And what guarantee have we that these cures have been permanent? A man with a rheumatic leg prays at the cave, dips in the dirty pool, feels that he can walk, and hangs up his crutches. Next day he is as much crippled as before, but he has not the courage to go back to the grotto and resume his crutch; he orders another from Paris.
But that some of the cures are permanent need not be doubted. The effect of imagination on the body is immense. Every nervous person can make himself ill by imagining himself to be ill; and a good many can get well by persuading themselves that they are convalescent. There was much truth in Mrs. Chick’s saying that Mrs. Dombey died because “dear Fanny wouldn’t make an effort.”
CHAPTER X
THE LAVEDAN
Pic de Gers—Argelez—Vieuzac—The Balandrau—Intermittent spring—Cave of Ouzous—Devantaïgue—Beaucens—Val d’Azun—Fortresses—Arras—Aucun—Lake—Arreins—Puy-al-Hun—Commissioners scared from it—Garrison frightened away—Queen Hortense—A miscalculation—Saint Savin—The Voisins—Palatium Æmilianum—Church—Paintings—S. Orens—Disorderly monks—Pierrefite—Ravine—Peasantry.
A funicular railway takes a visitor to the top of the Pic de Gers, whence he can obtain a fine comprehensive panorama of the mountains. A cross surmounts the peak that is illuminated at night.
On quitting Lourdes to ascend the Valley of Argelez the mountain sides are seen to be bare, having been denuded of their trees by the ruthless axe of the peasant. Presently the train passes a mound on which stands a solitary tower called after the Black Prince, who is held to have ordered its construction to watch the upper portion of the valley. Then the basin of Argelez opens up, with villages and culture, vines, chestnuts, walnuts, running high up the sides of the mountains, mainly on the right bank of the Gave, and maize in the plain standing up as high as a man, or in the season sheets of forget-me-not-blue waving flax, alternating with crimson stretches of the Trifolium incarnatum. On the rubbly slopes the glistening box flourishes luxuriantly. Argelez is a delightful resort in spring and summer. It has its bathing establishment, to which the waters of Gazost are led, its casino, and a park in which the bamboos grow rank, and the acacias in spring flower and scent the air. Avenues, bordered by hotels, link the Argelez of the tourist and those who go there for what the Germans call “Sommerfrische” with the old Argelez. Among the villas is the château of Vieusac, from which that scoundrel Barrère took a title, that he dropped in the Reign of Terror, and reassumed as soon as he was safe under Louis Philippe, when he represented Argelez in the Conseil Général.
This place was formerly a Romano-Gaulish settlement; in a field near the town a considerable number of cinerary urns have been dug up. A mile below Argelez is the Balandrau, a huge block of stone balanced at the edge of a crag, held from falling by a small stone of different nature, that retains it in position, and looking as though all it needed was a touch to send it hurtling down upon the roof of a farmhouse planted beneath. A Mass is said annually in the church of Argelez to invoke Divine intervention against such a catastrophe. The Balandrau has been supposed to be a megalithic monument of the dolmen builders, but it is natural, a relic of the Ice Age in the valley when it was choked with glaciers. Farther down a stream flows into the Gave. Here, at Ouzous, is an intermittent spring that turns a mill, when it pleases it to flow. Before it bursts forth it is said to growl and grumble. Here also, in the face of the limestone cliff, is a cave that served as a church during the Reign of Terror, when priests were hunted down like wolves; and here the peasants assembled to hear Mass. Fifty years ago the rude stone altar, made like that of Gilgal, was standing; I have not been to the grotto since.
Facing Argelez, the right bank of the Gave to the crest of the mountains, from Préchac to the mouth of the Valley of Isaby constitutes one of the seven valleys of the ancient confederation of the Lavedan. It is not a valley at all, any more than is that of S. Savin, which formed another, both being mountain slopes, one on the right, the other on the left bank of the Gave. This was the Devantaïgue, which means literally, “in face of the waters,” and comprised five communes. In it is the Castle of Beaucens, the former residence of the counts of Lavedan, before it passed into the hands of the King of Navarre. It is an imposing ruin, with the little village clustered about the feet of the rock on which it stands. Tradition is, as we were informed by the peasants, that up to the Revolution a terrible toll was exacted of this little commune; it was bound annually to supply a girl to become a prostitute in Paris.