# A Book of the Pyrenees/Chapter 15

CHAPTER XV
LUCHON
AT Montréjeau the line branches off to Bagnères de Luchon from the trunk to Toulouse. Montréjeau was Montroyal, then Montreal, and then what it has now become through deformation by the Gascon tongue. It was a bastide, one of those artificial towns, created first by Edward I, and then copied by great nobles, and by the kings of France, in which every street was either parallel to another, or cut it at right angles; and the houses were built in blocks, the whole surrounded by walls, and the church usually serving as part of the fortification.
Montréjeau was the capital of the Marquesate of Montespan. The site is beautiful; and from the terrace, in clear ​weather, the giants of the Pyrenees are seen to stand up due south, and the chain stretches away into the vaporous distance, east and west. The church has a huge octagonal tower that served as keep to the fortress. The town stands a little away from the station, to its disadvantage. From it visitors usually start to see the Grotte de Gargas, the finest in the Pyrenees; it might be visited equally well from S. Bertrand de Cominges, but that no carriage can be obtained in that decayed city. The train, moreover, halts at Aventignan, the station next before reaching Montréjeau, to allow of a visit to the grotto. The floor bristles with stalagmites, and the stalactites from the roof have in several places united with the stalagmites below. The strangest forms have been assumed by the calcareous deposits, and the custodian points out an organ front, a cascade, a bear, an altar, and the bed of the savage. A spring rises in the cave. Excavations made in the floor have exposed two beds of palæontological deposits of different epochs: human bones, flint tools, and bones of long extinct animals.
The discovery of this grotto is due to a series of ghastly crimes committed just ten years before the outbreak of the French Revolution.
A panic terror pervaded the neighbourhood. Among the rocks, somewhere, none knew exactly where, a monster had his lair, fell upon those who travelled along the roads, robbed them, maltreated them, carried them off, and devoured them. And this monster was a man. In 1780 the Parliament of Languedoc was called upon to try and sentence the cannibal, who was actuated by no other motive than a ravening appetite for human flesh.
Soon after the first disappearance of his victims every one had come to the conclusion as to who he was. He was ​Blaise Ferrage, commonly known as Seyé, a native of Ceseau, born in 1757. He was a small man, broad-shouldered, with unusually long arms, and was possessed of extraordinary strength. By trade he was a stonemason, and had worked at his trade till aged twenty-two. What induced him, in 1779, to throw up his work, quit his home and human society, in order to abandon himself in solitude to his wolfish appetite for blood, is not known; whether it was originally due to his having committed some criminal act that impelled him to fly to the rocks for refuge was never ascertained.
High up in a limestone cliff he discovered a cavern, the entrance to which was at that time so small that it had to be passed through on all fours. But within it was spacious, and provided with a running stream.
After he had spent the day in sleep Blaise would descend in the twilight and ramble over the country through fields and gardens, and appropriate to his use what he listed—fruit, fowls, sheep, pigs—and bear them away in the darkness of night to his den. Luck favoured and emboldened him, and his ferocity increased. He delayed his return till dawn. Lurking behind a wall or a bush he watched for milkmaids who were so unfortunate as to come in his way. There was no escaping him, for he carried a gun and was a sure shot. When he pounced upon his prey he tore it to pieces, or else carried it alive to his lair, and the shrieks could be heard from afar, paralyzing the timorous peasantry with fear.
His name was a terror to all the country round. In the evenings the spinners about the fire, the topers at the tavern, spoke only of the werewolf. It was thought that his tread could be heard at night among the withered leaves of autumn; that his panting breath was audible about the doors; that ​his gleaming eyes pierced the fog. Men pictured him lying on a ledge of rock half the day peering into the valley, motionless, watching for and selecting his prey. Imagination figured what the life must be of this man converted into a wild beast, who had renounced the society of his fellows to live among the rocks and tread the snow-fields, hearing naught save the howl of the wind, the cry of the birds of prey, and the baying of the wolves. As no single person who had disappeared ever returned, as no bodies were ever found, it was concluded that he was a man-eater.
Men he shot, strangled, or stabbed, and dragged their carcases to his lair. But he preferred to fall on women, especially such as were young; but the choicest morsels he selected were little children. On one occasion he fell short of powder and shot, and had the temerity to descend in full daylight, and in market time, to Montégu. He was recognized, and immediately the market people fled from him right and left; the dealers deserted their stalls, and the would-be purchasers hastened to take refuge within doors. He leisurely possessed himself of what he required and sauntered out of the place, not a man venturing to stay him.
