In 1256, the town passed into the possession of the lords of Béarn, and to keep it in due subjection Gaston Phœbus built the castle of Nou-li-bos, i.e., You-do-not-wish-it-there, referring to the opposition of the inhabitants—a name that recalls the famous Quiquengrogne erected by Anne of Bretagne to keep the town of S. Malo in check, and the Bridle built by Louis XII. at the entrance of the harbor of Genoa.
Calvinism, of course, took some root here in the time of Jeanne d’Albret. Theodore Beza sent preachers to win over the people, but the Catholics organized under the Seigneur de Ravignan and for a while kept the Huguenots from any excesses. Montgomery, however, soon swept over the country, sacking all the churches and monasteries, many of which he razed to the ground. Among these was the convent of Bayries, a community of Clarist nuns in the vicinity of Mont-de-Marsan, founded in 1270 by Gaston Phœbus and his wife Amate, which numbered Catherine d’Albret, a cousin of Francis I., among its abbesses. Marie d’Albret, another relative of the king’s, was abbess when the marriage between him and Eleanore of Austria took place here, July 6, 1530. This house of historic interest was stripped of every valuable by the Huguenots, and then burned to the ground, the nuns barely escaping with their lives.
The redoubtable Monluc soon avenged all these sacrileges by taking Mont-de-Marsan, and despatching all who opposed the passage of his troops. The few Huguenot soldiers left, he threw from the windows of the formidable Nou-li-bos, to avenge, as he said, the brother-in-arms, whose officers were treacherously butchered by the Huguenots after the capitulation of Orthez.
This castle of terrible memory has a pleasanter association, for in it passed the early childhood of the poet François Le Poulchre, the king’s knight, and lord of La Motte-Messemé, who boasted of descending from the ancient Roman consul, Appius Pulcher, who displayed such conspicuous valor under the famous Lucullus,
“Un Appius Pulcher, gentilhomme Romain,
Duquel s’est maintenu le nom de main en main
Jusques au temps présent, jusqu’à moi qui le porte.”
He took for his device: Suum cuique pulchrum, in allusion to his name.
As his father was superintendent of the household of Margaret, queen of Navarre, sister of Francis I., François Le Poulchre had the honor of having that king for his godfather, and Margaret for his godmother. The latter conceived such an affection for him that she kept him at her castle at Marsan, and made him eat at her table as soon as he was old enough. He says himself:
“J’eus l’honneur pour parrain d’avoir le roi François,