Chapter XIV: Section XII: Biarritz to Pau, 69 Miles

(111 KILOMETRES)

DISTANCES ALONG THE ROUTE

Kil. Miles. =Biarritz= to Bayonne =7= 4½ =Bayonne= to Peyrehorade =35= 21¾ =Peyrehorade= to Puyôo =17= 10½ =Puyôo= to Orthez =14= 8¾ =Orthez= to Artix =19= 11¾ =Artix= to Pau =19= 11¾

NOTES FOR DRIVERS

=Bayonne to Peyrehorade.=--A rather bad surface at the present time,
which will probably be improved. A steep ascent out of Bayonne, and
after that only small undulations.

=Peyrehorade.=--At bridge do not cross, but keep straight on, and
bear to the left to cross railway, then at once to the right.

=Orthez to Pau.=--The road is level.

PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE

=Peyrehorade.=--Picturesque little town, with narrow streets; two
castles, one in town and one by river; modern church.

=Puyôo.=--Old village, with early defensive mound, from which the
place obtains its name.

=Baigts.=--Ruins of twelfth-century castle and sulphurous springs.

=Orthez.=--Formerly the capital of Béarn, an historic town on the
Gave de Pau, with (1) a fourteenth-century fortified bridge; (2)
church of fifteenth century; (3) Tour Moncade, the keep of the
castle built in 1242; (4) a few old houses in the Rue Bourg-Vieux.

After leaving Spain the architecture on this section of the route seems rather dull and the scenery lacking in grandeur, but this impression lasts only for a short time, for the road, after going north-east by east for a few miles, gets nearer to the great white ridge of the Pyrenees, and day after day, as one goes eastwards, the snowy peaks form a great rampart on the right. They make splendid backgrounds to nearly every view, and one is never weary of gazing into the rugged valleys that open up every now and then as the miles slip by.

On leaving Bayonne, one goes past the entrance to the railway-station on the left, and follows the road that goes off to the right for Orthez and Pau. For several miles there is little calling for comment. Here and there a fine umbrella pine stands in lonely dignity, and in the spring there is much pink-and-white fruit-blossom. The ploughs and the country carts are all drawn by bullocks.

The broad Adour is crossed on an iron bridge, and then, near Peyrehorade, the scenery improves. On market-days the narrow street of the little town is choked up with bullock-carts, and the spaces between them thronged with country-folk and soldiers, and the difficulty of getting the car through

the tangle of traffic is so great that it is wiser to take the road going straight ahead at the bridge, passing the grey-towered castle which stands above the road.

The church of Peyrehorade is modern, and beyond the castle just mentioned and the ruins of another--the Château de Montréal, built in the sixteenth century on the banks of the Gave--there is little to delay one. All the way to Orthez the road keeps by the river known as Gave de Pau, which was the line of Marshal Soult’s retreat from Bayonne.

Puyôo is a pleasant village, with steep roofs covered with brown tiles, and rows of ornamental overhanging courses under the eaves, chiefly formed with curved tiles. The name of the place, according to Mr. Baring-Gould, comes from the patois word for the great mound with a hollowed-out top, which was a stockaded fort of the Franks.

The hamlet of Baigts has a railway-station, a ruined castle of the twelfth century, sulphurous baths, and a grand view of the Pyrenees.

ORTHEZ

is the ancient capital of Béarn, and although it has been robbed of much of its architectural charm, it still retains its conspicuously attractive fortified bridge over the Gave, which is illustrated here. The river flows rapidly along a deep rocky channel, with huge masses of stone standing immovably in the midst of the surging waters. The bridge was built in the fourteenth century, and in the centre rises a machicolated gateway. Although restored in 1873, the window remains through which the Huguenots, under Montgomery, forced priests and friars to leap into the river.