At last the officers of justice seized him, and conveyed him to prison. But he broke loose the same night, and again disappeared among the mountains. The peasants were convinced that he had a talisman concealed in his hair, which enabled him to break the strongest chain and to open every lock.
He was again secured, and this time his hair was cut and searched for the supposed talisman there concealed, but, of course, ineffectually. He again, nevertheless, effected his escape.
Fear of him now passed all bounds. Girls and grown ​women, even the strongest men no longer ventured abroad after dark, not so much as to cross the street.
Then occurred two acts of violence which stirred the magistrates to greater activity.
Ferrage entertained a suspicion that a certain landowner in the district had instigated the police to track him. He set fire to this man's barns, stables, and cowsheds; and most of the cattle and all his grain were consumed in the flames. The other case was that of a Spanish muleteer who was driving his beasts over the mountains of Aure. Ferrage associated himself with the man on the way, volunteered to act as his guide, and the muleteer was never seen again.
High rewards were offered for the apprehension of Blaise Ferrage, but no dweller in the district dared attempt to earn it. Moreover, to track and arrest the cannibal was not a light matter. None knew precisely where he concealed himself, and it was certain that he would send a bullet into the first man whom he saw approach his place of refuge and concealment.
Finally he was taken, but only by subtlety. There was a fellow who had been guilty of more than one crime, and whom the officers of justice desired to secure. In order to make his peace with them, this man offered to assist in capturing Blaise, if he were assured of a free pardon and a reward. This was promised. Accordingly he climbed the rocks, yelling out the name of Seyé, by which Ferrage was commonly known, and crying for help. The cannibal cautiously thrust his head out of his cave, and seeing the man fleeing as for his life beckoned him to approach. The refugee breathlessly told him that he was flying from justice, that he had broken out of prison, and entreated to be sheltered. Ferrage took him in, and the fellow gained Blaise's confidence. He lived with him for awhile in his cave. However solitary a man ​may be, he yet craves for the society of a companion, and Blaise and this man became intimate. They went together on predatory excursions, and the betrayer finally lured Ferrage into an ambuscade laid for him, where he was taken, and firmly secured by a body of police. He was led to prison and kept there strongly guarded. The whole country breathed with relief when it was known that he was in chains and behind strong bars.
The trial was expedited and short. For three years this monster had terrorized the countryside. The number of charges of robbery and murder brought against him were innumerable.
On 12 December, 1782, the Parliament of Languedoc sentenced him to be broken on the wheel. He was then aged twenty-five. On the following 13th December Ferrage was executed. The sentence was carried out in the following manner. The culprit was fastened to a cart wheel, his limbs twined in and out among the spokes. The executioner smote with an iron bar on the limbs and broke them, one by one. Then came the coup de grâce, given across the chest.
It was estimated that he had murdered and eaten eighty persons, the majority of these were women and children. When he was executed crowds attended, palpitating with alarm, for they expected that at the last moment he would burst away and resume his murderous career.
He walked to death with florid countenance and with seeming indifference to his fate. Whether the prison chaplain induced him to express remorse for his guilt is not known. Only when the mangled body was cast down from the wheel, and consigned for burial to the grave-digger, did the crowd feel satisfied that they were relieved from a nightmare of horrors.
​A little way above the station of Montréjeau the two great Pyrenean torrents of the Neste and the Garonne unite their waters and flow towards the east. The line to Luchon does not follow the Garonne, that issues from a gorge, but crosses it farther up at Barbazan, in a broad basin studded with villages set in luxuriant verdure.
On an isolated hill, an outlier of the Pyrenees, rises a lofty and beautiful church, with houses grouped about it; apparently a stately medieval city, actually a poor village of less than four hundred inhabitants. This is S. Bertrand de Cominges. At one time it was as splendid a town as any in Gaul, and was the capital of an important people, containing from 30,000 to 50,000 souls. These could not all be accommodated on the rock, and the town flowed down the side into the plain, where now stands Valcabrères, the Vale of Goats. S. Bertrand de Cominges is one of the few towns in France of whose foundation we know the precise date.
