Towards the end of the fourteenth century the mouth of the Adour became completely blocked with a bank of sand and shingle, and the river’s course was diverted to the north, so that it entered the sea ten miles from Bayonne. This was a disaster to the town, and it was not until two centuries later, in the year 1579, that the engineer-architect Louis de Foix, aided by a great gale, succeeded in reopening the old mouth, and restoring the river to its earlier course.
The English lost Bayonne in 1451, when they were shorn of all their possessions in France except Calais.
In 1526, when François I. was released from his palatial prison in Madrid, he rejoined his Court at Bayonne, and announced his intention of eluding the treaty which gave Burgundy to the Emperor Charles V.
An interesting meeting took place in 1565, when Charles IX., with his mother, Catherine de Medici, met his sister Elizabeth, the Queen of Philip II. of Spain. It was for a long while thought that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was decided upon on this occasion, but modern historians are inclined to think otherwise.
Coming down to Napoleonic times, the year 1814 brings Bayonne into the centre of the latter phase of the Peninsular War.
Wellington’s victorious army, composed of English, Spanish, and Portuguese, having crossed the Pyrenees, attacked Marshal Soult, who had taken up a strong position on the Nivelle. Soult was defeated, and withdrew to Bayonne, where he was again defeated by Sir Rowland Hill, who commanded the right wing of the British army. Soult left a strong garrison in Bayonne, and marched towards Orthez, followed by Wellington. Sir John Hope was left to besiege Bayonne, which capitulated after the abdication of Napoleon on April 5, 1814. Nine days after the declaration of peace, when the British forces investing the town were entirely off their guard, the governor of the citadel suddenly made a treacherous sortie, which was nevertheless unsuccessful, although they captured Sir John Hope, who was wounded. The French losses were 910 to the English 830, a fact which may have been due in part to the reckless firing of the French gunboats on the river.
No. 11. MONT-DE-MARSAN TO BIARRITZ.
Town Plan No. 14.—Bayonne.