On the sides of the plateau that overlooks Valentine a young shepherd, named Gaudentius, led his flocks to pasture in the latter part of the fifth century. His mother, a holy woman of the name of Quitterie, had brought him up in the practice of the most fervent piety. The country at that time was in possession of the Visigoths. Euric had succeeded to the throne by slaying his brother, Theodoric II. He was a man of great military genius, who extended his conquests in Gaul from the Loire beyond the Rhone, and carried war beyond the Pyrenees with so much success that he conquered most of the Peninsula. Toulouse was thus made the capital of an immense empire that extended from Provence to Andalusia. Euric was a fanatical Arian, and, attributing his success to his fidelity to his principles, he began a violent persecution of the Catholics, though they constituted a large part of his subjects. Executioners were frequently his missionaries, and one of these summarily opened heaven to the young shepherd Gaudentius, who, refusing to apostatize, gave a last look at his mother, who encouraged him, and submitted to martyrdom. His remains were carefully transported to the place of his residence, and, after the downfall of the Visigoths, an oratory was erected over his grave.
Such miracles were now wrought through the instrumentality of St. Gaudens that his fame extended all through the country, people came to live around his tomb, and a village soon sprang up that took his name. More than a thousand years passed away without diminishing the affluence at St. Gaudens’ tomb, but in the sixteenth century the town was taken by Montgomery the Huguenot, the church stripped of its ornaments and greatly injured, the statues broken, the tombs desecrated, and most of St. Gaudens’ relics thrown into the flames. But that was a way of reforming the Huguenots had.
“N’est ce pas réformer, quand on trouve une église
Trop riche, lui ravir ses trésors anciens?”
says the old Plainte de la Guienne of 1577 with a bitterness that is quite natural. The bullet-holes made in the church are still pointed out. This is a noteworthy building of the Romanesque style, with round arches, clustered columns, and carved capitals. Each aisle ends in a chapel, and a choir is at the apsis. Over the altar is a statue of the Virgin that, before the Revolution, belonged to the neighboring abbey of Bonnefont, now completely destroyed. This statue is the production of Pierre Lucas, the founder of the academy of art at Toulouse. A priory was formerly attached to the church of St. Gaudens, dependent on the abbey of St. Sernin at Toulouse, but it has been totally destroyed. The old cloister of Pyrenean marble, built by Bernard I., Bishop of Comminges, and of the race of its counts, has also been destroyed. Of the tombs that once lined the arcades, only one here and there is left, with its touching mediæval inscription, and perchance some consoling emblem of religion, such as a cluster of grapes on a vine branch, recalling the Saviour’s words, “I am the vine and ye are the branches”; the monogram of Christ; the Alpha and Omega, etc.—symbols of hope graven on the cold marble tomb. And there is an ancient portal over which used to hang the horseshoes of Abderahman’s steed, which, according to tradition, plunged and reared when his master attempted to pillage the shrine of St. Gaudens, and thus lost its shoes. The horse of Montgomery seems to have been of a coarser nature, and as insensible as his ferocious owner to the spiritual influences around the tombs of the saints.
There is a kind of mournful pleasure in sitting down among the ruins of such old cloisters, listening to the echoes of past times, and trying to decipher the pious inscriptions on the tombstones among the rank grass, and to divine the history of those who lie beneath—once centres of fond affection, but now forgotten and unknown. Through the rifts in the wall is seen the peaceful rural valley, with the Pyrenees in the distance, resplendent in the light; and the contrast between all that is graceful and sublime in nature, and the desolation of this spot once beautified by art and hallowed by religion, is exceedingly touching. How peaceful, how religious, this cloister must have been, where paced the silent, prayerful monk among the tombs! And there is a sacredness in its present desolation that appeals to the heart; if the solemnity of the ancient arches is wanting, there is no lack of beauty in the lovely vistas among the picturesque mountains and delicious valleys.
St. Gaudens is a place of four or five thousand inhabitants, with old blackened houses full of industry. The country around is densely populated, and at certain seasons many go into the neighboring districts to add to their slender earnings. The young men have a commercial taste, and all through the Pyrenees you meet peddlers and colporteurs from St. Gaudens, hawking their small wares with amusing pertinacity. The girls, too, in harvest-time descend to the neighboring valleys to offer their services, and there are many popular rondeaux that allude to them.
“Las fillos de Sen Gaoudens nou n’an d’argent,
Las qui nou n’an qu’en bouléren:
Faridoundaino, qu’en bouléren.”