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A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees by Edwin Asa Dix

E >> Edwin Asa Dix >> A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees





III.

The bluff, coming out to the sea, cuts off, close at hand, the curve of
the shore toward the south, and we climb by a sloping path. From the
top, we look down upon, the beach we have left; back upon the downs
cluster the numberless private villas which form a feature of Biarritz;
to the left, over the near roofs and hotels of the town, we can see the
first far-off pickets of the Pyrenees; while immediately in front now
appear below us three or four rocky bays and coves, broken by the lines
of the cliff and partly sheltered by the rocks out at sea. "Many of
these rocks," writes an old-time visitor,[2] in the pleasantly aging
English of 1840, "are perforated with holes, so that, with a high sea
and an incoming tide, and always, indeed, in some degree, when the tide
flows, the water pours through these hollows and rents, presenting the
singular appearance of many cascades. Some of the rocks lying close to
the shore, and many of those which form the cliff, are worn into vast
caverns. In these the waves make ceaseless music,--a hollow, dismal
sound, like distant thunder,--and when a broad, swelling wave bounds
into these caverns and breaks in some distant chamber, the shock, to
one standing on the beach, is like a slight earthquake. But when a storm
rises in the Bay of Biscay, and a northwest wind sweeps across the
Atlantic, the scene is grand beyond the power of description. The whole
space covered with rocks, which are scattered over the coast, is an
expanse of foam, boiling whirlpools and cataracts, and the noise of the
tremendous waves, rushing into these vast caverns and lashing their
inner walls, is grander a thousand times than the most terrific
thunder-storm that ever burst from the sky."

[2] INGLIS: Switzerland and the South of France.


In these little coves now float idle pleasure-boats, bright with paint
and listless awnings, and ready to be manned by their stout Basque
rowers. Here, too, are the fishermen's cabins, snugly built in against
the rocks, and garnished with baskets and poles, and with men repairing
their nets. The irregular curves of the bluff, broken here into abrupt
and dislocated masses, lend themselves readily to winding paths, and we
ramble on, curving upward and downward, over short bridges and through
little tunnels under the rocks, each turn giving a new view of the bay
or the town.

Finally we round another promontory, cross a last bridge to a large
rock-islet standing out from the mainland, and lo! the crescent of the
coast is completed, and far to the south we see a low mountain ending
the curve; it is Spain.


IV.

In the dreamy summer stillness, we sit with, content, looking at those
distant hills, listening to the lapping of the waves, watching the sun
sink lower toward the sea. The afternoon sunlight makes a glade across
the waters,--seeming to one from a western sea-board like some
strange disarrangement in the day.

[Illustration: "HERE TOO ARE THE FISHERMEN'S CABINS."]

The rounded mountains before us are indeed in Spain, a communicative
fisherman tells us. At the foot of the outermost, eighteen miles away,
is hidden the old Spanish town of Fuenterrabia. On its other side, in a
hollow of the coast, lies San Sebastian. Nearer us, though well down
along the sweep of the grey clay bluffs, is St. Jean de Luz, which, with
the others, lies on our intended way.

We seem to see, conforming to the crescent of that foreign coast, the
menacing crescent of the Armada, parting from Spanish shores, just three
hundred years ago to a month, to crush Anglo-Saxon civilization. There
before us lies the land of intolerance and bigotry which gave it being,
the land of Philip the Second and his Inquisition. But for Drake and
Howard and England's "wooden walls," events would have moved differently
during the last three centuries,--in our country as in theirs.


V.

The last spark of the sun has disappeared in the water. We turn into the
town in the fading light, passing another large bathing pavilion in a
sheltered cove, and saunter homeward through an undulating street, the
aorta of Biarritz. It is not a wide street, but it is busy and brisk,
and it has a refurbished look like newly scoured metal. Neat
dwelling-houses, guarded behind stone walls and well-kept hedges,
display frequent signs of furnished apartments to let Small and large
shops alternate sociably in the line; there is the _epicerie_ or
grocery-store, with raisins and olives and Albert biscuits in the
window; next is a lace and worsted shop, where black Spanish nettings
vie with gay crotchet-work,--

"By Heaven, it is a splendid sight to see
Their rival scarfs of mix'd embroidery,"

all made by hand, and bewilderingly low-priced. Now we come to a
mirrored cafe, the Frenchman's hearth-side; it compels a detour into the
middle of the street, since the sidewalk is quite preempted by its
chairs and tiny tables. Here is another Spanish store, conspicuous for
its painted tambourines with pendent webs of red and yellow worsted, and
for its spreading fans, color-dashed with exciting pictures of
bull-fights and spangled matadors. A hotel appears next, across the way,
standing back from the street, with: a small, triangular park between;
and then comes a pretentious bric-a-brac bazaar, and another cafe, and a
confectioner's, and a tobacco-store,--each presided over by a buxom
French matron, affable and vigilant, and clearly the animating spirit of
the establishment.


