Kitabı oku: «A Book of the Pyrenees», sayfa 6

Wellington was able, unopposed, to cross the Gave in three places, in three advancing columns.

At daybreak on the 27th Beresford, with the left wing, commenced the action by turning the enemy’s extreme right at S. Boës, whilst at the same time Picton assaulted the centre. Hill, with the second British and Le Cor’s Portuguese brigade, was to endeavour to force the passage at Orthez and attack the enemy’s left. There was an interval of a mile and a half between Beresford’s and Picton’s columns, and here was a conical hill occupied by a Roman camp on the summit, and separated by a marsh from the semilunar range held by the French. On this height in the midst of the camp Wellington took his station with his staff, having the whole battle spread out like a map before him. Beresford, having overlapped the French right, commenced a vigorous attack in front and flank on the village of S. Boës. At length the English reached the top of the hill, and, pursuing the enemy, began to move along the narrow ridge which stretched from S. Boës to the centre of the French position. But they failed to dislodge the enemy, who kept up a rolling fire upon their pursuers, and the artillery raked both flanks, occasioning dreadful carnage, so that the English were brought to a stand-still. At the same time a Portuguese brigade, completely unnerved, turned and fled in disorderly rout, throwing our own men into confusion.

Happily a brigade was moved up to cover the retreat of the Portuguese and allow our own men to recover and re-form. “At last I have him!” exclaimed Soult exultantly. Wellington, from his point of observation, saw that the effort to dislodge the French and roll them back on their centre had failed. He then executed one of those sudden and masterly changes of attack which exhibit the ready resource of a great general. He at once ordered up the third and sixth divisions to assail the centre of the enemy’s position, and turn and take the right wing in flank. Simultaneously Picton was to mount the ridge where the French had their right centre, and, breaking the line of formation, drive it back on to the left. The gallant troops crossed the swamp, with the water up to their knees, and mounting the hill through the brushwood unperceived by the foe, amidst the smoke, with a loud shout and a withering fire plunged into the opening at the very moment that the French on the right were pressing their advantage against Beresford, and were driving the fourth division before them.

At the same time Picton reached the summit of the ridge in the middle, drove the French down the slope, and, planting his guns, plunged through the enemy’s masses from one end of his position to the other.

Soult saw that the day was lost, and ordered the army to retreat, which it did in regular echelons of divisions, and they held the several positions taken up till the allies closed on their front and moved upon their flank, Hill having by this time crossed above Orthez and cut off the retreat by the road to Pau. Then the French broke their formation, and ran for Sault de Navailles with such speed that the great body of them passed over the bridge in a wild, terror-stricken crowd. However, nearly two thousand prisoners were taken in the pursuit, and several guns. The French loss in killed, wounded, and taken, exceeded six thousand, and some hundreds afterwards deserted, or rather disbanded, and went to their homes. The loss of the allies amounted to 2300.

It is pleasing to know what excellent discipline was maintained by Wellington in his march through the Gascon land from Bayonne to Toulouse. This was due not solely to humanity towards the peasantry, but also as a precaution to obviate insurrectionary movements in his rear. He issued a proclamation, authorizing the people of the country, under the mayors of the villages, to arm themselves, and arrest all stragglers and marauders from the army. Allison says: —

“Nor did his proclamation remain a dead letter, for on the night of the 25th the inhabitants of a village on the high road leading from Sauveterre, having shot one British soldier who had been plundering, and wounded another, he caused the wounded man to be hung, and sent home an English colonel who had permitted his men to destroy the municipal archives of a small town on the line of march. ‘Maintain the strictest discipline; without that we are lost,’ said he to General Freyre. By this means tranquillity was preserved in his rear during this critical movement; and the English general reaped the fruits of the admirable discipline and forbearance he had maintained in the enemy’s country, by being enabled to bring up all his reserves, and hurl his undivided force upon the hostile army.”

