THE foundation of Bayonne is lost in the obscurity of ages, but it was the capital of the Basque country.
Three distinct quartiers are formed by the flowing waters of the Nive and the Adour, communication being by a series of exceedingly picturesque, if not exactly serviceable, bridges. The bridges of Bayonne are famous in the eyes of artists, and lovers of damp, moss-grown and weathered masonry, but an engineer of this age of steel would consider them inefficient abominations, and not at all suited to a great port and sous-préfecture such as Bayonne.
One of the finest works of Vauban, the fortress builder, was the defences of Bayonne. The walls and ramparts were exceedingly efficacious in times past (though to-day they look flimsy enough), and crowning all, was a superb fortress at the juncture of the two rivers which come together here, flowing from the fastnesses of the Pyrenees to the sea.
The Allées Marines at Bayonne, a sort of tree-covered jetty-promenade, are a unique feature in civic embellishment. The water-gate at Bordeaux is fine, and so is the Thames Embankment in London, and the Battery in New York, but those Allées at Bayonne lead them all.
The Adour, coursing its way to the sea down through Bayonne, was fickle enough one day to leave its bed, and force an outlet three leagues or more away, threatening disaster to Bayonne’s port. The citizens rose in might and took counsel, and decided that something must be done or they would die of sheer ennui, if not of poverty. There came to the rescue one Louis de Foix, the same who had been the architect of Spain’s Escurial, and in 1579 he harnessed the water’s flow and returned it to its ancient bed.