Chapter I: Front Matter

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Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces

_WORKS OF_

_FRANCIS MILTOUN_

_Rambles on the Riviera_ $2.50

_Rambles in Normandy_ 2.50

_Rambles in Brittany_ 2.50

_The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine_ 2.50

_The Cathedrals of Northern France_ 2.50

_The Cathedrals of Southern France_ 2.50

_Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country_ 3.00

_Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces_ 3.00

_The Automobilist Abroad_ _net_ 3.00

_Postage Extra_

_L. C. PAGE & COMPANY_

_New England Building, Boston, Mass._

Castles and Chateaux
OF
OLD NAVARRE
AND THE BASQUE PROVINCES

INCLUDING ALSO FOIX, ROUSSILLON AND BÉARN

BY FRANCIS MILTOUN

Author of "Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine," "Rambles
in Normandy," "Rambles in Brittany," "Rambles
on the Riviera," etc.

_With Many Illustrations_

_Reproduced from paintings made on the spot_

BY BLANCHE MCMANUS

BOSTON
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
1907

_Copyright, 1907_

BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)

_All rights reserved_

First Impression, October, 1907

_COLONIAL PRESS
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, U. S. A._

By Way of Introduction

"Cecy est un livre de bonne foy."
_Montaigne._

No account of the life and historical monuments of any section of the old French provinces can be made to confine its scope within geographical or topographical limits. The most that can be accomplished is to centre the interest around some imaginary hub from which radiate leading lines of historic and romantic interest.

Henri de Navarre is the chief romantic and historical figure of all that part of France bounded on the south by the Pyrenean frontier of Spain. He was but a Prince of Béarn when his mother, Jeanne d'Albret, became the sovereign of French Navarre and of Béarn, but the romantic life which had centred around the ancestral château at Pau was such that the young prince went up to Paris with a training in chivalry and a love of pomp and splendour which was second only to that of François I. The little kingdom of Navarre, the principality of Béarn, and the dukedoms and countships which surround them, from the Mediterranean on the east to the Gulf of Gascony on the west, are so intimately connected with the gallant doings of men and women of those old days that the region known as the Pyrenean provinces of the later monarchy of France stands in a class by itself with regard to the romance and chivalry of feudal days.

The dukes, counts and seigneurs of Languedoc and Gascony have been names to conjure with for the novelists of the Dumas school; and, too, the manners and customs of the earlier troubadours and crusaders formed a motive for still another coterie of fictionists of the romantic school. In the Comté de Foix one finds a link which binds the noblesse of the south with that of the north. It is the story of Françoise de Foix, who became the Marquise de Chateaubriant, the wife of Jean de Laval, that Breton Bluebeard whose atrocities were almost as great as those of his brother of the fairy tale. And the ties are numerous which have joined the chatelains of these feudal châteaux and courts of the Midi with those of the Domain of France.

These petty countships, dukedoms and kingdoms of the Pyrenees were absorbed into France in 1789, and to-day their nomenclature has disappeared from the geographies; but the habitant of the Basses Pyrénées, the Pyrénées Orientales, and the Hautes Pyrénées keeps the historical distinctions of the past as clearly defined in his own mind as if he were living in feudal times. The Béarnais refers contemptuously to the men of Roussillon as Catalans, and to the Basques as a wild, weird kind of a being, neither French nor Spanish.

The geographical limits covered by the actual journeyings outlined in the following pages skirt the French slopes of the Pyrenees from the Atlantic Gulf of Gascony to the Mediterranean Gulf of Lyons, and so on to the mouths of the Rhône, where they join another series of recorded rambles, conceived and already evolved into a book by the same author and artist.[1] The whole itinerary has been carefully thought out and minutely covered in many journeyings by road and rail, crossing and recrossing from east to west and from west to east that delectable land commonly known to the Parisian Frenchman as the Midi.

[1] "Castles and Châteaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country."

The contrasts with which one meets in going between the extreme boundaries of east and west are very great, both with respect to men and to manners; the Niçois is no brother of the Basque, though they both be swarthy and speak a _patois_, even to-day as unlike modern French as is the speech of the Breton or the Flamand. The Catalan of Roussillon is quite unlike the Languedoçian of the Camargue plain, and the peasant of the Aude or the Ariège bears little or no resemblance in speech or manners to the Béarnais.

There is a subtle charm and appeal in the magnificent feudal châteaux and fortified bourgs of this region which is quite different from the warmer emotions awakened by the great Renaissance masterpieces of Touraine and the Loire country. Each is irresistible. Whether one contemplates the imposing château at Pau, or the more delicately conceived Chenonceaux; the old walled Cité of Carcassonne, or the walls and ramparts of Clisson or of Angers; the Roman arena at Nîmes, or the Roman Arc de Triomphe at Saintes, there is equal charm and contrast.

To the greater appreciation, then, of the people of Southern France, and of the gallant types of the Pyrenean provinces in particular, the following pages have been written and illustrated.

F. M.

PERPIGNAN, _August_, 1907.

