Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces

by M. F. Mansfield

Like many of the pardons of Brittany, or the fête of Les Saintes Maries in Provence, the fête of Notre Dame de Sabart commences as a religious function, but degenerates finally into a Fête Profane, with dancing, bull-baiting, and eating and drinking to the full. It is perhaps not a wholly immoral aspect that the fête takes on; certainly the participants do not act in any manner outrageous; but by contrast the thing is bound to be remarked by westerners, and probably misjudged and set down as something worse than it is. Bull-baiting, for instance, sounds bad, but when one learns that it consists only of trying to snatch a ribbon rosette from between the bull’s horns—for a prize of three francs for a blue one, and five francs for a red one, the bull carrying the red rosette being, supposedly, more vicious and savage than the others—the whole thing resolves itself into a simple, harmless amusement, far more dangerous for the amateur rosette picker than the bull, who really seems to enjoy it.

Vic Dessos, just southwest of Tarascon, is a quaint little mountain town, with the ruins of the Château de Montréal and a twelfth-century church as attractions for the traveller. The savage surroundings of Vic, the denuded mountain peaks, and the deep valleys, bring tempests and thunderstorms in their train with astonishing violence and frequency. The clouds roll down like a pall, suddenly, at any time of the year, and as quickly pass away again. The phenomena have been remarked by many travellers in times past, and one need not fear missing it if he stays anything over three hours within a fifty-kilometre radius. If this offers anything of a sensation to one, Vic Dessos should be visited. You can arrive by diligence from Tarascon, and can get comfortably in out of the rain at the excellent Hôtel Benazet.

From Tarascon to Ax-les-Thermes, still in the valley of the Ariège, is twenty-five kilometres of superb roadway. All the way are strung out groups of dainty villages surrounded with cultivated country. Here and there is an isolated mass of rock, a round watch-tower, or a ruined fortress, still possessing its crenelated walls to give an attitude of picturesqueness. There are innumerable little villages, a whole battery of them, linked together. At the end of this long peopled highway is an unpretentious mediæval country house, of that class known as a gentilhommière, of fawn-coloured stone, and still possessing its two flanking sentinel towers preserved in all the romantic grimness of their youth.

At the junction of the Ariège with the Ascou, the Oriège, the Lauze and the Foins is Ax-les-Thermes—the ancient Aquæ of the Romans, and now a “thermal station” of the first rank. Primarily Ax is noted for its sulphurous waters, but for the lover of romantic days and ways its architectural and Historical monuments are of the first consideration. The ruins of the Château des Maures, the ancient Castel Maü, are the chief of these monuments, while a neighbouring peak of rock bears aloft an enormous square tower surmounted by a statue of the Virgin.

There are sixty-one “sources” at Ax-les-Thermes giving a supply of medicinal waters. In part they were known to the Romans, and in 1260 Saint Louis founded a hospital here for sick soldiers returning from the Crusades.

Ax-les-Thermes is not a howlingly popular watering place, but it is far more delightful than Luchon, Cauterets or Bigorre, if quaintness of architecture, manners and customs, and modesty of hotel prices count for anything.

The Porte et Pont d’Espagne at Ax is one of the most interesting architectural reminders of the past that one will find throughout the Pyrenees. The bridge itself is but a diminutive span carrying a narrow roadway, which if not forbidden to automobile traffic should be, for the negotiating of this bridge and road, and the low, arched gateway at the end, will come very near to spelling disaster for any who undertakes it.

Throughout the neighbourhood one sees more than an occasional yawning pit’s mouth. All through the Comté de Foix were exploited, and are yet to some extent, iron mines and forges, the latter known as Forges Catalans. Roger-Bernard, Comte de Foix, in 1293 gave the first charter to the mine-promotors of the neighbourhood, and the industry flourished in many parts of the Comté until within a few generations, when, apparently, the supply of mineral was becoming exhausted.

At Luzenac, on the line between Tarascon and Ax, one turns off the road and in a couple of hours, if he is a good brisk walker, makes the excursion to the château-à-pic of Lourdat. There is a little village of the same name at the base of the rocky peak which holds aloft the château, but that doesn’t count.

Without question this Château de Lourdat ranks as one of the most spectacular of all the Pyrenean châteaux. Its rank in history, too, is quite in keeping with its extraordinary situation, though nothing very startling ever happened within its walls. It dates from the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, and outside that of the capital of Foix was the most efficient stronghold the counts possessed. Louis XIII demolished the edifice, in part, fearing its powers of resistance, and as a base from which some new project might be launched against him. Accordingly, it is a ruin to-day, but in spite of this there are still left four pronounced lines of fortifications before one comes to the inner precincts of the château. For this reason alone it ranks as one of the most strongly defended of all contemporary feudal works. Even the old Cité de Carcassonne has but two encircling walls.