Armendarits, Iholdy’s twin community, saw the birth of Renaud d’Elissagory, who built what was practically the first gunboat. The birthplace of “Petit Renaud,” as he was, and is still, affectionately called, the inventor of galiotes à bombes, is still inhabited and reckoned as one of the sights of these parts.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE BIRTH OF FRENCH NAVARRE
BASSE-NAVARRE or Navarre-Française, together with Béarn, made, under the Emperor Hadrian, a part of Aquitaine.
The Roman conquest of Gaul was the first impetus given towards a coherent massing of the peoples. Formerly there had been many tribes and races, but the three divisions made by the Romans reduced things to a minimum. Cisalpine Gaul was that part where the inhabitants wore a sort of adaptation of the Roman toga. In Trans-Alpine Gaul, situated in the Rhône basin and along the Mediterranean between Italy and Spain, the inhabitants wore braies or bragues—a sort of jacket extending down almost to the knees, a detail of dress which has evolved itself into the blouse, and perhaps even the great cloak of the mountaineers of the Pyrenees. The remainder of ancient Gaul was known as the country where the natives wore their long hair hanging,—literally the Gaule chevelue.