Part 28 (2/2)
The Vallee d'Ossau is said to combine all the beauties of the Pyrenees; and is certainly one of the most enchanting spots in nature: the scenery reminded me, in some degree, of that at the Mont Dore, in Auvergne; but, though superior in some respects, the magnificent _plateaux_ of gigantic pines were wanting. It is necessary, in the Pyrenees, to ascend much higher than we did to behold this growth,--a few straggling firs of insignificant size are all that are to be seen in the lower range; but I believe they are very fine in some parts.
We stopped at Bielle to visit the Roman pavement, which has only lately been discovered; it was shown to us by a woman who was surrounded by five little children with black eyes and rosy cheeks; for this region is the Paradise of children; they all look so healthy and handsome. The mother, though still young, looked ten years older than she really was,--worn and tanned, like all I had hitherto seen; her remarkably small feet were bare, and she wore the fringed leggings peculiar to this part, which have a singularly Indian appearance. Beauty is said to be common in this country; but we had not met a single female who deserved to be called so; nor did the costume strike us as otherwise than coa.r.s.e and ungraceful: in this particular forming a great contrast to the peasantry of Switzerland, with whose mountains there is here a parallel. The _patois_ spoken by this family sounded very musical and pretty; and we remarked that the villagers in general seemed gentle and civil: a little boy, who const.i.tuted himself our guide, was a strange figure, actually covered with rags and tatters, which hung about him in the most grotesque drapery, as if it had been studied to create laughter: the village looked the very picture of poverty, desolation, dirt, and ruin: the church is a piece of antiquity of great interest. It has evidently been a pagan temple; and, ranged in an outer court, surrounded by circular arches, are placed some stone coffins, which excite wonder and interest; three of them have the lid of the ridged form, called _dos d'ane_: the other is flattened, and all are uninjured.
They might seem to belong to the period when Charlemagne's knights required so many tombs in this land. It was in re-constructing a new vestry-room that these treasures were discovered beneath the worn stones which had been removed: no inscriptions give a hint to whom they may have belonged, and there they lie, side by side, mysterious relics of the times of chivalry.
The pillars inside the church are very celebrated for their extreme beauty: they are of white and blue jasper, found in a quarry near Bielle. A story is told of Henry IV., who greatly admired these pillars, having sent to request the town to make him a present of them, as he found nothing in his capital that could compare with their beauty; he received this answer: ”Bous quets meste de noustes coos et de noustes bees; mei per co qui es Deus pialars diu temple, aquets que son di Diu, dab eig quep at bejats.” ”You may dispose of our hearts and our goods at your will; as for the columns, they belong to G.o.d; manage the matter with Him.”
The Ossalais in this showed no little wit; or, if the tradition is not founded on fact, the story still exhibits their powers of setting a due value on their possessions in a striking light. Bielle was once a place of great importance, and its church belonged to an abbey of Benedictines: there was formerly a stone on the facade, on which was engraved the arms of the Valley--a _Bear and a Bull_, separated by a beech tree, with this device: ”_Ussau e Bearn. Vive la Vacca_.” The ancient archives of Ossau are kept in a stone coffer at Bielle; and the dignitaries of the country repair to this spot at certain periods of the year to consult on the affairs of the communes. What habitation they find wherein to meet, suitable to their dignity, it would be difficult to say.
We stopped an hour at Izeste, and strolled along the one street of this wretched bourg while our horses rested: over almost every house we were surprised to see sculptured stones, with half-effaced arms, showing that once persons of condition inhabited these now degraded dwellings. One in particular, in a singular state of preservation, represented the cognizance of the house of Lusignan, and here we did indeed see the effigy which we had failed to find at the castle near Poitiers, of the serpent-tailed Fairy Melusine. We went into the house of the proprietor, who, with his mother and several of his neighbours, hurried out, after peeping from their windows to watch the operation of the sketching of Melusine, and invited us to see another head of a woman which he had found in the garden of his tenement. We pa.s.sed along several dim, dark pa.s.sages, and through large, square, dungeon-like rooms, apparently serving as stables, to the garden, where we found numerous remains of ancient Roman wall and bricks and broken columns, and the head of a statue much defaced. Every house seemed capable of exhibiting similar remains, and on many were dates in stone of 1613, 1660, 1673. One tower of defence is tolerably perfect; and walls and remnants of gates here and there prove how strong and how important Izeste once must have been.
We entered a court-yard, where a tailor was sitting working close by a curious door-way, which appeared like the entrance to a church, and was built into a wall, forming part of what was formerly a large mansion. We were so much struck with the extraordinary sculpture round the arch, that we inquired if there was any record of what it had been. The tailor looked up surprised: ”Well,” said he, ”I have lived here all my life, and never took notice of this door-way before: we have plenty of old stones here; but they are worth nothing, and mean nothing, that I know of.”
The carving which so excited our curiosity was a series of medallions: some circular, some square, very much mutilated, but still traceable. On one compartment were the figures of a bear _rampant_, and--what might be--a bull: they seemed in the act of combat, and possibly might represent the arms of Bearn and Ossau, though I confess I look upon them as of _very early_ date--perhaps the work of the Gauls or Goths, _selon moi_; another enclosed a Sagittarius and a dog; another, an animal like a wolf, holding a club; another, an ape: the rest are too much worn to enable an antiquarian to decide what they were; but the whole offered a very singular and interesting problem, which we found it impossible to solve: the medallions are on stones which have evidently belonged to some other building, and been thus placed over a modern portal.