Tiny carriages of a peculiar species, with donkeys and boy drivers, line
the streets. The carriage holds one,--say an infirm dowager seeking the
afternoon breeze,--and if the driver's attendance is desired, he is able
to run beside it for miles. It is light and noiseless, comfortably
cushioned, always within call, and governed by a beneficently trifling
tariff. These _vinaigrettes_, as they are called, would be appreciated
at home, if habit took kindly to novelties. How greatly they might
simplify problems of calling and shopping! Our conveyances are all
cumbrous. We must have the huge barouche, the coach, the close-shut
coupe. Even the phaeton yields to the high T-cart. But convention is
autocratic, and would frown on these vinaigrettes as it frowns on many
useful ideas. Another unfortunate victim of its taboo is the
sedan-chair, which would be lustily stared at to-day, yet the utility of
which might be made positively inestimable. One who reads of the Chinese
palanquins, or sees the carrying-chairs of Switzerland, convenient and
always in demand, or who watches these agile little vinaigrettes darting
along the ways, wonders that similar devices do not force their way, if
need be, into universal favor.

Another mode of conveyance, once peculiarly popular with Biarritz, might
be more difficult of exportation. This was the _promenade en cacolet_.
The town of Bayonne is but five miles distant, by a delightful road, and
formerly, particularly before the railroad came in, to ridicule old
ways, every one went to Bayonne _en cacolet_. It is no longer so, and
the world has lost a unique custom. The contrivance was very simple: the
motive power was a donkey or a horse, and the conveyance consisted of a
wooden frame or yoke fitting across the animal's back, with a seat
projecting from each side. One seat was for the driver, usually a lively
Basque peasant-woman; the other was for the passenger. There was a small
arm-piece, at the outside of each seat, and generally there was a
cushion. This was once a favorite means of travel between Bayonne and
Biarritz. It was expeditious, enlivening,--and highly insecure; that was
one of its charms. Throughout the ride there was a ludicrous titillation
of insecurity; but it was greatest at the start and at the finish. For,
the seats being evenly balanced, to mount was in itself high art. Driver
and passenger needed to spring at precisely the same instant, or the
result was dust and ashes. Trial after trial was needed by the neophyte;
he must be, as an eye-witness[3] of long ago aptly describes it, "as
watchful of the mutual signal as a file of soldiers who wait the command
'make ready,--present,--fire!' A second's delay,--a second's
precipitation,--proves fatal; the seat is attained, and at the same
moment up goes the opposite empty seat, and down goes the equestrian
between the horse's feet.... In descending, it is still worse; because
there is more hurry, more impatience, on arriving at the end of a
journey; and an injudicious descent does not visit its effects upon one
but upon both travelers; for unless the person who descends be extremely
quick in his motions, his seat flies up before he has quite left it, and
oversets him, and the opposite weight, of course, goes plump to the
ground,--with as fatal effects as cutting the hammock-strings of a
middy's berth."

[3] INGLIS.


[Illustration]

Perilous balancing feats and a high degree of skill were evidently
demanded of him who would journey _en cacolet_. Requiring thus a special
training, so to speak, as well as a nice equivalence in weight between
passenger and driver difficult to always realize, its use is not likely
to supersede that of wheeled vehicles. To take a ride _en cacolet_, one
might have a long hunt before finding a driver who should be his proper
counterpoise; and it would be often inconvenient, not to say
impracticable, thus to have to order one's driver according to measure.

