Leaving Lectoure, the railway keeps along the valley of the Gers, a branch of the Garonne several shades yellower than the Tiber. The sides of the road are covered with genêt, or broom, loaded with yellow blossoms—the emblem of the Plantagenets, to whom this part of France was once subject. It is not long before we come to Mount St. Cricq at the left, where, in the IVth century, the glorious S. Oren, the apostle of the country, demolished a temple of Apollo-Belen, and set up an altar to the only true and uncreated Light under the invocation of S. Quiricus (S. Cyr) and S. Julitta. The church is now gone. A windmill stands near its site, the only prominent object on the hill, which is as bald and parched as if Apollo had claimed it for his own again.
Auch now comes in sight, built on a height, and crowned with the towers of its noble cathedral. The sides of the hill are covered with houses, whose arched galleries are open to the sun and pure mountain air, and gay with vines and flowers. The terraces before them look like hanging gardens, which give a charming freshness to the picturesque old city. The Gers flows along at the foot of the hill as quietly as when Fortunatus sang of its sluggishness centuries ago. We cross it, and gain access to the city by one of the long, narrow, steep, sunless staircases of stone, called pousterles, which remind us of Naples and Perugia. The place, in fact, is quite Italian in its whole aspect. As we ascend one of these flights we see, away up at the top, a large iron cross with all the emblems of the Passion in the centre of the landing-place, and we feel as if we were ascending some Calvaire. There is a broad modern staircase, much more grand and elegant, but not so interesting, dignified by the imposing term of escalier monumental, which takes one up a more gradual and less weary way of two hundred and thirty-two steps—something rather formidable, however, for the fat and scant o’ breath!
These old cities, built on heights for greater security, were powerful holds in the Middle Ages, and all have their history. Their towers are all scarred over with fearful tragedies, relieved here and there by some flower of sweet romance or saintly legend.
Auch was in ancient times called Climberris, the stronghold of the Ausci, who dwelt here before the Roman conquest—descendants of the Iberians from the Caucasian regions, who left their country and settled in Spain and this side of the Pyrenees. The chief city of the most civilized people of the country, a Roman settlement under the Cæsars, the most important place in Novempopulania, the capital of the Counts of Fezensac and Armagnac in the Middle Ages, and a wealthy influential see, whose archbishops took part in all the great movements of the day, Auch was from early times a place of no small importance, however insignificant now.
When Cæsar’s lieutenant, Publius Crassus, took possession of the country, he established a Roman colony on the banks of the Algersius, and the Ausci, descending from their heights, it became so flourishing that it received the imperial name of Augusta Auscorum, and was one of the few cities of the land to which the Roman emperors accorded the Latin right—that is, the power of governing itself. In the year 211, Caracalla allowed it the privilege of having a forum, gymnasium, theatre, baths, etc., and it became the seat of a senate, the head of which was a Roman officer called comes. Roman domination was at first submitted to reluctantly, but it proved an advantage to the city. Literature and the arts were cultivated with success, the people enriched by new sources of industry, sumptuous villas were built in the environs, and roads opened to Toulouse and various parts of Novempopulania. The pre-eminence of the schools here is evident from the poet Ausonius, tutor of the Emperor Gratian, who spent part of his youth at Auch, pursuing his studies under Staphylius and Arborius, both of whom he eulogizes for their learning. Arborius, the brother of Ausonius’ mother, was the son of an astrologer, from a distant part of Gaul, who married a lady of rank in this country and settled here. He taught rhetoric, not only at Auch, but at Toulouse, where he became the confidential friend of Constantine’s brothers, then in a kind of exile. This led to his fortune. The emperor afterward called him to Constantinople, where he was loaded with riches and honors.
Ausonius’ friend, Eutropius, a celebrated Latin author who held offices under Julian the Apostate, had a seat in the vicinity of Auch.
The women, too, of this country were inspired with a taste for mental cultivation, as is shown by Sylvia, sister of the illustrious Rufinus of Elusa, one of the best-versed women of her day in Greek literature, and who rivalled the noble Roman matrons of the time of S. Jerome in her knowledge of sacred science. Sylvia died at Brescia, where her name is still honored, while her native land has nearly forgotten her memory.
The prosperity of Auch was put an end to in the Vth century by the invasion of the Goths and Vandals, and the city was only saved from destruction by the mediation of S. Oren, its bishop. In the VIIIth century the country was overrun by the Moors, who destroyed the whole city, with the exception of a faubourg still known, after more than a thousand years, as the Place de la Maure.
Two centuries after, the Counts of Armagnac built a castle on the summit of the hill where stood the ancient Climberris, and gathered their vassals around them. Here they held a brilliant court which attracted gallant knights and the gayest troubadours of the south. We read that one of the counts, whose stout heart yielded for a time to the softening influences of the poetic muse, went to Toulouse to breathe out his tender lays at the feet of a certain fair lady, Lombarda, but prudence getting the better of his gallantry, he abruptly brought them to an end, and hurried back to the defence of his castle, suddenly besieged by the enemy.
It was also in the Xth century Auch became a metropolitan see, which was so generously endowed by the barons of the country that it became one of the wealthiest and most powerful in the kingdom. Its archbishops were to the great lords of the province what the popes then were to the sovereigns of Europe. They were the lords spiritual, not only of Novempopulania, but the two Navarres. Kings of England wrote them to secure their influence, which was so great that there was a rivalry among the leading families desirous of securing the see for their children. When the Counts of Armagnac transferred their capital to Lectoure, the archbishops became sole lords of the city, and in them centred its history from that time. They bore the proudest names in the land, and maintained all the state to which their birth and the importance of their office entitled them. We read that when they came to take possession of their see, the Baron de Montaut, at the head of all the neighboring gentry, met them at the entrance to the city, and with bared head and knee took the archbishop’s mule by the bridle and led him to the castle. This was in accordance with the customs of feudal times, when vassals offered homage to their liege lords by bending the bared knee to the ground, an extension, we suppose, of the Oriental practice of baring the feet. We learn from Andres de Poça, in his work, De la Antigua Lenga y Comarcas de las Españas, that the lords of Biscay took their oaths of fealty in the sanctuary in this way—a custom derived, perhaps, from the ancient Cantabrians, who, as Strabo tells us, went to battle with one foot shod and the other bare, reminding one of the touching nursery rhyme of “My son John,” or the French ditty which is more to the point: