It has often been stated that bayonets get their name from Bayonne, but this is denied by Colonel Hill James, who states that they were first used at Baïonnette, a few miles from St. Jean de Luz, in a sixteenth-century battle between the Basques and the Spaniards. Having come to the end of their ammunition, the Basques tied their knives to the muzzles of their guns, and the efficiency of the weapons thus produced soon caused them to be generally adopted.
There is a good view of the fortifications of Bayonne as one goes on to Biarritz, a short run of seven kilometres to the south.
BIARRITZ
When Queen Victoria ascended the throne Biarritz was a very small fishing village, and in 1856 its population was only about 2,500. It has now risen to from 25,000 to 30,000, and every year the visitors reach the huge figure of over one and a half millions.
In 1855, when the Empress Eugénie built a villa where the huge red-and-white pile of the Hôtel du Palais now stands, and began to make Biarritz popular, a favourite means of reaching the place was that called the cacolet. Two people rode in baskets or panniers slung on either side of a mule led by a Basque girl, as shown in the illustration reproduced on page 189.
Perhaps the reasons that have made Biarritz popular are, firstly, that it is neither too big nor too small; secondly, that it has very beautiful mountain scenery at its very doors; thirdly, that it is King Edward VII.’s favourite seaside resort; fourthly, that the coast is one of exceptional beauty; and, lastly, because the hotels are very reasonable in their prices in winter and spring.
To those for whom the sea has charms there is an extraordinary appeal in the huge Atlantic waves that seem for ever to break on the rocky coast,
‘Champing and whirling white foam about their green flanks,
And tossing on high their manes of sunlit rainbow-gold,
Dazzling white and multitudinous,
Far as sight can reach.’[F]
And at sunset, when the mountains respond to the western glories, and a trackway of burnished gold goes across the heaving waters to a fiery red disc that hangs above the horizon, there is such a charm about the place that the very thought of leaving is distressing.
The central portion of the town is built on a flat-topped promontory with deeply indented margins, fringed with isolated masses of rock, some of which have been joined with sea-walls to make small harbours for the fishing-boats. At the extreme point is the unfinished harbour of refuge begun by Napoleon III. and partially demolished by the