It is the evening dining-hour as we find ourselves at last in the open
court-yard of our hotel and seek the welcoming light of its _salle_. The
hotels of Biarritz are handsome, even to elegance,--elegance which seems
wasted on the few people now in them. But numbers do not seem to affect
the anxious concern of Continental hotel-keepers. The same elaborate and
formal table-d'hote is served for our small company and a few others, as
will, later on, be prepared for a houseful of guests. The waiters don
the same ducal costume and with it the same grave decorum; and our
attendant Ganymede, bending respectfully to present his laden salver,
watches my selection of a portion of the pullet with as anxious
solicitude as could be shown by the mother hen herself. The solemnity of
a table-d'hote, and the silencing effect it has on the most talkative,
is invariable, as it is inexplicable, and accents sharply the contrast
with the breezy clatter of the American summer hotel dining-hall. This
is not to say that either is, in all ways, to be preferred. Each in its
own setting. There is a comforting stir and whir about the great, bare,
sociable dining-hall at Crawford's or at the Grand Union, which causes a
European table-d'hote utterly to pale and dwindle. And there is a
satisfying quiet, a self-respecting, ritualistic calm, in the frescoed
salle-a-manger of the Schweizerhof, or of the Grand Hotel at Biarritz,
which makes its American rival seem impetuous and unrestful, and even a
trifle garish. 'Tis hard to choose. Man and mood both vary. There is no
parallel. The two modes of dining are as wide apart as the countries
and their characteristics, and each is, in the best sense, distinctly
typical.


VI

There is music during the evening in the little park we passed, and the
best of Biarritz assembles to enjoy the programme. We charter chairs
with the rest. Tables go with the chairs without extra charge, waiters
follow up the tables, and soon all the world is sipping its coffee or
cordials, and listening to Zampa. Outside, around the fence enclosing
the little park, revolves an endless procession of the poorer
people,--thrifty folk who are here as earners, not spenders, and would
not dream of melting their two sous into a chair. Round the small
enclosure they go, by couples or threes, like asteroids round the sun,
staring with interest at the more aristocratic assemblage within,--just
as the family circle stares at the boxes. And the music sings on
pleasantly for all, this mild summer evening in Biarritz.




CHAPTER III.

BAYONNE, THE INVINCIBLE.

"I am here on purpose to visit the sixteenth century; one makes a
journey for the sake of changing not place but ideas."


In the morning, a dashing equipage rolls up to the doorway of the Grand
Hotel. A "breack" is its Gallicized English name. It has four white
horses, with bells on the harness, and the driver is richly bedight in a
scarlet-faced coat, blazing with buttons and silver lace; a black glazed
hat, and very white duck trousers. We ascend, the ladder is removed, the
porter bows, his thanks, the whip signals, and we roll out of the
court-yard for a six-mile drive northward to Bayonne.

We take the sea-road in going, following the bluff as it trends
northward, and having dazzling views of blue sky and blue water. There
is a fresh, sweet, morning breeze, which exhilarates. Truly here is the
joy of travel! Kilometre-stones pass, one after another, to the rear.
Still the road presses on, winding over the downs, or between long rows
of pines and poplars standing even and equidistant for mile after mile.
The light-house at the end of the crescent beach comes nearer. Few teams
are met, and fewer travelers; for the main highway to Bayonne, which
lies inland and by which we are to return, is shorter than this, and
draws to itself the most of the traffic.

At length, the light-house is neared, and to the right Bayonne is seen,
not far off. The breack turns to the right along the river Adour, which
here runs to the sea, and, skirting the long stone jetties, we roll
toward town by the _Allees Marines_, a wide promenade along the river,
cross the bridge, rattle through the streets, and draw up before the
hotel in the open square with a jingle and whip-cracking and general
hullaballoo which fills the street urchins with awe and gives unmixed
joy to our jolly driver.


II.

Bayonne has been a centre.

A few cities are suns, the rest planets. This, with regard to their
importance, not their size.

If Bordeaux is the sun of southwestern French commerce, Bayonne has at
least been the most important planet, with the towns and villages of a
wide district for its satellites.

Here we catch the first breath of the bracing mediaeval air we shall
breathe in the Pyrenees. Bayonne has still a trace of the free,
out-of-door spirit of its lawless prime. Miniature epics, more than one,
have clustered around it. The rallying-cry, "Men of Bayonne!" has always
appealed to the intensest local pride to be found perhaps in France, and
the boast of the city still is that it has never been conquered. Looking
back to the sharp times when every near warfare centred about
Bayonne,--when feudal enmities were constantly outcropping on quick
pretexts,--when the issue always gathered itself into hand-to-hand
encounter, and was determined by personal prowess,--the boast is not
meaningless.

The Basques, who are close neighbors to Bayonne, make the same boast.
As Basques and Bayonnais were always fighting, their respective boasts
seem to be continuing the conflict. But these old feuds, desperately
bitter, were after all local and guerilla-like, and the advantages
ephemeral. At few times did either people clash arms with the other in a
general war. Thus neither conquered the other, and in peace their boasts
joined hands against all comers.


