ST. JEAN DE LUZ.
“Il s’imagine voir, avec Louis le Grand,
Philip Quatre qui s’avance
Dans l’Ile de la Conférence.”
—La Fontaine.
Few towns are set in so lovely a frame as St. Jean de Luz, with its incomparable variety of sea, mountain, river, and plain. In front is the dark blue bay opening into the boundless sea. On the north are the cliffs of Sainte Barbe. At the south are the Gothic donjon and massive jetty of Socoa, behind which rises gradually a chain of mountains, one above the other, from wooded or vine-covered hills, dotted here and there with the red-and-white houses of the Basque peasantry and the summer residences of the wealthy merchants of St. Jean de Luz, till we come to the outer ramparts of La Rhune with its granite cliffs and sharp peaks, the Trois Couronnes with their jagged outline, and still farther on a long, blue line of mountains fading away into the azure sea. It is from La Rhune you can best take in all the features of the country. To go to it you use one of the modest barks that have replaced the sumptuous galleys of Louis Quatorze, and ascend to Ascain, a pretty hamlet, from which the summit of La Rhune is reached in two hours. It is not one of the highest in the Pyrenean chain, being only three thousand feet above the sea, but it is an isolated peak, and affords a diversified view of vast extent. To the north are the green valleys of Labourd, with the steeples of thirty parishes around; Bayonne, with the towers of its noble cathedral; and the vast pine forests of the mysterious Landes. To the west is the coast of Spain washed by the ocean. East and south are the mountains of Béarn and Navarre, showing peak after peak, like a sea suddenly petrified in a storm.
Such is the magnificent frame in which is set the historic town of St. Jean de Luz. It is built on a tongue of land washed by the encroaching sea on one hand and the river Nivelle on the other. The situation is picturesque, the sky brilliant, the climate mild. It seems to need nothing to make it attractive. The very aspect of decay lends it an additional charm which renewed prosperity would destroy. The houses run in long lines parallel with the two shores, looking, when the tide is high, like so many ships at anchor. At the sight of this floating town we are not surprised at its past commercial importance, or that its inhabitants are navigators par excellence. Its sailors were the first to explore the unknown seas of the west, and to fish for the cod and whale among the icebergs of the arctic zone. In the first half of the XVIIth century thirty ships, each manned by thirty-five or forty sailors, left St. Jean de Luz for the cod-fisheries of Newfoundland, and as many for Spitzbergen in search of whales. The oaks of La Rhune were cut down for vessels. The town was wealthy and full of activity. Those were the best days of ancient Lohitzun. But though once so renowned for its fleets, it has fallen from the rank it then occupied. Ruined by wars, and greatly depopulated by the current of events, its houses have decayed one after another, or totally disappeared before the encroachments of the sea. Reduced to a few quiet streets, it is the mere shadow of what it once was. Instead of hundreds of vessels, only a fishing-smack or two enliven its harbor. And yet there is a certain air of grandeur about the place which bespeaks its past importance, and several houses which harmonize with its historic memories. For St. Jean de Luz was not only a place of commercial importance, but was visited by several of the kings of France, and is associated with some of the most important events of their reigns. Louis XI. came here when mediating between the kings of Aragon and Castile. The château of Urtubi, which he occupied, is some distance beyond. Its fine park, watered by a beautiful stream, and the picturesque environs, make it an attractive residence quite worthy of royalty. The ivy-covered wall on the north side is a part of the old manor-house of the XIIth century; the remainder is of the XVIIth. The two towers have a feudal aspect, but are totally innocent of feudal domination; for the Basque lords, even of the middle ages, never had any other public power than was temporarily conferred on them by their national assemblies.
It was at St. Jean de Luz that Francis I., enthusiastically welcomed by the people after his deliverance from captivity in Spain, joyfully exclaimed: “Je suis encore roi de France—I am still King of France!” It likewise witnessed the exchange of the beautiful Elizabeth of France and Anne of Austria—one given in marriage to Louis XIII. and the other to Philip of Spain amid the acclamations of the people.
Cardinal Mazarin also visited St. Jean de Luz in 1659 to confer with the astute Don Luis de Haro, prime minister of Philip IV., about the interests of France and Spain. The house he inhabited beside the sea still has his cipher on the walls, as it has also the old Gobelin tapestry with which his apartments were hung. He was accompanied by one hundred and fifty gentlemen, some of whom were the greatest lords in France. With them were as many attendants, a guard of one hundred horsemen and three hundred foot-soldiers, twenty-four mules covered with rich housings, seven carriages for his personal use, and several horses to ride. He remained here four months. His interviews with the Spanish minister took place on the little island in the Bidassoa known ever since as the Isle of Conference, which was never heard of till the treaty of the Pyrenees. All national interviews and exchanges of princesses had previously taken place in the middle of the river by means of gabares, or a bridge of boats.