The square donjon rising in the middle is in the best style of that magnificent royal builder, Gaston Phœbus, and is reminiscent of the works of Foulques Nerra in mid-France. There is also a great ogive-arched portal, or gateway, which made still another defence to be scaled before one finally entered within.
In situation and general spectacular effect the Château de Lourdat takes a very near rank to that rock-perched château at Le Puy—“the most picturesque spot in the world.”
Château de Lourdat
CHAPTER XIII
ST. LIZIER AND THE COUSERANS
LE Pays de Couserans lies in the valley of the Salat, in the mid-Pyrenees, hemmed in by Foix, Comminges and Spain. Its name is derived from the Euskarans, an Iberian tribe who were here on the spot in the dark ages.
The history of the Couserans is not known to anything like the extent of its neighbouring states, and is, accordingly, very little travelled by strangers from afar, save long-bearded antiquarians who come to study St. Lizier, and regret that they were not obliged to come on donkey-back as of old, instead of by rail or automobile. The trouble with antiquarianism, as a profession, or a passion, is that it leads one to fall into a sleepy unprogressiveness which comports little with the modern means at hand for doing things. A photographic plate of a curious Roman inscription is far more truthful and convincing than the most painstaking Ruskinese pencil drawing ever limned, and a good “process-cut” of the broad strokes of some facile modern artist’s brush is more typical of the characteristics of a landscape than the finest wood or steel engraving our grandfathers ever knew.