Sertorius was one of the most extraordinary men in the later times of the Roman Republic. He was a native of Nursia, a Sabine village, born of obscure but respectable parents, and a devoted son to his widowed mother. In B.C. 83 Sertorius went to Spain to organize a national revolt against the intolerable oppression of Rome. Availing himself of the superstitious character of the people, he tamed a fawn, so that it accompanied him in his walks, lived in his tent, and was regarded by the Iberians as a tutellary spirit that communicated to him the will of the gods.
choir of s. betrand de cominges
Even after the fall of the Roman Empire this Lyons of the Convenæ remained a rich and populous city. But a terrible disaster fell on it in 584, that caused its utter and irretrievable ruin. This forms one of the most striking and detailed episodes of the history of the Franks by Gregory of Tours. In the words of Guizot:—
"Southern Gaul, that is to say Aquitaine, Gascony, Narbonne, called Septimania, and the two banks of the Rhone near its mouths, were not comprised in the partition of the Frankish dominions. Each of the co-partners assigned to themselves, to the south of the Garonne and on the coasts of the Mediterranean, such and such a district, and such and such a town, just as heirs-at-law keep to themselves severally such and such a valuable jewel out of a rich property to which they have succeeded, and which they divide among themselves. The peculiar situation of these provinces, at their distance from the Frank settlements, contributed much to the independence ​of Southern Gaul, which was constantly striving and partly managed, in the tempestuous fortunes of the Frankish monarchy, to recover its independence. It is easy to comprehend how that these repeated partitions of a mighty inheritance, these domains incessantly changing hands, must have tended to increase the anarchy of the Roman and Barbaric worlds thrown pell-mell one upon another, and fallen a prey, the Roman to the disorganization of a lingering death, the Barbaric to the fermentation of a new existence, striving for development under social conditions wholly different from those of their primitive life."
An opportunity seemed to offer for Aquitaine to establish its independence.
The Merovingian dynasty was represented by an old man and by two children, and the Aquitanians thought that their chance had come to have a king of their own. They summoned from Constantinople one Gundowald, reputed to be of royal Frank blood.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Clovis I K. of the Franks d. 511 | Clovis I K. of the Franks d. 511 | Clovis I K. of the Franks d. 511 | Clovis I K. of the Franks d. 511 |
| | | | | Childebert I K. of Paris d. 558 | Childebert I K. of Paris d. 558 | Childebert I K. of Paris d. 558 | Childebert I K. of Paris d. 558 | Childebert I K. of Paris d. 558 | Childebert I K. of Paris d. 558 | | | | | | | | | Clothair I K. of Soissons, Orleans, Metz, and finally of Paris d. 561 | Clothair I K. of Soissons, Orleans, Metz, and finally of Paris d. 561 | Clothair I K. of Soissons, Orleans, Metz, and finally of Paris d. 561 | Clothair I K. of Soissons, Orleans, Metz, and finally of Paris d. 561 | Clothair I K. of Soissons, Orleans, Metz, and finally of Paris d. 561 | Clothair I K. of Soissons, Orleans, Metz, and finally of Paris d. 561 |
| Charibert K. of Paris d. 567 | Charibert K. of Paris d. 567 | Charibert K. of Paris d. 567 | Charibert K. of Paris d. 567 | Charibert K. of Paris d. 567 | Charibert K. of Paris d. 567 | | | Gunthram K. of Orleans d. 593 | Gunthram K. of Orleans d. 593 | Gunthram K. of Orleans d. 593 | Gunthram K. of Orleans d. 593 | Gunthram K. of Orleans d. 593 | Gunthram K. of Orleans d. 593 | Chilperie K. of Soissons d. 584 | Chilperie K. of Soissons d. 584 | Chilperie K. of Soissons d. 584 | Chilperie K. of Soissons d. 584 | Chilperie K. of Soissons d. 584 | Chilperie K. of Soissons d. 584 | Segebert K. of Metz d. 575 | Segebert K. of Metz d. 575 | Segebert K. of Metz d. 575 | Segebert K. of Metz d. 575 | Segebert K. of Metz d. 575 | Segebert K. of Metz d. 575 | Gundowald murdered 587 | Gundowald murdered 587 | Gundowald murdered 587 | Gundowald murdered 587 | Gundowald murdered 587 | Gundowald murdered 587 |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Childebert II K. of Metz d. 596 | Childebert II K. of Metz d. 596 | Childebert II K. of Metz d. 596 | Childebert II K. of Metz d. 596 | Childebert II K. of Metz d. 596 | Childebert II K. of Metz d. 596 | | | | | | |
Gregory of Tours says:—
"Gundowald, who said he was the son of Clothair I, arrived at Marseilles, coming from Constantinople. He had been born in Gaul, had been carefully educated, taught letters, and, as is ​the custom with kings of the Franks, had his hair flowing in long curls over his shoulders. He was presented by his mother to King Childebert (his uncle, King of Paris), and she said to him, ' Behold your nephew, the son of Clothair. His father ever hated him, but do you take him to you, for he is your own flesh and blood.' And this Childebert did, as he had no son of his own."
