CHAPTER VI

PAU

Situation--Climate--Stillness of the air--Castle--Abd-el-Kader-- Thackeray on his imprisonment--View of the Pyrenees--Henry II of Navarre--His escape from Pavia--Marguerite des Marguerites--What Henry II did for Béarn--Refugee Huguenot preachers--Solon and his many wives--Clement Marot--His Psalms--The Queen an odd mixture--Story of Mlle. de la Roche--Jeanne d’Albret--Marries the Duke of Cleves--Then Antoine de Bourbon--His murder planned--Birth of Henry IV--Cradle--Bilhère--Reared at Coarraze --Death of Antoine--Intolerance of Jeanne--Meeting with Charles IX--Gondin’s unfortunate pleasantry--Marguerite de France’s visit to Pau--The Count of Moret--A mysterious hermit--Henry IV tolerant--The Baron d’Arros--Demand for the columns of Bielle-- La Poule au Pot--Lescar--Mosaics--A Roman villa--Gassion-- Bernadotte--Morlaas--Pont-long--Legend--Coarraze--Betharam-- A flying Virgin--Jurançon wine.

The situation of Pau is singularly favoured, and one can appreciate the judgment of Henry II of Navarre in transferring thither the court residence from Orthez. Pau occupies the back of a rubble ridge stretching east and west, facing the south, and drinking in the sunlight and warmth. It does not suffer from cold winds. The land rises behind it to the north, and one may see the clouds fly overhead without feeling the air stir at Pau. The calmness of the atmosphere often persists for weeks together.

[Illustration: PAU]

In this it has an advantage over some of the towns of the French Riviera, where the mistral cuts like a knife that has been frozen in an ice-pail. The bitter winds that sweep down on the Riviera are produced by the snows of the Maritime Alps. But there are no snows at the back of Pau. When there is no breeding ground for icy winds, no icy winds are hatched.

But, on the other hand, a good deal of rain is brought up and discharged over Pau, coming from the Atlantic; and a whole month may elapse without the promenaders on the terrace being able to catch a glimpse of the Pic du Midi d’Ossau. The Girondin climate is notoriously rainy, especially in spring; but nothing can surpass the splendour of the days in summer and autumn.

Mrs. Ellis, who wrote her _Summer and Winter in the Pyrenees_ in 1841, says:--

“At the foot of the woody range of high ground forming the promenade runs the broad, shallow river Gave, with a perpetual low murmur that lulls the senses to repose. It is, in fact, the only sound we hear, for there is so little wind in this climate that not a leaf is seen to move, and we therefore distinguish at a greater distance the toll of the matin and vesper bell in the neighbouring villages, and the tinkling sounds which tell when the flocks are led to and from the fields. There appears at first a sort of mystery in this universal stillness. It seems like a pause in the breath of Nature, a suspension of the general throb of life, and we almost feel as if it must be followed by that shout of joy which the language of poetry has so often described as the grateful response of Nature for the blessings of light and life. And never, surely, could this response be offered more appropriately than from such a scene as this rich and fertile land presents.”

It was due to this climatic condition that in the first half of last century patients in the early stages of consumption were dispatched to Pau. Now that the treatment of phthisis is revolutionized, it is no longer a resort for such as suffer from pulmonary complaints, but serves as a refuge from the stormy English winters for those who desire pleasant resting places where there are races, fox-hunting, and good company. The climate, however, does not agree with all constitutions. It is enervating, a land of lotus-eaters--

“In which it seemed always afternoon.”

Pau, the old Pau, is attached on the north to the dreary _lande_ of the Pont-long that has belonged from time immemorial to the inhabitants of the Val d’Ossau, and which is strewn with tumuli. But from this plateau it is in part cut off by the stream Hédas, that has cleft for itself a valley dividing the town into two parts. New Pau has spread and is spreading to north and east, so that its extremities have to be reached by electric trams. Happily, to the west it cannot encroach on the rubble ridge occupied by the park. Between this park and the castle which occupies the extreme west of the town the ridge has been sawn through by the stream, but the gap has been widened artificially, and is now spanned by a bridge.