CHAPTER VI
PAU

Situation – Climate – Stillness of the air – Castle – Abd-el-Kader – Thackeray on his imprisonment – View of the Pyrenees – Henry II of Navarre – His escape from Pavia – Marguerite des Marguerites – What Henry II did for Béarn – Refugee Huguenot preachers – Solon and his many wives – Clement Marot – His Psalms – The Queen an odd mixture – Story of Mlle. de la Roche – Jeanne d’Albret – Marries the Duke of Cleves – Then Antoine de Bourbon – His murder planned – Birth of Henry IV – Cradle – Bilhère – Reared at Coarraze – Death of Antoine – Intolerance of Jeanne – Meeting with Charles IX – Gondin’s unfortunate pleasantry – Marguerite de France’s visit to Pau – The Count of Moret – A mysterious hermit – Henry IV tolerant – The Baron d’Arros – Demand for the columns of Bielle – La Poule au Pot – Lescar – Mosaics – A Roman villa – Gassion – Bernadotte – Morlaas – Pont-long – Legend – Coarraze – Betharam – A flying Virgin – Jurançon wine.

The situation of Pau is singularly favoured, and one can appreciate the judgment of Henry II of Navarre in transferring thither the court residence from Orthez. Pau occupies the back of a rubble ridge stretching east and west, facing the south, and drinking in the sunlight and warmth. It does not suffer from cold winds. The land rises behind it to the north, and one may see the clouds fly overhead without feeling the air stir at Pau. The calmness of the atmosphere often persists for weeks together.

In this it has an advantage over some of the towns of the French Riviera, where the mistral cuts like a knife that has been frozen in an ice-pail. The bitter winds that sweep down on the Riviera are produced by the snows of the Maritime Alps. But there are no snows at the back of Pau. When there is no breeding ground for icy winds, no icy winds are hatched.

But, on the other hand, a good deal of rain is brought up and discharged over Pau, coming from the Atlantic; and a whole month may elapse without the promenaders on the terrace being able to catch a glimpse of the Pic du Midi d’Ossau. The Girondin climate is notoriously rainy, especially in spring; but nothing can surpass the splendour of the days in summer and autumn.

Mrs. Ellis, who wrote her Summer and Winter in the Pyrenees in 1841, says: —

“At the foot of the woody range of high ground forming the promenade runs the broad, shallow river Gave, with a perpetual low murmur that lulls the senses to repose. It is, in fact, the only sound we hear, for there is so little wind in this climate that not a leaf is seen to move, and we therefore distinguish at a greater distance the toll of the matin and vesper bell in the neighbouring villages, and the tinkling sounds which tell when the flocks are led to and from the fields. There appears at first a sort of mystery in this universal stillness. It seems like a pause in the breath of Nature, a suspension of the general throb of life, and we almost feel as if it must be followed by that shout of joy which the language of poetry has so often described as the grateful response of Nature for the blessings of light and life. And never, surely, could this response be offered more appropriately than from such a scene as this rich and fertile land presents.”

It was due to this climatic condition that in the first half of last century patients in the early stages of consumption were dispatched to Pau. Now that the treatment of phthisis is revolutionized, it is no longer a resort for such as suffer from pulmonary complaints, but serves as a refuge from the stormy English winters for those who desire pleasant resting places where there are races, fox-hunting, and good company. The climate, however, does not agree with all constitutions. It is enervating, a land of lotus-eaters —

 
“In which it seemed always afternoon.”
 

Pau, the old Pau, is attached on the north to the dreary lande of the Pont-long that has belonged from time immemorial to the inhabitants of the Val d’Ossau, and which is strewn with tumuli. But from this plateau it is in part cut off by the stream Hédas, that has cleft for itself a valley dividing the town into two parts. New Pau has spread and is spreading to north and east, so that its extremities have to be reached by electric trams. Happily, to the west it cannot encroach on the rubble ridge occupied by the park. Between this park and the castle which occupies the extreme west of the town the ridge has been sawn through by the stream, but the gap has been widened artificially, and is now spanned by a bridge.

The Castle of Pau was built at various dates. The four towers and the curtain uniting them, except the south and east faces, are the oldest part, and were erected by Gaston Phœbus in or about 1363. The donjon to the east is of brick, and is furnished with slots. The work begun by Gaston Phœbus was continued by his successor, but the magnificent south façade, the state buildings, and the enrichment of the court within, in the style of the Renaissance, are due to Henry II of Navarre; and the sixth tower was set up by Louis Philippe.