There is a cavern in the neighbourhood of Izeste, which is said to be worth visiting; but the weather was not propitious to our seeing it.
We stopped on the way from the Eaux Bonnes, on our return, at a place where our driver purchased us some ortolans, and we were almost stunned with the noise and clamour of a crowd of little urchins, with flowers and without, who, in whining accents, insisted on sous; but there was nothing either pretty or romantic about them or their costume; and we were very glad when, having procured the delicate little birds we waited for, we could resume our route. This was just at the season of _La Cha.s.se des Palombes_--a time of much importance in the valley, when hundreds of a peculiar sort of pigeons are sacrificed.
Many of the peaks which had been concealed from us the day before, came forth from their circling mists, at intervals, on our return, and were pointed out to us by their different names; but as we came back in the evening to Pau, the range which was most familiar to us re-appeared in all its splendour, much clearer than when we were nearer to them.
At Beost, in the midst of the valley, lives a man, whose industry and genius have made him an object of curiosity and interest in the country, and whose fame must probably cause considerable interruption to his studies in the season of the baths; for it has become quite the fas.h.i.+on to visit him. He is called Pierrine, or Gaston Saccaze; is a shepherd who has always lived in these mountains, and has made himself so thoroughly acquainted with the botany of the district as to have become a valuable correspondent of the members of the Jardin des Plantes at Paris: he taught himself Latin, by means of an old dictionary which he bought for a few sous, and, by dint of extraordinary perseverance, has made himself master of the whole Flora of the Pyrenees.
CHAPTER VII.
GABAS--POPULAR SONGS--PONT CRABE--THE RECLUSE OF THE VALLeE D'OSSAU--MARGUERITE--THE SPRINGS.
I made another excursion to the Vallee d'Ossau in the February of 1843, when the weather was singularly mild--infinitely more so than when I was first there in October, and the clearness of the sky enabled me to see all the mountains which were before concealed in clouds. With an adventurous party, all anxious to take advantage of the propitious moment, I undertook a long _walk_--for at this season it is difficult to procure horses--towards Gabas, having this time the Pic du Midi bright and clear and close in view. The carriage was able to advance along the steep road which extends above the foaming Gave de Gabas, nearly half way to the desired spot; for the snow had fallen in very small quant.i.ty during the winter, and there had been no interruption to the roads.
From a certain place, however, where two paths diverged, we found that the height we had reached had brought us to the snows, and that it was too slippery for the horses to proceed; accordingly we alighted and performed the rest of the journey on foot. The walk was very exciting and amusing, our feet sinking deep in snow at every step, while a burning sun, _gaumas_, as the guide said, was s.h.i.+ning over our heads, glittering on the white peaks above, and sparkling in the deep, clear, green torrent at the foot of the box-covered hills, over which silver streams of water were flowing from the summits into the murmuring wave, which churlishly received their tributary visits, and disputed the place they took, das.h.i.+ng, foaming, and springing over the enormous ma.s.ses of rock in their course, till all the valley re-echoed with their ceaseless quarrelling.
Every now and then we stopped to look back at the sublime scenery, and to make a hasty sketch of the peaks, which tempted us to pause. Summer and winter seemed combined in our stroll, and it appeared as if we were realizing the fable of ”_the man, the sun, and the cloud_,” not knowing whether to yield to the heat or the cold. We met two Spaniards hurrying along, who had crossed the mountains from Saragossa: they were fine, strong-looking men, and sufficiently wild; but too dirty and slovenly to excite much admiration _here_; if we had seen them on the opposite side of the ravine they might have pa.s.sed for picturesque, in the same manner as the singing of our guide might have delighted our ears had we heard him from a distance: as it was, he indulged our request by intoning some of the pastorals of Despourrins, which, if the spirit of the poet of the Pyrenees is wandering amongst the mountains, must have greatly _perturbed_ it.
A long, loud, unmelodious drawl, like a dirge, with many a dying fall, was the vehicle in which the tender expressions of the poet were conveyed to our ears; and I was reproached by my companions for having injudiciously praised the verses of the Swan of Bearn: certainly heard in mutilated fragments, and sung by such a musician--”_La Haut sus las Mountagnes_” and ”_La Plus Charmante Anesquette_,” were not calculated to excite much admiration.
A lady of our party, who was acquainted with the popular songs of Languedoc, repeated a few verses to our guide, who took up the strain, which was not new to him: it is singular how widely these simple songs are spread from one part of France to the other; indeed, they are scarcely confined to any country, and, like traditions, seem to have wandered up and down into all regions. For instance, I was very much surprised, a short time ago, to see in a work on Persian popular literature, an almost literal version of a song, well-known on the Bourbonnais, which I had met with at Moulins.
I questioned the guide on the subject of the superst.i.tions of the valley, and found that he had himself _seen_ the fairies called _Les Blanquettes_: those charming mountain-fairies who roam along the peaks singing mournful songs. ”I had often heard of them,” said he, ”and many of my friends had seen them hovering about the mouths of caverns on the highest points of the mountains. I wished, therefore, to satisfy myself, and went to the spot where others had beheld them, and sure enough there they were, figures in white, like women, in a circle round the entrance of a cavern.”
”And were these fairies?” I asked.
He paused a moment, and then said--”As for fairies, that is an old story, which some people believe: these that I saw _were only shadows_.”
It appears to me that superst.i.tion is fast wearing out in the Pyrenees, as well as everywhere else.
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