This was the prince whom the Aquitanians invited to rule over them. Clothair I had divided the kingdom of the Franks among his sons, but three of these were dead; Sigebert, King of Metz, however, had left a son, Childebert II. Gunthram, King of Orleans, still lived. Gundowald visited his nephew, Childebert, at Metz, and was favourably received by him. Childebert and Gundowald sent Duke Boso with a deputation to Gunthram, King of Orleans, to demand the recognition of the prince, and that he should be given Aquitaine as a kingdom. The deputation was roughly received by Gunthram at Orleans, seated on his throne. "Pshaw!" said he, "Gundowald's father was a miller, or, to be more exact, a carder of wool."
Then one of the deputies said boldly, "Do you pretend that Gundowald had two fathers—one a miller, the other a wool-carder? Who ever heard of a man having two fathers?"
Another deputy broke out with—" Take care. King, the axe that cut off the heads of your brothers has not lost its edge."
In a fury Gunthram ordered the embassy to be driven out of the palace and pelted with horse-dung and rotten vegetables.
The Aquitanians flew to arms; Gundowald was crowned at Brives, and marched to secure Toulouse. The ecclesiastics of the south to a man favoured the pretender. Gunthram ​was alarmed, and at once detached his nephew Childebert from the side of Gundowald, by the bribe of an offer of the succession to the kingdom of the Franks after his death.
The reconcillation of the two kings discouraged the party of Gundowald. The fickle Aquitanians were as hasty in deserting him as they had been in acknowledging him. As a large army of the Franks was pouring south, Gundowald was constrained to throw himself into Lugdunum Convenarum, along with the grandees most compromised, as Duke Mummolus, and two bishops, Sagittarius and Waddo.
Duke Boso, who had been foremost in instigating the rising, secured all Gundowald's treasures and fled with them. Mummolus and the bishops only waited for an opportunity to betray him. The army of Gunthram surrounded the town, lying all along in the plain. Then Mummolus and the bishops advised the prince to throw himself on the mercy of his brother Gunthram. "It was at your invitation," answered he, "that I came to Gaul. I was in Constantinople with my little children, in high honour with the Emperor, when Boso sought me out and informed me of the death of all my brothers save Gunthram, without issue, and that Childebert, my nephew, was a poor creature. I allowed myself to be persuaded to return to Gaul; and now this same Boso has stolen the treasures I had brought with me, and has gone over to my brother who is warring against me." Then said Mummolus, "Do as we bid you. Divest yourself of your golden baldric and sword and go forth. We swear to you that no harm will befall you." Seeing that nothing else was open to him, that he could trust none of those who had egged him on, he issued from the gates, and at once Mummolus closed them behind him. Otto, Count of Bourges, received the prince and surrounded him with armed men. ​Gundowald raised his hands to heaven and said, "Judge Eternal, Avenger of the innocent! To Thee I commit my cause, and I pray Thee to avenge me on my betrayers."
As he was descending the hill, Otto dealt him a sharp blow on the back that made him fall, saying, "This dauber of the walls of churches and oratories is down at last!" Then raising his spear he attempted to transfix him, but failed, owing to the armour worn by the prince.
Gundowald sprang to his feet, and turned to reascend the hill, when Duke Boso, as base as he was treacherous, dashed a stone at his head and crushed in his skull. The prince fell, and the men at arms, after making sure that he was dead, tied his feet together, and dragged him around the camp with jeers.