The whole castle, especially the interior, has gone through a complete restoration, for it had been plundered and gutted by the Revolutionists. The tapestries that now cover the walls were collected from various places. The furniture, to a large extent modern, is a clumsy imitation of old work; there are, however, some fine ancient cabinets. In this castle was confined for a while Abd-el-Kader. In 1848 I visited him there several times. He had with him a suite and his wives, all insensible to the stateliness of the castle and the glorious panorama from the windows. They lounged about the rooms silent and smoking, sulky, without occupation and without interests. Their habits were so dirty that the tapestries and rich furniture had all to be removed. Abd-el-Kader had maintained a long and gallant resistance against the French, and when he surrendered to the Duc d’Aumale and General Lamorcière, it was on the stipulation that he should be allowed to retire in freedom to Egypt or into Syria. The terms were accepted and broken. He was removed a prisoner to Toulon, then to Pau, and in November, 1848, he was transferred to Amboise. Napoleon III released him in 1852, and he finally settled in Damascus. In the terrible massacre of the Christians at Damascus in the summer of 1860, by Turks and Druses, Abd-el-Kader acted with such energy to protect the Christians that the Emperor of the French sent him the gold cross of the Legion of Honour. Possibly enough he may have been moved to this intervention on behalf of the Christians by recollecting the kindness that was shown him in his captivity by both English and French residents at Pau, sending him fruit and flowers for the ladies of his harem.

It was during his imprisonment at Toulon that Thackeray wrote his stirring lines: —

 
“No more, thou lithe and long-winged hawk, of desert life for thee;
No more across the sultry sands shalt thou go swooping free;
Blunt idle talons, idle beak, with spurning of thy chain,
Shatter against the cage the wing thou ne’er mayst spread again.
 

* * * * *

 
“They gave him what he asked; from king to king he spake
As one that plighted word and seal not knoweth how to break;
‘Let me pass from out my deserts, be’t mine own choice where to go,
I brook no fettered life to live, a captive and a show.’
 
 
“And they promised and he trusted them, and proud and calm he came,
Upon his black mare riding, girt with his sword of flame:
Good steed, good sword, he rendered unto the Frankish throng;
He knew them false and fickle – but a Prince’s word is strong.
 
 
“How have they kept their promise? Turned they the vessel’s prow
Upon Acre, Alexandria, as they have sworn e’en now?
Not so: from Oran northwards the white sails gleam and glance,
And the wild hawk of the desert is borne away to France.
 
 
“They have need of thee to gaze on, they have need of thee to grace
The triumph of the Prince, to gild the pinch-beck of their race.
Words are but wind, conditions must be construed by Guizot:
Dash out thy heart, thou desert hawk, ere thou art made a show.”
 

With the exception of the castle there is nothing of architectural interest in Pau. The churches are modern, and the predominant feature of the place is hotels, monster hotels that even dwarf the castle.

But the great glory of Pau is the view of the chain of the Pyrenees from the terrace and the park. That from the Schänzle above Berne of the giants of the Oberland is beautiful, but not comparable with the prospect from Pau. All the middle distance in the view from Berne is filled up with rolling hills, and it is over them that one catches glimpses of the snowy heads of the Alps. But from Pau one has in front the broad trough of the Gave, beyond which are the coteaux, not too high, and not obscuring the lower parts of the mountains. It is true that an obnoxious swell to the south-west cuts off the prospect of the range to the Bay of Biscay, but the mountain range can be traced eastward till it fades into vapour, and the mountains on that side are by far the boldest and loftiest. Moreover, one can look from Pau right up the gap of the Val d’Ossau to the roots of the Pic du Midi, an exquisitely beautiful mountain, only surpassed by the Matterhorn; and it has this advantage over its rival, that it can be seen from a great distance, which the other cannot.

Below the terrace of the castle rises the insignificant tower of la Monaye, where the specie for circulation in Béarn and the annexed counties was coined.

In the second chapter I told the story of the House of Foix and Béarn down to the death of Catherine, who ate out her heart with rage because she could not acquire the kingdom of Upper Navarre, to which she laid claim. Her son and successor was Henry II of Navarre.

He obtained the name of Henry in a somewhat singular fashion. At his birth a pilgrim was passing through Pau, of obscure origin, named Henry, on his way to S. James of Compostella. Jean d’Albret, moved by a sudden freak, summoned this man to be godfather to his boy, the heir to the crown of Navarre, instead of inviting a prince to stand sponsor. This occasioned much ridicule among the haughty Spaniards, who said it presaged that the young Henry would be a stranger to his kingdom.

