A Book of the Pyrenees

by S. Baring-Gould

Montréjeau—A bastide—Grotto de Gargas—A cannibal—Blaise Ferrage—Taken and escapes—Final capture—Execution—S. Bertrand de Cominges—Sertorius—Gundowald—His coronation—Treachery of Boso—And of Mummolus—Murder of Gundowald—Destruction of the city—Bishops at Valcabrères—Church of S. Juste—Bertrand de l’Isle-Jourdain rebuilds the town—Bertrand de Got—Jubilee—The cathedral—Nonresident bishops—Counts of Cominges—Murder of a boy husband—Imprisonment of the Countess Margaret—Bequeaths the county to the Crown of France—The Garonne-Bagnères de Luchon—Its visitors—Its antiquity—Lac de Seculéjo—Description by Inglis—Cures for all disorders—Le Maudit—S. Aventin and the bear—Val de Lys—Val d’Aran—S. Béat and its quarries—The valley should belong to France—Viella—The Maladetta—Trou de Toro—Port de Venasque.

At Montréjeau the line branches off to Bagnères de Luchon from the trunk to Toulouse. Montréjeau was Montroyal, then Montreal, and then what it has now become through deformation by the Gascon tongue. It was a bastide, one of those artificial towns, created first by Edward I, and then copied by great nobles, and by the kings of France, in which every street was either parallel to another, or cut it at right angles; and the houses were built in blocks, the whole surrounded by walls, and the church usually serving as part of the fortification.

Montréjeau was the capital of the Marquesate of Montespan. The site is beautiful; and from the terrace, in clear weather, the giants of the Pyrenees are seen to stand up due south, and the chain stretches away into the vaporous distance, east and west. The church has a huge octagonal tower that served as keep to the fortress. The town stands a little away from the station, to its disadvantage. From it visitors usually start to see the Grotte de Gargas, the finest in the Pyrenees; it might be visited equally well from S. Bertrand de Cominges, but that no carriage can be obtained in that decayed city. The train, moreover, halts at Aventignan, the station next before reaching Montréjeau, to allow of a visit to the grotto. The floor bristles with stalagmites, and the stalactites from the roof have in several places united with the stalagmites below. The strangest forms have been assumed by the calcareous deposits, and the custodian points out an organ front, a cascade, a bear, an altar, and the bed of the savage. A spring rises in the cave. Excavations made in the floor have exposed two beds of palæontological deposits of different epochs: human bones, flint tools, and bones of long extinct animals.

The discovery of this grotto is due to a series of ghastly crimes committed just ten years before the outbreak of the French Revolution.

A panic terror pervaded the neighbourhood. Among the rocks, somewhere, none knew exactly where, a monster had his lair, fell upon those who travelled along the roads, robbed them, maltreated them, carried them off, and devoured them. And this monster was a man. In 1780 the Parliament of Languedoc was called upon to try and sentence the cannibal, who was actuated by no other motive than a ravening appetite for human flesh.

Soon after the first disappearance of his victims every one had come to the conclusion as to who he was. He was Blaise Ferrage, commonly known as Seyé, a native of Ceseau, born in 1757. He was a small man, broad-shouldered, with unusually long arms, and was possessed of extraordinary strength. By trade he was a stonemason, and had worked at his trade till aged twenty-two. What induced him, in 1779, to throw up his work, quit his home and human society, in order to abandon himself in solitude to his wolfish appetite for blood, is not known; whether it was originally due to his having committed some criminal act that impelled him to fly to the rocks for refuge was never ascertained.

High up in a limestone cliff he discovered a cavern, the entrance to which was at that time so small that it had to be passed through on all fours. But within it was spacious, and provided with a running stream.

After he had spent the day in sleep Blaise would descend in the twilight and ramble over the country through fields and gardens, and appropriate to his use what he listed—fruit, fowls, sheep, pigs—and bear them away in the darkness of night to his den. Luck favoured and emboldened him, and his ferocity increased. He delayed his return till dawn. Lurking behind a wall or a bush he watched for milkmaids who were so unfortunate as to come in his way. There was no escaping him, for he carried a gun and was a sure shot. When he pounced upon his prey he tore it to pieces, or else carried it alive to his lair, and the shrieks could be heard from afar, paralyzing the timorous peasantry with fear.

His name was a terror to all the country round. In the evenings the spinners about the fire, the topers at the tavern, spoke only of the werewolf. It was thought that his tread could be heard at night among the withered leaves of autumn; that his panting breath was audible about the doors; that his gleaming eyes pierced the fog. Men pictured him lying on a ledge of rock half the day peering into the valley, motionless, watching for and selecting his prey. Imagination figured what the life must be of this man converted into a wild beast, who had renounced the society of his fellows to live among the rocks and tread the snow-fields, hearing naught save the howl of the wind, the cry of the birds of prey, and the baying of the wolves. As no single person who had disappeared ever returned, as no bodies were ever found, it was concluded that he was a man-eater.

Men he shot, strangled, or stabbed, and dragged their carcases to his lair. But he preferred to fall on women, especially such as were young; but the choicest morsels he selected were little children. On one occasion he fell short of powder and shot, and had the temerity to descend in full daylight, and in market time, to Montégu. He was recognized, and immediately the market people fled from him right and left; the dealers deserted their stalls, and the would-be purchasers hastened to take refuge within doors. He leisurely possessed himself of what he required and sauntered out of the place, not a man venturing to stay him.