The rock down which Gundowald was thrown is still pointed out. It is called Mattacan, the place where the dog was slaughtered. It is some satisfaction to learn that Mummolus gained nothing by his treachery. When the town was entered by the troops of Gunthram he was put to death. The city was delivered over to the soldiery of the King, and the inhabitants—men, women, and children—were massacred, so that, to use the expression of Gregory of Tours, there did not remain even a dog alive in it—"ita ut non remaneret mingens ad parietem." The city was levelled, and the bishops of Cominges, finding no asylum among the ruins, settled at Valcabrères, where they erected a church dedicated to S. Justus. This is an interesting structure, standing alone in the fields, built out of the ruins. The choir, very archaic in form and of rude construction, probably dates from its erection after the destruction of the Lyons of the Convenæ. The nave, less ancient, of the eleventh century, has been also built of old materials. A delicious lateral portal enriched ​with sculptured capitals, and fine statues of life size, and a bas-relief of Christ between the evangelistic symbols, is of the twelfth century. Within are ancient columns taken from the Roman town, and a curious stone sarcophagus or shrine of the fourteenth century, much mutilated, and reached by two stone flights of steps. It is not known whose tomb this was. Against the wall at the end of the nave is the tombstone of a priest named Patroclus, of the fourth century.
After five centuries of abandonment, one of the bishops of Cominges resolved on the re-edification of the city of Lugdunum. He built a cathedral on the height of the rock, in the midst of the ruins. This was in the eleventh century, towards its close, when religious fervour was at its height; and this new church is one of the most beautiful monuments of medieval art in the south of France. About the new cathedral canons were installed; the prelate erected for them a residence and a cloister. He built himself a palace, and in every way encouraged the people to resettle on the site of their ancient capital.
cloisters, s. betrand de cominges
At the time of the Papacy at Avignon Bishop Bertrand de Got was elected Pope, and took the title of Clement V. He retained a liking for the place, revisited it several times, and contributed sums towards its completion; and to raise money without having to dip into his own purse instituted a grand Pardon or Jubilee, charged with Indulgences, for the Feast of the Invention of the Cross (3 May). This is still celebrated, and attracts pilgrims to gain the Indulgences, during three days. The vaulting of the church was begun in 1304, and completed by Hugh de Chatillon in the middle of the fourteenth century. The apse is surrounded by five chapels. The windows of the choir, very tall and narrow, are partly walled up, and partly filled with fragments of Renaissance glass. The magnificent Renaissance woodwork choir-stalls, screen, organ-case, and altar-piece are due to Bishop Jean de Mauleon, and date from 1525. In a chapel is the stately tomb of Bishop Hugh de Châtillon, who died in 1352; it is of white marble, and was executed at least a century after his death, probably at the expense of the Cardinal de Foix, to whom also is due the mausoleum of S. Bertrand behind the high altar.
But bishops cannot create a town, even though they enrich a site with a superb cathedral. S. Bertrand de Cominges never thrived, and little by little the bishops tired of it, and then abandoned it for their Château of Alan, near Aurignac; they were rich men, enjoying large revenues, for the diocese of Cominges, in addition to that part which is in France, comprised also the whole of the Val d'Aran—that is to say, thirty-three parishes under the Crown of Spain.
Some of them rarely visited S. Bertrand, some not at all. One of them. Urban de S. Gelos, an ardent Leaguer, only went ​thither to dislodge the Huguenots, who thrice between 1569 and 1593 entered the town and committed great ravages.
At the Revolution the see was suppressed, and the small world of canons, vicars-general, and diocesan functionaries who had inhabited the capital of Cominges dispersed, and the little town sank to be a chef-lieu de Canton, and then lost even that dignity, which was transferred to Barbazan.
S. Bertrand would be abandoned altogether by its inhabitants, who would settle on the plain were it not much resorted to by visitors from Luchon, by artists and antiquaries, and by pilgrims.
There were counts of Cominges from a very early period, indeed from 900; but the county came to the Crown of France in 1442 through a domestic quarrel.