There are only a few old houses left in the town, and these are chiefly in the Rue Bourg-Vieux. The church is a fifteenth-century building with a modern spire, but the Tour Moncade is the machicolated keep of the castle built in 1242 by Gaston VII. It was this fortress which was visited by Froissart in 1388, when Gaston VII., surnamed Phœbus on account of his beauty, Count of Béarn and Foix, held his brilliant Court there.

Froissart says so much of his host’s _perfection in everything_ that a false impression of the man might be gained if some rather ugly facts were not known concerning him. In a moment of passion he stabbed Pierre de Béarn, Governor of Lourdes, who was either his brother or cousin, because he refused to give up the castle of Lourdes, and he also murdered his own son Gaston. The wife of Gaston Phœbus was living at Pamplona, after having become estranged from her husband, and while her son was visiting her, Charles the Bad of Navarre gave him a little bag of arsenic, which he declared was a love-potion which would restore his father’s love for his mother if the powder were sprinkled on the Count’s food. The youth wore the bag of arsenic under his clothes, and eventually returned to Orthez; but his half-brother, having seen the bag, warned his father, who waited until his son was serving him at dinner, and then, suddenly seizing hold of his vest, obtained possession of the bag. The powder was sprinkled on some food and given to a dog, who succumbed to the poison soon afterwards. Young Gaston was placed in confinement, and, fearing to be poisoned, refused all food. His father therefore went to the dungeon and stabbed his son with a knife, saying, ‘Ha, traitor! why dost thou not eat?’

Orthez at one time had a Calvinist University, and the building still remains, although it is no longer a University. The Protestantism of the town has been consistent from the time of Jeanne d’Albret down to the present day, for there are more Protestants in Orthez than in any other town in Béarn. Montgomery, who had caused the death of Henri II. while tilting with him in the lists, began his career as leader of the Huguenots by raising an army and capturing Orthez, which had been filled with troops by Charles IX., in order to coerce the people into Roman Catholicism, three years before the massacre of St. Bartholomew. When the Huguenot army took Orthez, Montgomery’s initial success was marred by the savage treatment of the friars already mentioned. When the unfortunate clergy endeavoured to save themselves by swimming to the banks, they were shot.

In 1814, in the last phase of the Peninsular War, when Wellington was driving Soult before him, Napoleon’s marshal decided to give battle at Orthez, placing his army of 30,000 men in a well-chosen position on the hills to the north of the town. Wellington attacked with 50,000 men, and after a desperate fight, in which 10,000 were killed, the French retreated along the road to Pau, at

From one of the windows of the tower, Montgomery, during the
religious wars of the sixteenth century, forced priests and friars
to leap into the river.
]

first in an orderly fashion, but in the greatest confusion when their retreat was threatened. In his despatch Wellington wrote:

‘We continued the pursuit till it was dusk.... I cannot estimate
the extent of the enemy’s loss; we have taken six pieces of cannon
and a great many prisoners. The numbers I cannot at present report;
the whole country is covered by their dead. The army was in the
utmost confusion when I last saw it passing the heights near Sault
de Navailles, and many soldiers had thrown away their arms; the
desertion has since been immense.’

The scene of this _débâcle_ is passed through on the way to Pau, but there is nothing at all to suggest the horrors of such a bloody retreat. There is an almost English feeling in the aspect of the country, the villages being tidy; and the large houses, standing in pleasant, well-kept, park-like surroundings, give a feeling of repose to the scenery. To the right, beyond the river, the landscape becomes hilly and dark with woods, and ends with a piled-up horizon of blue-white peaks touched here and there with a pale gleam where the sunlight falls on the snow.

It is interesting to watch the change from tiled roofs to slate, and the high-pitched roofs with hipped ends and splayed eaves, entirely taking the places of the low roofs near Bayonne. Here and there walls built of round stones laid herring-bone-wise recall the cottages and barns of parts of the Sussex coast. The road keeps by the Gave, and goes very straight over the flat alluvial land of the valley until the beautifully situated town of Pau is reached.