caused them to regard
the vision as a genuine fact.
After delaying any action for some months, the Bishop of Tarbes
appointed a commission to inquire into the affair which was causing so
much stir and excitement in Lourdes, and finally gave out his opinion in
favour of Bernadette’s visions! Pope Pius IX. endorsed the Bishop’s
credulity with a Bull. In 1876 a church was built above the grotto, and
year after year thousands of pilgrims travel great distances to see the
holy place, and to have all kinds of infirmities cured. A sacred spring,
which flowed from the grotto when Bernadette, at the Virgin’s request,
made a hole in the wet sand, has such remarkable effects that the blind
recover their sight, the lame walk, and the nearly dead are restored to
health with the application of a little of the water!
The hotel-keepers of Lourdes have no complaints to make--in fact, they
probably feel some gratitude to Pius IX. and to the good Bishop of
Tarbes.
* * * * *
An excellent and easily followed road leads from Lourdes to Tarbes.
The main road from Pau to Tarbes direct makes a great zigzag descent
into the green plain, giving as it does so some most remarkable views,
the level ground below being contrasted with the jagged line of
mountains to the south.
Ibos, just to the right of the road, is a small village, with an
aggressive church of the fourteenth century. It is narrow and lofty,
with enormous buttresses and two towers.
TARBES
does not make appeals to the passing tourist. It is the centre of the
great horse-breeding industry carried on in the fertile plain, which
grows tobacco, vines and maize, and is a loosely built, unpicturesque
town, having been half destroyed in the religious wars of the sixteenth
century. In 1569 Montgomery, the Huguenot leader, captured Tarbes, drove
out the inhabitants, and burnt the churches and monasteries. Scarcely
had the people returned when the Huguenots again took the town, this
time levelling the walls and leaving the place in ruins.
Mr. Baring-Gould calls the cathedral the ‘most cumbrous, ungainly
minster in all France.’ There are three windows of the twelfth century
in the apse, and a thirteenth-century rose-window in the north transept.
The fourteenth-century Church of St. Jean is not very interesting, and
that of Ste. Thérèse is a modernized building of the fifteenth century.
On the door of the Lycée a Latin inscription, dated 1699, says: ‘May
this building endure, until the ant has drunk the waters of the ocean
and the tortoise made the tour of the globe.’
The Jardin Massey was given to the public by the manager of the gardens
at Versailles in the time of Louis Philippe. Massey was a native of
Tarbes, who began life as a working gardener.
On the western side of the town is the Haras, or breeding-station, where
the English and Arab stallions are kept.
Barère, the regicide, whom Macaulay regarded as approaching ‘nearer than
any person mentioned in history or fiction, whether man or devil, to the
idea of consummate and universal depravity,’ was born at Tarbes in 1755.
The road becomes exceedingly hilly as soon as the plain of Tarbes is
left behind near Barbazan-Debat, and new views of steep-sided valleys,
wooded ridges, and the snowy Pyrenees, appear every few minutes.
After passing the railway viaduct at Lhez, the road goes south-westwards
to Tournay, a small town renamed after Tournai in Hainault, but of no
particular interest.
The road ascends for several miles in a beautiful wooded valley, and
after passing under a bridge one goes to the left across the railway,
turning at once to the right parallel with it and nearly due east.
The long climb has brought one up to a lofty heathery moorland,
commanding grand views in all directions. On this high plateau, where
the River Gers has its source, is the little town of Lannemezan. The
church dates back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and has a
fine Romanesque doorway.
Pinas, a small slate-roofed village, has picturesque gateways to its
farmhouses, and before reaching Montrejeau (pronounced Mont Rejeau), one
sees on the left M. le Baron de Lassus’ huge modern Château de
Valmirande, built between 1892 and 1898. It commands a magnificent view
into a valley leading up to the main mountain chain.
MONTREJEAU
is a small and picturesque town, with red roofs, brightly painted
shutters, arcaded streets in the Italian style, and a sixteenth-century
Hôtel de Ville, supported on pillars, with the market beneath. The
Church of St. Jean has a great octagonal belfry, originally built as the
castle keep. The situation of the town on a hill above the beautiful
Garonne is delightful. Montrejeau was one of the _bastide_ cities
founded in 1272 by the Sénéchal de Toulouse, and was built on a regular
plan, as one may see to-day.
A straight and level road by the Garonne leads to St. Gaudens, which is
described in the next section.