It was the independence and royal pretensions of such great vassals that determined the kings of France to destroy their power. Under the sons of Philip le Bel began the great struggle between the crown and the feudal aristocracy. In order to incorporate their provinces with the royal domains, they availed themselves of every pretext to crush them, and such pretexts were by no means wanting in the case of the Armagnacs, where they could claim the necessity of protecting the eternal laws on which are based all family and social rights and the principles of true religion. History is full of the cruelty of the last counts, and forgets all it could offer by way of contrast. It forgets to speak of Count John III., who put an end to the brigandage of the great bands in southern France, and went to find a premature death under the walls of Alessandria, in an expedition too chivalrous not to be glorious. It insists on the brutal ferocity and excessive ambition of Bernard VII., the great constable, and passes over all that could palliate his offences in so rude an age—his fine qualities, his zeal for the maintenance of legitimate authority, and his interest in the welfare of the Church. It lays bare the criminal passion of Count John V., and forgets his repentance and reparation, as well as the holy austerities of Isabella in the obscure cell of a Spanish monastery, where she effaced the scandal she had given the world.
Count John was the last real lord of Armagnac. He filled up the cup of wrath, and his humiliations and frightful death, the long, unjust captivity of his brother Charles, the scaffold on which perished Jacques de Nemours, and the abjection into which his children were plunged, are fearful examples of divine retribution.
The spoils of the counts of Armagnac were given as a dowry to Margaret of Valois when she married Henry II. of Navarre, who, as well as her first husband, the Duc d’Alençon, descended from the Armagnacs. Henry and Margaret made their solemn entry into Auch in 1527, and the latter, as Countess of Armagnac, took her seat as honorary canon in the cathedral. Her arms are still over the first stall at the left, beneath the lion rampant of the Armagnacs—a stall assigned those lords as lay canons, in the time of Bernard III., who was the first to pay homage to S. Mary of Auch.
Margaret’s grandson, Henry IV., united the title of Armagnac to the crown of France, and Louis XIV., on his way from St. Jean-de-Luz, where he was married to Maria Theresa, the Infanta of Spain, passed through Auch, and, attending divine service in the cathedral, took his seat in the choir as Count of Armagnac.
Napoleon III. accepted the title of honorary canon of this church.
The cathedral at Auch is remarkable for the stained glass windows of the time of the Renaissance, which Catherine de Medicis wished to carry off to Paris, and the one hundred and thirteen stalls of the choir, the wonderful carvings of which rival those of Amiens. Napoleon I., on his return from Spain, admired and coveted these beautiful stalls, and wished to remove the old rood-loft which concealed them from the public. He endowed the church with an annual sum, and expressed his regret so fair a Sposa should be bereaved of its lord—the hierarchy not being fully restored in France at that time.
The canons of the cathedral were formerly required to be nobilis sanguine vel litteris—noble of birth or distinguished in letters. That they keep up to their standard in learning seems evident from the reputation of one of their number, the savant Abbé Canéto, one of the most distinguished archæologists of the country, whose works are indispensable to the visitor to Auch and the surrounding places.
It is quite impressive to see these venerable canons seated in their carved stalls, worthy of princes, singing the divine Office. Their capes, we noticed, are trimmed with ermine, probably a mark of their dignity. To wear furs of any kind was in the Middle Ages an indication of rank, or, at least, wealth. The English Parliament made a statute in 1334 forbidding all persons wearing furs that had not an income of one hundred pounds a year.
In this church is the altar of Notre Dame d’Auch, the oldest shrine of the Virgin in the province, first set up at ancient Elusa by S. Saturninus, the Apostle of Toulouse, and brought here by S. Taurin in the IVth century, when that place was destroyed by the barbarians.