III.

Bestriding both the river Nive and the swift Adour, Bayonne seems a
healthy and healthful city, viewed in this June sunshine. But there is
little of the new about it. The horses are taken from the breack, we
leave at the hotel a requisition for lunch, and move forth for a survey.
The chief streets are wide and airy, but a turn places one instantly in
an older France. We ramble with curiosity in and out among the streets
and shops, finding no one preeminent attraction, but an infinite number
of minor ones which maintain the equation. In fact there is little for
the guide-book sight-seer in Bayonne. The cathedral leaves only a dim
impression of being in no wise remarkable. The citadel affords, it is
said, a wide-ranging view, but we prefer the arcades and the people to
the heat of the climb. The shops along the square are small but
characteristic; they are evidently for the Bayonnais themselves rather
than for strangers; this gives them their only charm for strangers. But
taken in its entirety and not in single effects, the town is wholly
pleasing. These dark, ancient arcades, its old houses, its rough-cobbled
pavements, its general appearance of fustiness, give it a charmingly
individual air.

They contrast it, however, completely with Biarritz. Bayonne is a staid
and serious city, Biarritz a youthful-hearted resort. Bayonne is
reminiscent of the past; Biarritz is alive with its present. The genie
of modern improvement has not yet come, to rebuild Bayonne. Neither
fashion nor commerce has sufficiently rubbed the lamp. It holds
unlessened its long-time population of about thirty thousand souls; it
still drives its comfortable, trade as the second port of southwestern
France; it is known as enjoying a mild commercial specialty or two, as
in the line of textiles, particularly wools and woolen fabrics; and it
displays an artless pride in its reputation for excellent chocolate. It
even pets, a little suburb of winter visitors, and it has caught some
quickening rays from the summer prosperity of its neighbor. But it will
never feel the bounding impulse of rejuvenescence that has come to
Biarritz. Bayonne has no potentialities. It will continue in its
afternoon of peace, of easy, quiet thrift, contentedly aside from the
main current of events, recounting its traditions, prodigiously and
harmlessly proud of its local prestige; like a tribal chieftain of the
homage of his clan.

[Illustration]

Basques abound in the streets, and the varied costumes to be seen show
the influence of that strange race. There are Spaniards here, too, and
Jews in plenty, mingling with the native French element. The men wear
the _berret_, a wool cap, like that of the Scotch lowlander, but
smaller. It is of dark blue or brown, and in universal use from Bordeaux
southward. When capping the Basque, particularly, with his rusty velvet
sack, crimson sash, dark knee-breeches and stockings, and the sandals or
wooden sabots worn on the feet, its effect is vividly picturesque. The
poorer women, as elsewhere on the Continent, become hard-featured and
muscular with age; saving a few beggars, they all seem to be
busy,--carrying burdens, washing linen, watching their huckster-stalls
or the dark little shops under the arcades. Here, however, the men
themselves are not idle. One seldomer sees in southern France a sight
frequent in Italy and many other parts of Europe,--that of a woman
toilsomely dragging a hand-cart or shouldering a burden while her spouse
walks idly by and smokes a thankful pipe.

Diminutive donkeys, hardy and hoarse, are in great use, and we hear in
the streets their plaintive and sonorous denunciations of men and
manners. The donkey here seems to take the place of the dog, which in
Holland and Scandinavia is taught the ways of constant and praiseworthy
usefulness. There, with a voluble old woman for yoke-fellow, he draws
the small market-carts about the streets and grows lusty-limbed in the
service. Here, the donkey does duty for both, dog and old woman, and
must develop both muscle and tongue to offset their respective
specialties.


IV.

An afternoon of peace, such towns as Bayonne have earned and gained.
This one has added few notable pages to universal history, but its own
personal biography would be an exciting one. It is worn with adventure,
and old before its time. The quarrelings of its hot youth, the tension
of strife and insecurity, the life of alarms it has lived, have aged it.
They have aged many another city of Europe, and endeared the blessing of
repose.

They were different days, those of the past of Bayonne. These streets
are narrow, the houses stoutly walled, because they were built for siege
as well as shelter. The doorways are low-browed, the stone-lined rooms
little lighter than caves, because every man's hand might rise against
his neighbor, and every man's hovel become his castle. Humanity was a
hopeless discord; individual security lay only in individual strength.
It is hard to conceive clearly the fierce life of the Darker Ages. The
rough jostling, the discomfort and pitilessness, the utter animality of
it all,--it is hard to conceive it even inadequately. The curtest
historical sweep from then to now, shows how far the world has come. The
savage unrest of slum and faubourg to-day shows too how far the world
has yet to go. Not till civilization becomes more than a veneer, will it
lose its liability to crack.