Margaret de Cominges was left an heiress in 1376. She married John III, Count of Armagnac Fézansac. He died in 1391, having had by her two daughters. She then married Jean d'Armagnac Pardiac, who was aged eighteen. As she treated him with contempt as a mere boy he was offended, and left her so as to reside with his father. But after awhile, finding that Margaret had installed a lieutenant in the county, and refused him those rights in it which had been assured to him by the marriage contract, he appealed to Count Bernard VII of Armagnac for assistance. This treacherous man went over to the side of Margaret, and when John hastened to Auch to urge the Count to assist him Bernard had him arrested, carried to a castle in the Rouergue, and there blinded by a red-hot basin applied to his eyes. The poor lad died in prison in great misery. Margaret being free of her boy-husband, looked out for one who was a man, and pitched on Matthew de Grailli, brother of the Count of Foix, and married him.
​But Matthew proved a little too much of a man for her. He treated Margaret as roughly as she had treated Jean. He shut her up in the Castle of Saverdun, where he retained her for fifteen to sixteen years. At the end of that time she appealed to Charles VII when he was at Toulouse, and Matthew was forced to surrender her into the King's hands. Then Margaret, to vent her spite against her husband, made over the county of Cominges, in 1442, along with all her estates, to the Crown of France. Next year she died at Poitiers at the age of eighty.
The Garonne does not rise in France, but in Spain, and, by what is an apparent caprice, the frontier does not follow the crests of the highest mountains, but runs north, making a loop so as to include the Val d'Aran in Spain.
But though the valley is reached by a good carriage road from France, and can communicate with Spanish neighbours only by a mule path over a pass 8000 feet high and impassable for many months in the year, yet the valley has pertained to Spain since 1192.
Of the Val d'Aran more presently. We must first, after the antiquity and decay of S. Bertrand, refresh ourselves with the novelty and up-to-datedness of Luchon; certainly one of the most delightful centres from which to radiate in all directions, that is to be found in Europe. All the comforts, distractions, and amusements that go to make a watering-place pleasant are to be had there as elsewhere, and better than elsewhere in the Pyrenees.
A Frenchman shall describe it, lest I should do it scant justice:—
"Forty thousand visitors come every year to Luchon, bringing with them an atmosphere of luxury not to be found to the same degree in other Pyrenean stations. Their artifrcial ​existence has for corollary an artificial existence in the population living upon them:—Coachmen and postilions in the livery of the Opéra-Comique, guides who have adopted an imaginary Pyrenean costume. The hotel-keepers are not behindhand; correctly dressed cavaliers, spruce amazons, toilettes changed frequently during the day, toilettes the product of the best Parisian dressmakers, affectation of the extreme of fashion, such is the picture of life at Luchon. Even for mountain excursions there must be a faultless costume.
"With the exception of a few guides worthy of the name and knowing the loftiest crests, these cicerones in costume conduct walkers to spots to which they could go perfectly well without them. The mountains are very much humanized here, there are plenty of carriage-drives, walks innumerable, well kept up, to reach even great altitudes. But beyond all this Luchon is one of the principal centres of Pyrenean-Alpine climbing, it is the point of departure for bold climbers who go to the Mont Maudit, the loftiest of all the chain, but on Spanish soil" (Ardouin-Dumazet).
But even easy ascents lead to superb and savage scenery. The Lake of Seculejo is easily reached, and is accessible even in a carriage. It stands 6500 feet above the sea, and is the most visited of all the Pyrenean sheets of water. It is a mere tarn, but is singularly beautiful, lying amidst rugged mountains, with the eternal snows above it spilling their melted waters into it in a fall of 620 feet, after having paused to spread in two loftily situated tarns, one of which is frozen almost throughout the year. Inglis thus describes it, at a time when it was but occasionally visited:—
"I dedicated a day to the Seculejo, and have seldom passed one more to my mind. I left Bagnères de Luchon about sunrise. The road to it is wild and pastoral, rapidly rising towards the south, and having constantly in view the majestic scenery that lies upon the Spanish frontier. The Lake of Seculejo is ​wild, solitary, and sombre. The low ripple of the water, the noise of the cataract, and the cry of a bird of prey, are the only interruptions of silence that are in keeping with the scene; and these were the only sounds that disturbed its tranquillity as I stood upon the margin of the water. The lake is entirely surrounded by high mountains, excepting where it finds egress; and its shores are generally bold and rugged. At the upper end, a cascade falls from the top of a perpendicular rock into the lake. After lingering upon the margin of Seculejo an hour or two, I climbed up the eastern bank, by a path which has almost the appearance of a ladder, and which, indeed, bears the name of Scala. Having reached the summit of the bank, I entered a gorge, through which I passed to a hollow lying at the base of the mountain, called the Espingo; and, still proceeding to ascend the first ridges of the mountain, I reached the two lakes of Espingo. These are very elevated mountain tarns lying almost in the region of snow. All is here sombre, melancholy, rude, and dismal—great rocks, a few stunted trees, and still, deep, dark water, are the features of the scene."