He was brought up with Francis I of France, and the two were warmly attached to each other. He accompanied Francis in his disastrous expedition to the Milanese, and shared captivity with the King at Pavia. His ransom was fixed at a hundred thousand crowns. Henry did not care to burden his little territory with such a charge, and he devised means to escape. A lady in Pavia managed to convey to his prison a rope ladder, and one night in December, 1525, when the moon shone, he slipped out of the window of his cell and descended the ladder. It was too short, and he fell into the moat. Happily this was more full of mud than of water, and without loss of time he scrambled out, plastered with slime, mounted a horse, held in readiness by his accomplices, galloped away, and managed to reach Lyons. On the morning after his evasion the commandant of the Castle of Pavia entered the cell and bade his royal prisoner get up. A voice from the bed replied, “For pity’s sake, let me sleep a little longer.” He who spoke was a page of the King of Navarre, who had taken his place, so as to deceive the guards and give his master time to escape.

The affection and esteem which Francis I had for Henry were shown in that he gave him as wife his dearly-loved sister Margaret, the “Marguerite des Marguerites, sa mignonne,” as Francis called her. The marriage took place on 24 January, 1527. The Court of Paris was inconsolable at the loss of the lively and charming princess. The Parisian doctors remonstrated with her at going to so inclement a place as Pau where, said they, “le gros air du pays lui serait mortel.” However, go she would, with her beloved Henry, and on reaching Pau she at once set to work to make herself happy, and to be beloved by the people. She began by studying the patois and worked at it so diligently that she was herself astounded at the progress she made.

“The newly-married pair,” says an old historian, “deliberated how to put Béarn in a better condition from that in which they found it. This land, good and fertile by nature, was in a poor state, uncultivated and sterile through the negligence of the inhabitants. It soon changed its appearance.”

Henry devoted himself especially to agriculture; he invited farmers and labourers from Brittany, Berry, and the Saintonge to settle in the land and teach the natives improved methods of cultivation; and the introduction of maize into Béarn was due to him. He set up a linen factory at Nay, and a printing press at Pau. He collected, revised, and edited the fors of Béarn, and had them printed at his press in 1551.

One of the most important pages in the life of the Queen of Navarre in the Château of Pau was the part she played in receiving refugee Huguenot preachers. But she never herself became a convert to Calvinism; she entertained great pity for the innovators who were driven from place to place, and subjected to cruel persecution. She offered them an asylum, and listened to their harangues without the impatience shown by her husband, who, when they began to preach, retired to his bottle and his cards.

“The Queen of Navarre,” says Florimond de Rémond, “gave ear to them, received their books at first by the hand of her ladies, has had the Latin prayers of the church translated into French … out of kindness of heart she throws open her house to the proscribed and banished, and bids them regard it as a retreat and refuge. She exercises marvellous care in protecting those who are in danger on account of their religion, and in succouring the refugees from Strassburg and Geneva.

“Roussel was received by this good princess into Béarn and given a state lodging in her house. She takes pleasure in listening to him as he discourses on religion. He persuaded her to read the Bible, then very uncouthly translated into French; and this so pleased her that she composed a tragi-comic translation of nearly the whole of the New Testament, and had it acted in the great hall before the King, her husband. For the purpose she secured the best comedians that could be procured from Italy; and as these buffoons are born only to afford amusement, and, monkey-like, to mimic what may meet the humours of their masters, so these people, recognizing the inclination of the Queen, interlarded the text of these plays with roundelays and virolais on the theme of the clergy. Always some poor monk or religieuse was made the butt in one of these comedies or farces.”

Florimond de Rémond goes on to say that some of the preachers harboured by Marguerite were not of high character. Among them was Solon, a runaway Carmelite, a “brave et courageux moine,” who embraced the doctrines of Calvin, and to make up for wasted opportunities in the past married and buried five wives in succession.

Some of the sacred pieces enacted before the King and Queen were the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight into Egypt; and into these plays scurrilous and indecent songs were introduced, without a word of protest from the preachers.

Marguerite took as her valet Clement Marot, who had not the best of characters, and scandal said that she liked him a little too well.

Unsuspectingly Marot did a great work for Calvinism in France.

He had translated the Psalms of David into popular rhythm. His metrical version became the rallying songs of the Huguenots, and formed the basis of their liturgy. They were set to popular folk-airs.

The French ladies, as he said himself, placed

 
leurs doigts sur les espinettes
pour dire saintes chansonettes.
 

So little heretical was his version regarded that in 1540, before it was printed, Francis I made a present of it to Charles V. Florimond de Rémond says: —

“Each of the princes and courtiers adopted one or other of the psalms for himself. King Henry chose as his own Psalm XLII., Ainsi qu’on oyt le cerf bruire, which he sang when hunting. Mme. de Valentinois (Diana of Poitiers), his mistress, took as hers Ps. CXXX., Du fond de ma pensée, which she sang when galloping. The Queen had selected V.; Ne veuillez pas, O Sire, set to a buffoon melody. The King of Navarre, Antoine de Bourbon, chose XLIII., Revenge moy, prens la querelle, which he sang to a branle (a dance tune) of Poitou; and so with the rest.”

But little by little these metrical psalms assumed an aggressive tone; passed among the people, and these took them to heart more seriously than did the courtiers.

Bordier, in his Chansonnier huguenot, says: —

“It was soon seen with what energy the Huguenots assimilated this poetry, which responded so well to their burning faith. They knew the psalter by heart. It became one of the tokens by which they recognized one another at long distances, before coming in sight, when certain familiar melodies were borne to their ears. From the windows of the Louvre Henry II more than once saw a crowd flushed with enthusiasm fill the Pré aux Clercs, promenading in the evening with gravity, trolling out these psalms.”

The Queen of Navarre was certainly a strange mixture; she wrote treatises of piety, composed a Mirror of the Sinful Soul, wrote songs, and in her old age was the authoress of that book of indecent tales, the Heptameron, which is still read, whereas the Mirror of the Sinful Soul is forgotten.

She took as her device the marigold turning to the sun, and as her motto, “Non inferiora sequor,” hardly appropriate to the compiler of the Heptameron.

A pretty story is told of her by Brantôme. She had as one of her ladies-in-waiting Mlle. de la Roche, who had been the mistress of Captain Bourdeille, but whom he had cast aside and forgotten. Mlle. de la Roche died in the Queen’s service at Pau, and was buried in the church of S. Martin. Three months later Bourdeille came to Pau, and was received by the Queen, who invited him to attend her to the church. When there, standing in a certain place, Marguerite said to him, “Do you feel the ground heave under your feet?” “Not in the least,” he replied. “Surely you do?” “Madame, I assure you that I do not.” “That is strange,” said the Queen, “for beneath your feet lies your poor, deserted Mademoiselle de la Roche, sighing because that above her stands the man who deceived her. I leave you now alone to your reflections.”

Marguerite entertained a horror of death, but on hearing that her dearly-loved brother Francis was no more, her joy of life, her spirits left her, her health failed, and she died at Odos in Bigorre in 1549.

Her daughter, Jeanne d’Albret, was left heiress of Navarre, Béarn, Bigorre, Foix, and Armagnac, which had been part of her mother’s dower. Jeanne was born in the Castle of Pau in 1528. At an early age she was removed to the Court of the King of France, and was betrothed at the age of twelve, and married in 1546, when eighteen years old, to the Duke of Cleves, who was twelve years her senior. She was so burdened with pearls and embroidery over brocade and gold lace at her wedding that she was unable to walk, and had to be carried into the church from the carriage in the arms of the Constable of France. But she did not relish the union, and it was annulled. In 1548 Jeanne married Antoine de Bourbon, a feeble, voluptuous, irresolute creature, “to one thing constant never.” He was first a Catholic, then a Huguenot, under the influence of the commanding intellect of his wife, and then a Catholic again; it mattered not to him, for he had no fixed principles. But Jeanne never forgave his rejoining the Church, for she was a bigoted Calvinist.

Jeanne was nearly deprived of her husband. Antoine de Bourbon, who was suspected of taking part with his brother, the great Condé, in the conspiracy of Amboise, 1550, was marked out for destruction. The two brothers were arrested by Francis II. Olhagary, a Protestant writer, gives what follows. He had it from the recital of Queen Jeanne herself; but how far coloured by her prejudices we are unable to say.

“The Prince of Condé was sentenced to have his head cut off before the King’s residence, on 10 December. Antoine de Bourbon was to be stabbed by the King himself. For this he was ordered to attend in the chamber of the King, who pretended to be ill. Francis was to stab him with his own hand, aided by the Guises who were hid behind the arras.”

Antoine was on the point of entering the presence chamber when the Duchess de Montpensier caught him by the arm and revealed to him the plot. He then withdrew. But again a messenger arrived from the King ordering him to appear. Then he summoned to him Reuti, the captain of his guards, and said —

“I am going to where my death is planned, but never shall skin be sold so dearly as I will sell mine. I beseech you to render me this last service. If I die, take my shirt soaked in my blood, and carry it to my wife and son, and charge her – for my son is too young to be able to avenge me – to send the pierced and bloody shirt to all the foreign princes, and call on them to avenge my death.”

Antoine then entered the room where was the King, but his behaviour, the frankness with which he met the charges laid against him, caused the heart of Francis to relent, and he dismissed the King of Navarre unhurt. It was then that the Cardinal of Lorraine exclaimed, referring to the weakness of the King – “There is the heart of a poltroon!”

Jeanne had been the mother of two sons; the elder died of over-coddling, the second of an accident. When she was again expecting her confinement, her father, Henry II, roughly told her that she did not know how to manage her children, and insisted on her coming to the castle at Pau for confinement, under his eye. She obeyed, and arrived on 4 December, 1553. Then the old King showed her a casket of gold, attached to a chain long enough to go thrice round her neck. “Do you see this?” said he; “I will give it you along with my will, that is in this box, if you will sing a Béarnais song whilst in your pangs, so that the child may not be a squaller.” She promised, and on 14 December, feeling her hour approach, sent for her father, and began to sing a Béarnais hymn to Our Lady at Bridgend; for there was a chapel to the Blessed Virgin on the ancient bridge over the Gave. Her song was: —

 
“Nousté Dame deii cap d’eii poun
Adjudat me à d’aqueste ore,” etc.
 

But as many of my readers do not understand the patois, I will give it in English: —

“Our Lady at the head of the bridge, assist me in this hour. Pray to God in Heaven, that He may deliver me, that the fruit of my body may see the light… Our Lady at the head of the bridge, assist me in this hour.”

She gave birth – some say on 13 December, some on 14 December – still singing, to a boy. Henry II took it from her, gave her the casket, saying, “This is for you,” and as to the boy, “this is for me.” Then he rubbed the child’s lips with garlic, and poured into its mouth some drops of Jurançon wine, and said: “Va, tu serras un vrai Béarnais.”

When Marguerite had given birth to Jeanne the Spaniards had remarked, “The cow has littered a lamb!” in reference to the cow in the Béarnais arms. Now Henry d’Albret, taking the child in his arms, showed it to his nobles and exclaimed: “See, the lamb has littered a lion!”

In the castle is shown the cradle in which the future king of France, Henri Quatre, was rocked. It is a large tortoise-shell, inverted, and suspended by silken cords. When the Sansculottes burst into and sacked the château in 1793, they purposed to destroy this relic of royalty. But the commandant of the castle had foreseen this, and had substituted for the original another tortoise-shell, obtained from the cabinet of a naturalist in the town. This latter was destroyed, but the original was preserved in the attics of the castle.

At Bilhère, a little way out of Pau, on the road to Orthez, is the cottage in which Henry was nursed by a peasantess. That cottage remains much in the same condition as it was then, and is pointed out to visitors with pride.

When only five years old his mother took him to Paris to present him to Henry II, King of France. The King took the little prince in his arms and asked him, “Veux-tu être mon fils?” The child, unable to speak other than Béarnais patois, pointed to his father and answered, “Aquet es lou seignou pay” (This is monsieur, my father). “You are right,” said the King, “but as you will not be my son, will you be my son-in-law?” To which the boy promptly replied, “Obé.” Marguerite de Valois was then eighteen months older than Henri.

After a while in Paris he was taken back to Pau and committed to the care of Suzanne de Bourbon Busset, Baroness Miossens, who was sent with him to the Castle of Coarraze, near Nay, with instructions that he should be reared among the children of the mountains on simple, wholesome diet.

Accordingly he was treated like the peasant children – was clothed in the same garb, and partook of the same athletic sports. His food was often dry bread. Frequently he trod the mountain paths with bare feet, or clattered about in sabots. For many years he knew no other tongue than the patois, and in after life a bon mot, or a lively sally in his maternal language, served as one of the most powerful means by which to influence the young Gascons whom he led to battle.