We are here at the roots of the Maladetta, the accursed mountain, because devoid of vegetation, and near the Cirque of Sabourede. The highest peak of the Maladetta is 10,230 feet, and in its flanks rises the western branch of the Garonne. The melted waters of the glaciers of the peak Aneto falls into a chasm, the Trou de Toro, and it was long supposed that after an underground course the same waters broke forth in the Goueil de Jouéou, which is the true source of the western Garonne. But sufficient colouring matter has been poured into the gulf to dye the water issuing from this spring, without its staining the source any more than the dye poured into the source in the Lourdes grotto discoloured the water a few yards distant, that issues from the taps from which the miraculous fluid is drawn. Where the stream issues that precipitates itself into the Trou de Toro has not yet been discovered. There is no doubt about the source of the eastern Garonne. That rises at the foot of the Port de Béret, in two little springs that go by the name of the Eyes of the Garonne, but which is speedily lost in the turbulent and mightier stream of the Ruda descending from the snows of Sabourede. From Luchon the passage into Spain by the Port de Venasque is to be effected, disclosing views of mountain crest and suspended glacier hardly to be surpassed in Europe. A hospice is planted half-way, where is the custom-house. “It is,” says the Commandant de Oliver-Copóns, “like a great barrack in disorder, a muddle of hotel, pot-house, and workshop. There are stables that can shelter sixty beasts, but hardly a room in which a traveller can lodge comfortably.” However, there is no need to stay the night there; one can push on to Venasque, and make that a centre of excursions to the lakes clustering at the heads of the wild valleys that descend from the Pic d’Eristé, the Pic des Posets and the Maladetta.
CHAPTER XVI
COUSERANS
Cobweb of lines—The Viscounty—S. Lizier—S. Girons—S. Lizier a double town—Two cathedrals—Bishop Bernard—His palace—S. Marie de la Sède—The other cathedral—Bridge and inscription—Ramparts—The training of dancing bears—Bear hunting—Mendicity—Improvidence—Factory of La Moulasse—Job cigarette papers—Vic—Sully tree—Oust—The Nine Springs—Aulus—The Planturel.
The railway lines in the central portion of the Pyrenees converge on Toulouse, and to get across country from west to east is no easy matter. In the Eastern Pyrenees they form a cobweb amidst which the traveller gets entangled and spends a day unprofitably in endeavours to extricate himself, for French railway directors ingeniously contrive to make through travelling by branch lines most difficult, or at least most tedious. To reach S. Girons it is necessary to run northwards from S. Gaudens to Boussens, then change trains and turn the face due south, following up the Salat, past the salt springs of Salies.
We now enter the old viscounty of Couserans, of which the civil capital was Massat, and the ecclesiastical was S. Lizier. It pertained for awhile to the counts of Carcassonne; Roger II gave both the district and the bishopric to his younger son, Bernard, with the title of viscount, in or about 990. But in 1257 Esquivat, Count of Bigorre, inherited the land from Roger, Count of Pallier, and thus the Couserans passed into the possession of the house of Foix-Béarn, and so to the kings of Navarre.
The capital of the whole country in early days was Lugdunum Consoranorum, now S. Lizier, and one of the nine cities of Novempopulania. The Couserans, situated between the basins of the Ariège and the Garonne, has much the shape of a vine-leaf, having the valleys of the Arac, Garbet, Salat, and Lez converging at S. Girons into the one broad stream of the Salat, as the stalk of the leaf. If S. Bertrand de Cominges has fallen from its high estate to be a miserable village, it is not alone in its fall, in that S. Lizier has shared the same fate. But Lugdunum Convenarum went out in one tragic drama of blood and flame. Lugdunum Consoranorum is dying of slow decline, its life-blood sucked out of it by the parasitic growth of S. Girons. Indeed, so low is it fallen that the railway does not afford it a station, only a halte. Once the fifth in order of size and splendour of the cities of Novempopulania, it now shelters within its walls not more than five hundred inhabitants. This was a double town: one portion was the city, the other the ville; and what is more, it possessed two cathedrals—one in the city, Notre Dame; the other, S. Lizier, in the town. As just before death a patient often brightens up, puts on an appearance of renewed life, and enjoys buoyant hopes, only to sink in relapse to death, so was it with this Lyons of the Couserans.
Bishop Bernard de Marmiesse (1653–80), not content with the medieval residence of the prelates, erected an enormous and splendid palace, commanding the whole town with its long façade flanked by semicircular towers, embracing the cathedral of S. Marie de la Sède within its walls. Where the bishops ruled and feasted in purple and fine linen lunatics are now installed. Lazarus has crept into the shell of Dives. The bishopric was suppressed at the Revolution and never restored. There had been on the cathedral staff twelve canons and twenty-four prebendaries, having under them a swarm of sacristans, curés to relieve them of burdensome duties, and workmen.
Ste. Marie de la Sède is a Renaissance church, but built when the spirit of Gothic architecture had not gone out of the land; but the portal is Romanesque. The interior woodwork is of the eighteenth century, and is fine for its period. To the north is the chapter-house, of the twelfth century. The materials of which cathedral and palace were built proceeded from the ruins of the Gallo-Roman city.