The picture is not wholly dark. There were many of the humanities. There
was culture and thought and refinement, much of it of a high type. Light
and shade,--both were strongly limned. But in the mass, it was
barbarism. For the lower classes, occupation, brawling; mental
thermometer at zero; cruelty and greed the ethical code. "You should
feel here," declares Taine,[4] "what men felt six hundred years ago,
when they swarmed forth from their hovels, from their unpaved,
six-feet-wide streets, sinks of uncleanness, and reeking with fever and
leprosy; when their unclad bodies, undermined by famine, sent a thin
blood to their brutish brains; when wars, atrocious laws, and legends of
sorcery filled their dreams with vivid and melancholy images." Hear him
tell over one of the trenchant tales from the annals of Bayonne:

[4] _Tour Through the Pyrenees_; translated by J. SAFFORD FISKE, New
York: Henry Holt & Co.


V.

"Pe de Puyane was a brave man and a skillful sailor, who, in his day,
was Mayor of Bayonne and admiral; but he was harsh with his men, like
all who have managed vessels, and would any day rather fell a man than
take off his cap. He had long waged war against the seamen of Normandy,
and on one occasion he hung seventy of them to his yards, cheek by jowl
with some dogs. He hoisted on his galleys red flags, signifying death
and no quarter, and led to the battle of Ecluse the great Genoese ship
Christophle, and managed his hands so well that no Frenchman escaped;
for they were all drowned or killed, and the two admirals, Quieret and
Bahuchet, having surrendered themselves, Bahuchet had a cord tightened
around his neck, while Quieret had his throat cut. That was good
management; for the more one kills of his enemies, the less he has of
them. For this reason, the people of Bayonne, on his return, entertained
him with such a noise, such a clatter of horns, of cornets, of drums and
all sorts of instruments, that it would have been impossible on that day
to hear even the thunder of God.

"It happened that the Basques would no longer pay the tax upon cider,
which was brewed at Bayonne for sale in their country, Pe de Puyane
said that the merchants, of the city should carry them no more, and that
if any one carried them any, he should have his hand cut off. Pierre
Cambo, indeed, a poor man, having carted two hogsheads of it by night,
was led out upon the market-place, before Notre Dame de Saint-Leon,
which was then building, and had his hand amputated, and the veins
afterwards stopped with red-hot irons; after that, he was driven in a
tumbrel throughout the city, which was an excellent example; for the
smaller folk should-always do: the bidding of men in high position.

"Afterwards, Pe de Puyane having assembled the hundred peers in the
town-house, showed them that the Basques, being traitors, rebels toward
the seigniory of Bayonne, should no longer keep the franchises which had
been granted them; that the seigniory of Bayonne, possessing the
sovereignty of the sea, might with justice impose a tax in all the
places to which the sea rose, as if they were in its port, and that
accordingly the Basques should henceforth pay for passing to
Villefranche, to the bridge of the Nive, the limit of high tide. All
cried out that that was but just, and Pe de Puyane declared the toll to
the Basques; but they all fell to laughing, saying they were not dogs of
sailors like the mayor's subjects. Then having come in force, they beat
the bridgemen, and left three of them for dead.

"Pe said nothing, for he was no great talker; but he clinched his teeth,
and looked so terribly around him that none dared ask him what he would
do nor urge him on nor indeed breathe a word. From the first Saturday in
April to the middle of August, several men were beaten, as well
Bayonnais as Basques, but still war was not declared, and when they
talked of it to the mayor, he turned his back.

"The twenty-fourth day of August, many noble men among the Basques, and
several young people, good leapers and dancers, came to the castle of
Miot for the festival of Saint Bartholomew. They feasted and showed off,
the whole day, and the young people who jumped the pole, with their red
sashes and white breeches, appeared adroit and handsome. That night came
a man who talked low to the mayor, and he, who ordinarily wore a grave
and judicial air, suddenly had eyes as bright as those of a youth who
sees the coming of his bride. He went down his staircase with four
bounds, led out a band of old sailors who were come one by one,
covertly, into the lower hall, and set out by dark night with several of
the wardens, having closed the gates of the city for fear that some
traitor, such as there are everywhere, should go before them.

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