The Valley of Azun had to be watched and well guarded, as down it came one of the passages from Spain over a col. Accordingly, the castles on the barrier were but one link in the defence. Arras, farther up, had two more castles, now degraded to prosaic use. Above Arras again is Aucun. The church contains two _bénitiers_, one, richly carved, represents a wedding, with tumblers, and a musician playing the bagpipes. The other, also of white marble, has on it rudely-sculptured bears in various postures. Aucun was the capital of this miniature republic. A little below it a road descends to and crosses the Gave, and then mounting to the village of Bun leads up the narrow valley of the Gave de Lebat to the pretty bottle-green lakelet of Estaing lying at the foot of the Soum de Monné, behind which is Cauterets. Farther up the valley of Azun is Arreins, whence started the track leading into Spain by the Col de la Peyre S. Martin. The church served as a refuge in time of danger. It still keeps its crenellated wall of enclosure. Hard by is the pilgrimage chapel of Puy-al-Hun, on a rock standing boldly up out of the midst of the valley. A writer in 1837 thus describes it:-- “We went up to Notre Dame Pouey-la-Unt, beautifully set down upon a platform overlooking a world of sweet and serene aspect, and having for its rough pavement the rock on which it is built. A fissure runs through it, and when it rains, a stream through the fissure; but the walls are panelled brown and gold, the roof is azure starred with gold, the pillars of the high altar twisted like those of the baldaquin of S. Peter’s at Rome, gorgeously gilt and gracefully wreathed with vine leaves and tendrils and bunches of grapes, all gold or its likeness.” The chapel is much the same now as it was when this was written, but the stream no longer flows in the channel athwart the floor. The Commissioners of the Directory visited the place to plunder the shrine and destroy the image of the Virgin, but when they entered the church they were scared by unearthly noises proceeding from above, and they ran away. These noises were produced by some young peasants who had secreted themselves between the vaulting and the roof. However, the chapel was sold, and bought by a farmer’s widow in the place. Next a small garrison was quartered in it, for the protection of the frontier against the Spaniards, and the impression of their muskets on the balustrades may still be seen. One evening the women of Arreins, disguising themselves as Spanish soldiers, to the roll of drum, in the dusk made an attack on the chapel, and the garrison, thinking discretion the better part of valour, decamped, and did not halt to take breath till they reached Argelez.