CHAPTER PAGE

BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION v

I. A GENERAL SURVEY 1

II. FEUDAL FRANCE--ITS PEOPLE AND ITS
CHÂTEAUX 18

III. THE PYRENEES--THEIR GEOGRAPHY AND
TOPOGRAPHY 46

IV. THE PYRENEES--THEIR HISTORY AND PEOPLE 73

V. ROUSSILLON AND THE CATALANS 95

VI. FROM PERPIGNAN TO THE SPANISH FRONTIER 110

VII. THE CANIGOU AND ANDORRA 130

VIII. THE HIGH VALLEY OF THE AUDE 152

IX. THE WALLS OF CARCASSONNE 161

X. THE COUNTS OF FOIX 175

XI. FOIX AND ITS CHÂTEAU 185

XII. THE VALLEY OF THE ARIÈGE 197

XIII. ST. LIZIER AND THE COUSERANS 211

XIV. THE PAYS DE COMMINGES 222

XV. BÉARN AND THE BÉARNAIS 230

XVI. OF THE HISTORY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF BÉARN 244

XVII. PAU AND ITS CHÂTEAU 258

XVIII. LESCAR, THE SEPULCHRE OF THE BÉARNAIS 278

XIX. THE GAVE D'OSSAU 287

XX. TARBES, BIGORRE AND LUCHON 297

XXI. BY THE BLUE GAVE DE PAU 307

XXII. OLORON AND THE VAL D'ASPE 324

XXIII. ORTHEZ AND THE GAVE D'OLORON 335

XXIV. THE BIRTH OF FRENCH NAVARRE 354

XXV. THE BASQUES 372

XXVI. SAINT-JEAN-PIED-DE-PORT AND THE COL
DE RONÇEVAUX 393

XXVII. THE VALLEY OF THE NIVE 405

XXVIII. BAYONNE: ITS PORT AND ITS WALLS 413

XXIX. BIARRITZ AND SAINT-JEAN-DE-LUZ 422

XXX. THE BIDASSOA AND THE FRONTIER 436

INDEX 449

PAGE

A PEASANT GIRL OF THE ARIÈGE _Frontispiece_

THE PYRENEAN PROVINCES MAP _facing_ 1

WATCH-TOWER IN THE VAL D'ANDORRE _facing_ 24

FEUDAL FLAGS AND BANNERS 32

THE PEAKS OF THE PYRENEES (Map) 49

BRÈCHE DE ROLAND _facing_ 50

THE COL DE PERTHUS (Map) 57

THE FIVE PROPOSED RAILWAYS (Map) 68

STATIONS THERMALES (Map) 69

THE BASQUES OF THE MOUNTAINS _facing_ 74

IN A PYRENEAN HERMITAGE _facing_ 78

A MOUNTAINEER OF THE PYRENEES _facing_ 84

GITANOS FROM SPAIN 91

ROUSSILLON (Map) 95

CATALANS OF ROUSSILLON _facing_ 98

THE WOMEN OF ROUSSILLON _facing_ 100

ARMS OF PERPIGNAN 110

PORTE NOTRE DAME AND THE CASTILLET, PERPIGNAN _facing_ 112

CHÂTEAU ROUSSILLON _facing_ 118

COLLIOURE _facing_ 124

CHÂTEAU D'ULTRERA _facing_ 126

THE PILGRIMAGE TO ST. MARTIN _facing_ 132

VILLEFRANCHE _facing_ 142

ARMS OF ANDORRA 147

CHÂTEAU DE PUYLAURENS _facing_ 154

AXAT _facing_ 158

PLAN OF CARCASSONNE (Diagram) 164

THE WALLS OF CARCASSONNE _facing_ 166

GROUND PLAN OF THE CHÂTEAU DE FOIX (Diagram) 190

CHÂTEAU DE FOIX _facing_ 190

KEY OF THE VAULTING, CHÂTEAU DE FOIX, SHOWING
THE ARMS OF THE COMTES DE FOIX 191

TARASCON-SUR-ARIÈGE _facing_ 202

CHÂTEAU DE LOURDAT _facing_ 210

ST. LIZIER _facing_ 216

TRAINED BEARS OF THE VALLÉE D'USTOU _facing_ 218

ST. BERTRAND DE COMMINGES _facing_ 224

PAU AND THE SURROUNDING COUNTRY (Map) 258

ARMS OF THE CITY OF PAU 259

CHÂTEAU DE PAU _facing_ 268

ESPADRILLE-MAKERS _facing_ 288

A SHEPHERD OF BIGORRE _facing_ 302

CHÂTEAU DE COARRAZE _facing_ 308

CHÂTEAU DE LOURDES _facing_ 314

CAUTERETS _facing_ 318

THE PONT D'ORTHEZ _facing_ 338

THE WALLS OF NAVARREUX _facing_ 346

BÉARN AND NAVARRE (Map) 354

KINGS OF BASSE-NAVARRE AND KINGS OF FRANCE
AND NAVARRE (Diagram) 360

THE ARMS OF NAVARRE 362

ARMS OF HENRI IV OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE _facing_ 368

THE BASQUE COUNTRY (Map) 372

THE GAME OF _PELOTA_ _facing_ 378

"LE CHEVALET" _facing_ 390

THE QUAINT STREETS OF SAINT-JEAN-PIED-DE-PORT _facing_ 394

ARMS OF BAYONNE 413

A GATEWAY OF BAYONNE _facing_ 414

BIARRITZ AND THE SURROUNDING COUNTRY (Map) 422

BIARRITZ _facing_ 424

ST.-JEAN-DE-LUZ _facing_ 430

ILE DE FAISANS (Map) 437

THE FRONTIER AT HENDAYE (Map) 441

MAISON PIERRE LOTI, HENDAYE _facing_ 442

IN OLD FEUNTARRABIA _facing_ 446

Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces