INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF SAINT JOHN AT SAINT JEAN-DE-LUZ
By permission of Messrs. Neurdein
The marriage of Louis and the Spanish princess was celebrated in this church of St. Jean, to which the bride advanced over a raised platform from yonder palace of the Queen-mother, Anne of Austria. Robed in white with a mantle of violet-coloured velvet, she is described as undersized, but well made, of fair complexion, and having blue eyes of charming expression; her hair was a light auburn. If she had been taller and had had better teeth, she would have been one of the most beautiful women in Europe.
Louis at that period was at his best, and is described as a head taller than either of his ministers.
Of the celebrated Island of Pheasants, where the Treaty of the Pyrenees and the contracts for this marriage were signed, there is little left. We passed it later on our ride to San Sebastian, turning off to Fontarabia for the purpose. Here, in a room half in France and half in Spain, French in its decorations in one half, Spanish in those of the other half, the Kings of Spain and France met, each advancing from doors exactly the same distance from two arm-chairs, two tables, and two inkstands—one of each in France and one of each in Spain. Neither monarch left his own kingdom but they embraced each other at the border line. We do not enter the Kingdom of Spain here but at Irun where we spend quite half an hour getting the auto and ourselves admitted. We must pay a toll of three francs and also deposit seven francs for the auto with the customs, but this is returned when we come back. Irun is a spot where the millions who have passed this way have paused in their progress to and fro. From the stately caravans down to these automobiles what a procession it has been.
How instantly the type of the people changes as we cross the border! What superb-looking women gaze at one over the line of this frontier! How deep and magnificent are their great black eyes! Yonder is a Spanish blonde with golden hair and brown eyes; what a subject for a painter, in that picturesque dress and framed by that window, draped in wisteria in full bloom!
The little soldier guarding here is funny to look at,—one cannot imagine his meeting fire and ball. Were our late opponents such boys? If so, we committed rank murder. His features are regular and he has fine eyes, but he certainly does not weigh one hundred and twenty pounds and is not five feet tall. However, his conceit is colossal, and he struts up and down with all the dignity of a Don Carlos, paying no attention to me until I happen to dismount near him and he gasps at my six feet and over. After a little, he attempts conversation, and asks if I am English. "No." And I hesitate to add "American," and when I do his eyes look doubtfully into mine until I smile and offer him my hand, which he smilingly accepts, and two francs seal our acquaintance; rather cheaper that than the unnecessary twenty million dollars we paid his country for a possession very doubtful in profit to us, some think, but——. We are off over the road into Spain and at once note the difference in its quality, bumpy and dusty and dirty, all the way, and I think on the whole that the people would rather like a break-down on our part. However, we roll into the modern town of San Sebastian and after a pause of some time turn back to France.
San Sebastian has no interest for the traveller unless there is a bull fight on at its fine amphitheatre, but there is none now and this is not the season here, so we coast back to the protection of the French republic, pausing an instant at the frontier to receive the seven francs.
The little soldier then shows me a wife and baby which he knows is more than I can do. So he smiles at me in happy content and would not think of changing places—that is if he had to leave wife and baby. At all events there is no envy in his glance as my red car speeds off towards France.