A Book of the Pyrenees

by S. Baring-Gould

Gaston Phœbus succeeded his father in 1343, and in 1348 married Agnes, daughter of Philip III of Navarre. By her he had one son, Gaston, as beautiful as Phœbus himself, and an amiable youth. Before long the Count and his wife fell out. The quarrel was sordid—it concerned money. Phœbus had imprisoned the Sieur d’Albret. The King of Navarre, Charles the Bad, brother of the Countess, interceded for his liberation, and undertook to guarantee payment of fifty thousand francs for his ransom. Accordingly Gaston released him, and d’Albret paid the money into the hands of the King of Navarre, who pocketed it, and declined to send it to the Count of Foix, under the plea that he was trustee for his sister and reserved it as her dower. The Count resented this upon his wife, whom he called by all the bad names in his copious vocabulary. He had taken a mistress, and he openly favoured her in the face of his wife for her humiliation. By this woman he had three sons. Then he ordered Agnes to visit the Court of Navarre and use her personal influence to obtain the money due. The Countess went, but failed to induce her brother to disburse; and knowing how ungovernable was the temper of her husband, how little he loved her, she shrank from returning to Orthez.

The boy Gaston at the age of fifteen entreated leave to visit his mother at Pampeluna. The lad was distressed at the estrangement, and pined for his mother. Accordingly his father gave him a splendid retinue of gallant youths, and the Bishop of Lescar as his chaplain. Charles the Bad resolved on a diabolical act of treachery. When the boy was leaving he drew him aside, assured him of his distress at seeing the lad’s father alienated in heart from his mother, and gave him a bag of arsenic, which he informed him was a love powder. This he was to strew on his father’s meat, or drop into his cup, when Phœbus’s love for his wife would infallibly revive. But on no account, said Charles, was Gaston to breathe a word of this to any one, and he must be cautious to seize the right moment for the administration of the dose, when unobserved. Gaston, fully believing what his uncle said, hung the bag round his neck under his dress, and returned to Orthez.

Now it happened that Gaston and his half-brother, the bastard Evan, slept in the same room. They were nearly of the same age and size, and dressed alike. Evan did not fail to notice the silk bag and questioned Gaston about it, but was put off with evasive answers.

Three days after Evan and Gaston quarrelled over a game of tennis, and Gaston boxed his half-brother’s ears. Evan ran to his father and told him that Gaston carried in his bosom a mysterious pouch of which he would give no account.

At dinner Phœbus was served by his son, Gaston, and looking hard at him observed the string about his neck. Laying hold of him, he tore open his vest, and discovered the bag of powder. He cut the string, and gave some of the white contents on a piece of meat to a dog, that ate it and died. Then in a paroxysm of rage, knife in hand, he leaped over the table, swearing that he would kill Gaston, who had purposed to poison him. He would have slain him on the spot had not his servants interposed and disarmed him.

The Count then ordered the boy to be thrown into a dungeon. At the same time he had all the attendants of the youth who had been with him in Navarre arrested and tortured, and fifteen of them were forthwith hung. “Which was a pity,” says Froissart, “for there were not in all Gascony such handsome and well-appointed squires.” The Bishop of Lescar had timely warning, and took to his heels.

The Count assembled the Estates of Béarn and laid before them his charge against the boy, and they unanimously decided that the prince must not be executed, but kept in durance for awhile; nor would they separate till they had extorted from Phœbus a solemn undertaking to submit to their decision.

But the poor lad, knowing his innocence, wounded to the quick at the manner in which he had been duped by his uncle, at the blind conviction of his guilt entertained by his father, at the barbarity with which his companions had been racked, and strung up, refused all food. He was confined in a narrow dungeon, badly lighted, and his gaoler at first did not observe that the meals he brought him remained untouched. But on the tenth day—I quote Froissart—

“The person who served him, looking about the cell, saw all the meat unconsumed with which he had been previously supplied. Then, shutting the door, he went to the Count of Foix and said, ‘My lord, for God’s sake, look to your son, he is starving himself in his prison. I do not believe that he has eaten a morsel since his confinement.’ On hearing this the Count was enraged, and without saying a word went to his son’s prison. In an evil hour he had a knife in his hand, with which he had been paring his nails. He held it so close by the blade that of the point scarcely so much as the size of a groat showed.

“Thrusting aside the tapestry that covered the door of the dungeon, through ill luck he struck his son on the jugular vein, as he shouted, ‘Ha, traitor! why dost thou not eat?’ and instantly flung out of the chamber without saying or doing more. The lad was frightened at his father’s violence, and was, moreover, weak through long fasting. The point of the knife, small though it was, had severed the artery, and when he felt what had been done, he turned himself on one side on his pallet and expired.

“The Count had hardly returned to his apartment before his servants came running after him to announce the death of his son. ‘Dead is he? God help me!’ exclaimed the Count. ‘Dead he is, my lord.’ The Count was greatly affected, and said, ‘Ah, ha, Gaston! what a sorry business this has proved for me and thee.’”

This was by no means his only crime. He induced his cousin, Pierre Arnaut de Béarn, governor of the Castle of Lourdes, to visit him, on the plea that he wished to discuss matters with him. Arnaut held Lourdes for the English. Gaston Phœbus desired to acquire this stronghold, which was the key to the Valley of Argelez. He received Arnaut in a friendly manner, and they dined together. For three days he showed him lavish hospitality, and then demanded the surrender of the castle. Arnaut refused. “I hold it for the King of England. It has been confided to my honour,” he replied, “and to no other person will I surrender my trust.” Gaston Phœbus flew into one of his mad fits of rage, rushed upon him, and stabbed him in five places with his dagger. “My Lord,” said the gallant castellan, “this is ungentle treatment, to summon me to your house as a guest, and therein to murder me.” The Count ordered him to be flung into a dungeon, where he died of his wounds.