THE VALLEY OF THE SUN.
"Baignères, la beauté, l'honneur, le paradis.
De ces monts sourcilleux"
—DU BARTAS.
"I hear from Bigorre you are there."
—Lucile.
An agreeable little city we find about us, the next day. Bigorre is one of the most well-known of the Pyrenean resorts, and has a steady though not accelerating popularity. The tide of ultra summer fashion, has tended latterly toward Eaux Bonnes, Cauterets and Luchon in preference; still, Bigorre, conservative and with it's own assured circle of friends, looks on without malice at its sister spas who have come to wear finer raiment than itself. A number of the English,—some even in winter and spring,—frequent Bigorre almost alone of these Pyrenean resorts, and their liking for it has made it known, beyond the others, in their own country. The streets are shady and well lined; the houses, frequently standing apart in their own small gardens, give a pleasant impression of space and airiness. There are numberless shops, where we can later replenish various needs. The pavements seem to have been built and leveled, by MacAdam himself, as an enthusiast puts it; and everywhere along the side of the walks bound rivulets of mountain water, so dear to these Pyrenean towns.
The mineral springs here are not powerful, but are useful in mild digestive disorders and the like, and afford at least a pretext for an idle summering, as springs will do, the world over. The Establishment is large and well arranged, but getting well is no such stern and serious affair at Bagnères de Bigorre as at Barèges, and here the visitors wisely mingle their saline prescriptions in abundant infusions of pleasure. There are drives and promenades in all directions. The Casino offers concerts and occasional plays and operettas, and a band in the main promenade entertains regularly the listening evening saunterers. Rightly does the town aim still to merit the praise given by Montaigne, who paid it a marked tribute in his writings:
"He who does not bring along with him," observes that great French essayist, "so much cheerfulness as to enjoy the pleasure of the company he will there meet, [at bath-resorts,] and of the walks and exercises to which the beauty of the places in which baths for the most part are situated invites us, will doubtless lose the best and surest part of their effect. For this reason, I have hitherto chosen to go to those of the most pleasant situation, where there was the most convenience of lodging, provision and company,—as the Baths of Banières in France."
The cheery town is large enough to take on something quite akin to a city-like air; it has a population of about 10,000, and in summer the number has its half added upon it by increase of visitors and boarders. The hotels are praiseworthy, though making little display; and a marked attraction of the town is this wide promenade of the main street, termed the Coustous,—so called, it is alleged, because anciently the guardians, custodes, of Bigorre used here to pace their nightly patrol. The Coustous is doubly lined with arching trees, and has seats and a wide path along the centre; the carriage-ways enclose this, and shops and cafés line the outer walks. A few squares away, another similar promenade broadens out, likewise vivified with trees and shops and booths. Facing this is the bath-establishment before mentioned, and beyond, in grounds of its own, the Kursaal or Casino. Cropping up among the houses, stout buildings older than the rest tell of the days when Bagnères was a "goodly inclosed town," the inhabitants of which had a hard time of it against the depredations of Lourdes and Mauvoisin and its other robber neighbors.
For we are among old times again at Bigorre, and many spots in the vicinity are rife with Middle-Age incidents of robbing and righting. This region was the plague-spot of the country for its freebooting fortresses,—Lourdes, Mauvoisin, Trigalet, with their adventurers always ready for a fracas,—the strongholds, as has been said, of those logicians who
"kept to the good old plan
That those should take who have the power,
And those should keep who can,"
and the provinces about them lived in constant worriment. This valley especially suffered from their armed bands; now they raided some exposed hamlet, now made prisoners of merchants or travelers on the highway, anon swooped down here upon Bagnères and made off with money and live stock in gratifying plenty.
And centuries yet preceding this, the valley saw wars on a larger scale, when Cæsar and his Romans, ploughing victoriously through Gaul, came to the Aquitani and crushed them down into the furrows with the rest, after repeated and furious resistance. The Romans knew too of these springs, and there are still remains of the city,—Vicus Aquensis,—which they built on this site. In the Museum are Roman relics found while excavating, among them votive tablets recording the donors' gratitude to the nymphs of the springs for cures effected. Clearly, Bigorre is of no mushroom growth, but has been toughened and seasoned by age and warfare into the just reward of its nowaday repose and popularity.