The Castle of Pau was built at various dates. The four towers and the curtain uniting them, except the south and east faces, are the oldest part, and were erected by Gaston Phœbus in or about 1363. The donjon to the east is of brick, and is furnished with slots. The work begun by Gaston Phœbus was continued by his successor, but the magnificent south façade, the state buildings, and the enrichment of the court within, in the style of the Renaissance, are due to Henry II of Navarre; and the sixth tower was set up by Louis Philippe.

The whole castle, especially the interior, has gone through a complete restoration, for it had been plundered and gutted by the Revolutionists. The tapestries that now cover the walls were collected from various places. The furniture, to a large extent modern, is a clumsy imitation of old work; there are, however, some fine ancient cabinets. In this castle was confined for a while Abd-el-Kader. In 1848 I visited him there several times. He had with him a suite and his wives, all insensible to the stateliness of the castle and the glorious panorama from the windows. They lounged about the rooms silent and smoking, sulky, without occupation and without interests. Their habits were so dirty that the tapestries and rich furniture had all to be removed. Abd-el-Kader had maintained a long and gallant resistance against the French, and when he surrendered to the Duc d’Aumale and General Lamorcière, it was on the stipulation that he should be allowed to retire in freedom to Egypt or into Syria. The terms were accepted and broken. He was removed a prisoner to Toulon, then to Pau, and in November, 1848, he was transferred to Amboise. Napoleon III released him in 1852, and he finally settled in Damascus. In the terrible massacre of the Christians at Damascus in the summer of 1860, by Turks and Druses, Abd-el-Kader acted with such energy to protect the Christians that the Emperor of the French sent him the gold cross of the Legion of Honour. Possibly enough he may have been moved to this intervention on behalf of the Christians by recollecting the kindness that was shown him in his captivity by both English and French residents at Pau, sending him fruit and flowers for the ladies of his harem.

It was during his imprisonment at Toulon that Thackeray wrote his stirring lines:--

“No more, thou lithe and long-winged hawk, of desert life for thee; No more across the sultry sands shalt thou go swooping free; Blunt idle talons, idle beak, with spurning of thy chain, Shatter against the cage the wing thou ne’er mayst spread again.

* * * * *

“They gave him what he asked; from king to king he spake As one that plighted word and seal not knoweth how to break; ‘Let me pass from out my deserts, be’t mine own choice where to go, I brook no fettered life to live, a captive and a show.’

“And they promised and he trusted them, and proud and calm he came, Upon his black mare riding, girt with his sword of flame: Good steed, good sword, he rendered unto the Frankish throng; He knew them false and fickle--but a Prince’s word is strong.

“How have they kept their promise? Turned they the vessel’s prow Upon Acre, Alexandria, as they have sworn e’en now? Not so: from Oran northwards the white sails gleam and glance, And the wild hawk of the desert is borne away to France.

“They have need of thee to gaze on, they have need of thee to grace The triumph of the Prince, to gild the pinch-beck of their race. Words are but wind, conditions must be construed by Guizot: Dash out thy heart, thou desert hawk, ere thou art made a show.”

With the exception of the castle there is nothing of architectural interest in Pau. The churches are modern, and the predominant feature of the place is hotels, monster hotels that even dwarf the castle.

But the great glory of Pau is the view of the chain of the Pyrenees from the terrace and the park. That from the Schänzle above Berne of the giants of the Oberland is beautiful, but not comparable with the prospect from Pau. All the middle distance in the view from Berne is filled up with rolling hills, and it is over them that one catches glimpses of the snowy heads of the Alps. But from Pau one has in front the broad trough of the Gave, beyond which are the coteaux, not too high, and not obscuring the lower parts of the mountains. It is true that an obnoxious swell to the south-west cuts off the prospect of the range to the Bay of Biscay, but the mountain range can be traced eastward till it fades into vapour, and the mountains on that side are by far the boldest and loftiest. Moreover, one can look from Pau right up the gap of the Val d’Ossau to the roots of the Pic du Midi, an exquisitely beautiful mountain, only surpassed by the Matterhorn; and it has this advantage over its rival, that it can be seen from a great distance, which the other cannot.

Below the terrace of the castle rises the insignificant tower of la Monaye, where the specie for circulation in Béarn and the annexed counties was coined.

In the second