There’s nothing difficult about teaching a bear to dance. At least one so judges from watching the process here; but one needs patience, a will, and must not know fear, for even a dancing bear has wicked teeth and claws; and, his strength, if dormant, is dangerous if he once suspects he is master and not slave. Above all the teeth are a great and valuable asset to a dancing bear. A bear who simply struts around and holds his muzzle in air is put in the very rear row of the chorus and called a sal cochon, but one who grins and shows his teeth has possibilities in his profession that the other will never dream of. The bears of the country fairs of France are all descended from the best families of Ustou; and, whatever their lack of grace may be in the dance, certainly “personne est plus amoureux dans la société.”
All through Couserans, particularly along the river valleys, are piquant little villages and smiling peasant folk, ever willing to pass the time of day with the stranger, or discuss the good old days before the railroad came to St. Girons, and when St. Lizier was looked upon as being a possible religious capital of the world.
In the high valleys, above St. Girons, in Bethmale in particular, one finds still a reminiscence of the past in the picturesque costumes of the peasants not yet fallen before the advance of Paris modes. The men wear short red or blue breeches, embroidered with arabesques down the sides, and, on fête-days, a big broad-brimmed hat, and a vest of embroidered velours, with great turned-up sabots, something like those of the Ariège.
The women have a sort of red bonnet coiffe, held tight around the head by a kind of diadem of ribbon, and a great white-winged cap tumbling to the shoulders. The skirt is short with very many pleats, and there is also the traditional sabot. This is the best description the author, a mere man, can give.
High up in this same valley is the little village of Biert, once the civil capital of the region, as was St. Lizier the religious capital. To-day there are between three and four thousand people here. Just above is the Col de Port, 1,249 metres high, leading into the watershed of the Ariège and the Comté de Foix.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PAYS DE COMMINGES
ON the first steep slope of the Pyrenees, bounded on one side by Couserans and on the other by Bigorre, is the ancient Comté de Comminges, the territory of the Convènes, whose capital was Lugdunum Convenarum, established by Pompey from the remains left by the legions of Sertorius. Under the Roman emperors the capital became an opulent city, but to-day, known as St. Bertrand de Comminges, but seven hundred people think enough of it to call it home.
It possesses a historic and picturesque site unequalled in the region, but Luchon, Montrejeau and St. Gaudens have grown at the expense of the smaller town, and its grand old cathedral church and ancient ramparts are little desecrated by alien strangers.
The view of Comminges from a distance is uncommon and startling. One may see across a valley the outline of every rock and tree and housetop of the little town clustered about the knees of the swart, sturdy church of St. Bertrand of Comminges, one of the architectural glories of the mediæval builder. The mountains rise roundly all about and give a rough frame to an exquisite picture.
What the precise date of the foundation of Comminges may be no one seems to know, though St. Jerome has said that it was a city built first by the montagnards in 79 B.C. This sacred chronicler called the founders “brigands,” but authorities agree that he meant merely mountain dwellers.