horror. D’Andilly broke loose from this prejudice, and, as he says in his preface, “abandoned the illusory praises of profane love to use the charms of poesy in depicting the life of Christ, in order to attract pious hearts by placing before their eyes a picture of the wonderful things wrought for our redemption.”[109]
La Bastide is not the only poet to sing the praises of Our Lady of the Beautiful Branch. M. Bataille, a few years since, received from the Archæological Society of Béarn a silver bough for his charming poetical version of the legend in the Béarnais language, which he hung up over the altar of the Virgin.
The Calvary of Bétharram became dear to all who loved to retrace the overwhelming mysteries of the Redemption. The sorrowful way up the mount’s steep sides seemed to them
“A road where aiding angels came.”
Every station was marked by some memory of God’s special grace. It was in the dim, shadowy oratory of the Garden of Olives a merchant from Grenade-sur-Adour was delivered from the adversary of souls. Further on, where Christ was represented blindfolded, a poor woman recovered her sight after seven years’ blindness. At the Holy
Tomb where lay the sacred Body embalmed
“In spices from the golden shore,”
the sick obtained renewed life and the grace to give out henceforth the sweet odor of piety and good works. And so on. The very shadow of Christ Suffering seemed to have power. Fifteen thousand pilgrims often came here in a year—a great number for a remote mountain chapel, less accessible in former days. Marca relates that M. de Gassion, a zealous Calvinist of Pau, came to Bétharram to behold the superstitions he supposed practised on the mount, but he was so touched by the devotion he witnessed that he was impelled to pray at every station, and thank God he had inspired his ministers with so pious and praiseworthy a project.
The chaplains established a confraternity of the Holy Cross, composed of laymen animated with a special love for our crucified Lord, which became so numerous that Pope Urban VIII. accorded many indulgences to all who belonged to it. Several of its members retired wholly from secular pursuits to the solemn gloom of this Mount of the Passion as to “a holy tower against the world,” that, by self-chastening rod, vigil, and fast, they might subdue the baser instincts of their nature and put on Christ and him crucified. What ineffable nights they must have spent beneath the oaks of Bétharram watching with tearful eyes the Divine Sufferer in the Garden or treading with bleeding feet the rough Way of the Cross!
There were many of these hermits’ cells on the shaggy sides of the mount. First, there was St. Bernard’s cell, built by the Baron de Poyane, a brave soldier who was