CHÂTEAU OF BIDACHE
From a photograph
One of the most adventurous of the lords of Bidache would appear to have been Arnaud Guilhem II. de Gramont (1275). In wars with England, Navarre, and Spain, he sustained two sieges in the Château which was taken and burned. Then followed exile and departure for the Crusades, and a return at sixty-nine years of age. His tomb in the church of Villeneuve la Montarie was opened in 1860, when his long sword, casque, and spurs of gold were found in good condition after a lapse of five hundred and eighty-five years. He was but one of the many who made Bidache the theatre of their lives.
The Château was reconstructed in 1530, upon what scale and in what fashion you may see to-day even in its ruins.
In 1610, Louise Comtesse de Gramont, for an "intrigue galante", was tried by her husband's order before the parliament of Bidache, convicted, and executed. The endeavours of her father to save her, even by the aid of the King of France, were without avail, though the Count was later forced to grant her sepulchre in the tombs of his ancestors where she was interred with much state and ceremony. On this condition he was guaranteed relief from all attempts at revenge by the blood kin of the unfortunate lady.
Mazarin was entertained here in great state when he returned from negotiating the treaty of the Pyrenees; then the Château and all the country round about was en fête for days and Bidache was in the heyday of its popularity.
Years of silence settled after that upon the Castle, during which in the days of the great Louis this terrace, where I sit writing these notes, was constructed. Whatever sorrow this Louis XIV. brought upon France, the land certainly owes much of its beauty of architecture, which still abides, to him. Not alone in the Royal palaces but in or around almost every château of the land, one is sure to find something beautiful of his day. This terrace redoubles the charm and stateliness of Bidache, and when mortals lived within these walls it must have been a continual joy; it is so to-day to all who come this way.
Most of the improvements in the private châteaux were accomplished while the owners thereof suffered banishment from the court. Such was the case here with the lord of Bidache during the reign of Louis XIV. As usual another affair of love. To the terrace he added orangeries, fountains, and vast stables,—the latter still exist,—and Bidache reached the acme of its splendour in his day. Its library, placed on the ground floor of the great tower, was lighted from above by a dome more than thirty feet in diameter; below was a magnificent gallery of paintings (all destroyed in the final conflagration save those which had been taken to Paris) while the ground floor of the castle formed a vast armory, full of ancient and modern weapons.
In the Revolution, the Château was not greatly disturbed and certainly was not destroyed in that convulsion. It remained for a dishonest agent to commence this work during the period of the emigration and for a great conflagration on a night of 1796 to reduce the immense structure in ten hours to the state in which we find it to-day. However, no fire or storm can entirely destroy Bidache and as I wander through its superb court of honour and gaze upon its mighty towers and walls there is enough left, bowered as it is in curtains of ivy and many flowers, to impress itself upon the memory for many a day, to be remembered always as a thing of beauty, even after its death.
Turning reluctantly away, I bid the custodian farewell; she tells me she is very old and will not be here if I return, "save yonder where Monsieur can see the crosses on the hillside." I depart under her benediction, and, while Jean is at work and the auto beginning to breathe, I turn curiously to the present dwelling of the Duke of Gramont.