Fortunately the librarian takes pity on me, and opens for me. Better yet, he brings me all sorts of charters and old books; he is both very learned and very amiable, explains everything to me, guides, informs and installs me. Here I am then in a corner, alone at a table, with the documents of a fine and thoroughly enjoyable history; it is a pastoral of the middle ages. I have nothing better to do than to tell it over for my own benefit.
Pé de Puyane was a brave man and a skilful sailor, who in his day was Mayor of Bayonne and admiral; but he was harsh with his men, like all who have managed vessels, and would any day rather fell a man than take off his cap. He had long waged war against the seamen of Normandy, and on one occasion he hung seventy of them to his yards, cheek by jowl with some dogs. He hoisted on his galleys red flags signifying death and no quarter, and led to the battle of Ecluse the great Genoese ship Christophle, and managed his hands so well that no Frenchman escaped; for they were all drowned or killed, and the two admirals, Quieret and Bahuchet, having surrendered themselves, Bahuchet had a cord tightened around his neck, while Quieret had his throat cut. That was good management; for the more one kills of his enemies, the less he has of them. For this reason, the people of Bayonne, on his return, entertained him with such a noise, such a clatter of horns, of cornets, of drums and all sorts of instruments, that it would have been impossible on that day to hear even the thunder of God.
It happened that the Basques would no longer pay the tax upon cider, which was brewed at Bayonne for sale in their country. Pe de Puyane said that the merchants of the city should carry them no more, and that, if any one carried them any, he should have his hand cut off. Pierre Cambo, indeed, a poor man, having carted two hogsheads of it by night, was led out upon the market-place, before Notre Dame de Saint-Léon, which was then building, and had his hand amputated, and the veins afterwards stopped with red-hot irons; after that he was driven in a tumbrel throughout the city, which was an excellent example; for the smaller folk should always do the bidding of men in high position.
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Afterwards, Pé de Puyane having assembled the hundred peers in the town-house, showed them that the Basques being traitors, rebels toward the seigniory of Bayonne, should no longer keep the franchises which had been granted them; that the seigniory of Bayonne, possessing the sovereignty of the sea, might with justice impose a tax in all the places to which the sea rose, as if they were in its port, and that accordingly the Basques should henceforth pay for passing to Villefranche, to the bridge of the Nive, the limit of high tide. All cried out that that was but just, and Pé de Puyane declared the toll to the Basques; but they all fell to laughing, saying they were not dogs of sailors like the mayor’s subjects. Then having come in force, they beat the bridgemen, and left three of them for dead.
Pé said nothing, for he was no great talker; but he clinched his teeth, and looked so terribly around him, that none dared ask him what he would do, nor urge him on, nor indeed breathe a word. From the first Saturday in April to the middle of August, several men were beaten, as well Bayonnais as Basques, but still war was not declared, and, when they talked of it to the mayor, he turned his back.
The twenty-fourth day of August, many noblemen among the Basques, and several young people, good leapers and dancers, came to the castle of Miot for the festival of Saint Bartholomew. They feasted and showed off the whole day, and the young people who jumped the pole, with their red sashes and white breeches, appeared adroit and handsome. That night came a man who talked low to the mayor, and he, who ordinarily wore a grave and judicial air, suddenly had eyes as bright as those of a youth who sees the coming of his bride. He went down his staircase with four bounds, led out a band of old sailors who were come one by one, covertly, into the lower hall, and set out by dark night with several of the wardens, having closed the gates of the city for fear that some traitor, such as there are everywhere, should go before them.