CHAPTER XI
LUZ AND CAUTERETS
Springs of Cauterets—La Raillère—Taine on Cauterets—Double clientèle—Pont d’Espagne—Lac de Gaube—Drowning of Mr. and Mrs. Pattison—Avalanches—Ravine to Luz—Val de Barèges—Church of the Templars—Hermitage—Castle of Ste. Marie—S. Sauveur—Imagined accident—Brêche de Roland—Giants of Vizos—Gorge of the Gave—Gèdre—The Héas—Landslip—Cirque de Troumousse—Chaos—Cirque of Gavarnie—Skulls of Templars—Du Molay—Citation before God’s throne—Barèges—Defences against avalanches—Opposition of the peasantry to planting.
From an early period Cauterets enjoyed great repute. By a charter of 945 Raymond I, Count of Bigorre, granted the valley to the abbey of S. Savin, on condition that they built there a church in honour of S. Martin, and that they maintained at the hot springs a hospital for the patients who visited them.
Of these springs there are two groups. The upper, La Raillère, is at some distance from the town, but is reached by electric tram. It takes its name from the avalanches (raillères) that have made their pathway down the mountain side above it, and have left their white and ghastly scars on the rocks, and heaped wreckage below. This is the most abundant group of springs, but the space there is narrow, and lies in a gorge. The thermal establishment has to be maintained on huge walled terraces. There is no hotel there; but those who use the waters for baths or for gargling come and go by the tram. The platform on which the baths of La Raillère are constituted command a view of the deep valley of Lutour, down which descends a stream issuing from a chain of little lakes lying in the lap of the Pic de Mallerouge, 9740 feet, the lowest of which, the Lac d’Estom, discharges its waters by a beautiful cascade, and they further leap down into the basin of Cauterets at its extremity in a white streak. Above the Lac d’Estom in a wild chaotic cirque are the tarns that feed it; one of these retains its coat of ice almost all the year through.
The Lutour joins the Gave de Jerret above La Raillère, and it is up this latter that the way leads to the Pont d’Espagne and the Lac de Gaube, about which more presently. Another Gave, that of Cambasque, unites with the Gave of Pierrefite by the station of the electric tram at Cauterets, and below the town itself.
The Thermes des Œufs, so designated from the smell of rotten eggs, sulphuretted hydrogen, emitted by the waters, is one of the most luxuriously furnished establishments of the kind in Europe. Six springs contribute their water to the baths. Above these is the casino.
“Cauterets,” said Taine, “is a bourg at the bottom of a valley, dismal enough, paved, and furnished with an octroi. Innkeepers, guides, all that ravenous population surround us. We are annexed by touts, children, donkey-drivers, by the first garçons who can hitch on to us. We are handed cards, we receive recommendations to this hotel for its situation, to that for its cuisine. We are attended, cap in hand, by the crowd, elbowing one another out of the way, to the end of the village. ‘This is my traveller,’ shouts one, ‘come near him and I will horsewhip you.’ Every hotel has its herd of touts. Here all are hunters. In winter they hunt the chamois, in summer the tourist.”
Cauterets has been considerably enlarged and improved since the above was written, but the tout is ever with you. Something like ten thousand persons visit Cauterets during the season to drink the waters or to bathe in them. But in fact it has a double clientèle, one of patients and the other of excursionists. The former move like clockwork to the baths and back again, like a long black revolving chain; then to their hotels or lodging-houses, to their meals, to their promenade, to their beds; and throughout the day thus mechanically passed, the tick-tack of their talk, always about their symptoms and their sufferings, their progress or their relapses, is maintained without cessation. But the second class of visitors are such as desire to climb the Vignemale, to ascend to the highest tarns above Estom; at the least to see the Lac de Gaube. These pertain to an order of beings very distinct from the patients. They have no aches and pains. They turn away their noses from the savour of the springs. They are quivering with energy, muscular, and restless. They look upon the patients with undisguised contempt, and the latter scowl at those who enjoy rude health with querulous dissatisfaction. There is yet another category of visitors—the pilgrims to Lourdes; they arrive fagged with their devotions and overstrained emotions, to relax, laugh, and perhaps entertain some incredulity as to the marvels of the Grotto of Massabielle. The market at Cauterets is gay with stalls during the season, that lasts from 1 June to the end of September; every trifle is to be found in them, from gay-coloured Merino shawls, rock-crystals, toys, rosaries, sacred images to picture cards.