We return to Luchon. Do you desire health? It is to be found there, if we may believe the advertisements of the wonders wrought by its waters, more potent than that from the lips of the Grotto of Lourdes: "Toutes les maladies de la peau, comme d'autres de toute espèce, les maladies occassionées par le lait répandu, quelques graves qu'elles soient, les rheumatismes, maladies des yeux, maladies des parties conservatrices des yeux, lésions d'oreille, maladie du système osseux, blessures; gale ventrée, rougeole, maladies des articulations; maladies des glandes salvaires; humeurs froides; maladies des voies urinaires; catarrhe pulmonaire; asthme; phthisie pulmonaire, obstructions de toutes sortes, et jaunisse." And, nevertheless, there is a cemetery at Luchon.
Luchon was well-known to the Romans, as the number of ex voto altars to the god Ilixion that have been found go to ​prove. The name of this god of healing is to be recognized in a very altered shape in the modern Luchon. In 1036 Luchon, with Upper Cominges, passed as dower to the Crown of Aragon. Later it was restored to the counts of Cominges. In 1711 the valley was ravaged, and Luchon burned by Charles of Austria, who was disputing Spain with the Duke of Anjou.
No one staying at Luchon should omit to read J. H. Michon's powerful novel, Le Maudit, the scene of which is mainly laid at S. Aventin on the Neste d'Oucil, a picturesquely situated village, with an interesting church of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It has two towers—one at the west end, the other at the transept. The grille is specially noticeable, as it is ironwork of the twelfth century. The tomb of the patron saint is in the church. He is said to have died in the year 538.
One stormy night a bear bounced against the door of his cell. Aventin spent the night in great alarm, but on opening the door in the morning he saw the bear still there, crouched on the threshold, and it stretched forth a paw to him. Then the hermit perceived that a splinter of wood had entered it. So he said, "Poor beast, thou wast in pain, and didst seek relief, and I thought that thou wast raging for my life." Then he took the paw in his lap, drew out the splinter, bathed and bandaged the wound, and let the bear depart. It is the story of Androcles and the lion, without the termination.
Perhaps the finest excursion is up the Valley of Lys to the Cirque of Crabioules, where the glacier sends down a fine fall, the Cascade d'Enfer. Nothing can surpass the scenery in this valley.
la cascade d'enfer, luchon
From S. Béat it is not four miles to the frontier, at Pont-du-Roi, where some speculators have built a casino; a restaurant, and gambling tables are provided; but, of course, this fact is veiled, and it is called La Société du Vélo Club du Pont-du-Roi.
The Maladetta with its glaciers now bursts on the sight.
It is somewhat absurd that the Val d'Aran should not pertain to France, with which it has a natural connexion. Indeed the Spanish officials who come to the valley arrive by train either from Bayonne or from Perpignan, and leave it at the little station at Marignac near Luchon. The people of Aran who drink Spanish wine have the barrels brought round one way or the other by French lines, but do not pay duty, only the long carriage; whereas French wine has to ​pay at the Customs, coming only a few miles up from the level land.
The dialect is Catalan, but so is that of French Roussillon; and nearly every man in Aran can speak French. The position of the inhabitants is difficult, as for only two or three months in the year can they reach a Spanish town beyond the mountains, so that they must purchase French goods, and these have to be examined at the custom-house, and taxed, some heavily.
Curiously enough, at the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 nothing was said about annexing Aran to France. Napoleon alone saw the necessity for it, and did annex it in 1808; but the treaty of 1815 restored it to Spain. As Aran is now situated, inevitably smuggling thrives and cannot be suppressed.
Viella is the capital of the district of Aran. Before reaching it a monolith is passed, a prehistoric monument, supposed to be dedicated to the presiding deity of the valley. Viella is planted on the banks of the Rio Negro, and possesses a church and chapels of massive construction, overcharged with gilded decorations, in accordance with Spanish taste. The houses are provided with balconies.
le lac d'oo