A dignitary of Bordeaux arranged a fête and procession in these Landes on one occasion; triumphal arches were erected, hung with flowers and garlands; and the feature of the parade was a sedate platoon of these heron-like shepherds engaged for the occasion, dressed in skins, decked with white hoods and mantles, preceded by a band of music, and stalking by fours imposingly down the line of march.
II.
We are nearing the Pyrenees now, and entering the ancient and famous province of Béarn, once a noted centre of mediæval chivalry. Beam did not become part of France until almost modern times.[[13]] For seven hundred years preceding, its successive rulers held their brilliant court unfettered and unpledged. "Ours," declared its barons and prelates in assembly, "is a free country, which owes neither homage nor servitude to any one." The life of the province was its own, separated entirely from that of the kingdom. It had its own succession, its own wars and feuds, its own love of country. It has a national history in miniature. "If I have excused myself from bearing arms upon either side," said one of its rulers, replying to the royal remonstrances, "I have, as I think, good reasons for it: the wars between England and France no way concern me, for I hold my country of Béarn from God, my sword and by inheritance. I have not therefore any cause to enter into the service or incur the hatred of either of these kings."
There is a pleasant old legend which touches the true note of Béarn. Toward the year 1200, three of its rulers, in turn misgoverning, were in turn deposed by the barons. The heirs next in line were the infant twins of one William de Moncade. "It was agreed," as Miss Costello relates it; "that one of these should fill the vacant seat of sovereignty of Béarn, and two of the prudhommes were deputed to visit their father with the proposition. On their arrival at his castle, the sages found the children asleep, and observed with attention their infant demeanor. Both were beautiful, strong and healthy; and it was a difficult matter to make an election between two such attractive and innocent creatures. They were extremely alike, and neither could be pronounced superior to the other; the prudhommes were strangely puzzled, for they had been so often deceived that they felt it to be most important that they should not err this time. As they hung in admiration over the sleeping babes, one of them remarked a circumstance that at once decided their preference and put an end to their vacillation: one of the little heroes held his hand tightly closed; the tiny, mottled palm of the other was wide open as it lay upon his snowy breast. 'He will be a liberal and bold knight,' said one of the Béarnais, 'and will best suit us as a head.' This infant was accordingly chosen, given up by his parents to the wise men, and carried off in triumph to be educated among his future subjects. The event proved their sagacity, and the object of their choice lived to give them good laws and prosperity."
III.
The past of Béarn, like an ellipse, curves around two foci. One is the town of Orthez,[[14]] the other, the later city of Pau. The hero, the central figure, of one is Gaston Phoebus, Count of Foix; that of the other, Henry of Navarre.
These are the two great names of Béarn. Each lights up a distinctive epoch,—Gaston, the fourteenth century, Henry, the sixteenth.
In two hours after leaving Bayonne, the train has come to Orthez. There is little splendor in the old town as one views it to-day; yet in Gaston's time it was the capital of Béarn, successor of the yet older Morlaäs, and a centre for knights and squires and men-at-arms, a magnet for pilgrims and noble visitors from other countries, attracted by its fame. There were jousts, tourneys, hunts, banquets. The now broken walls of the old Castle of Moncade on the hill have sheltered more glittering merrymakings than those of Kenilworth or Fuenterrabia. But decay never surrenders an advantage once gained; the castle is dying now; dull modern commonplace has enfolded the once bright town below; and this Orthez is to-day at best but a lounging-place for the pessimist. We shall love better Pau, its rival and successor, still buoyant and prospering, rising not falling. "Good men study and wise men describe," avers Ruskin, in a more than half-truth, "only the growth and standing of things,—not their decay. Dissolution and putrescence are alike common and unclean ... in State or organism."
For all that, Orthez and its traditions are too significant to hasten by. Nowhere is the picture of mediæval life more strongly illuminated; in no spot shall we more fitly pause to summon back the inner past of the Pyrenees we are approaching. But we would linger over it only as it was in its best days, and leave to others the drearier story of its decadence.