After the extinction of the Armagnacs, the overlordship passed to the kings of France, and each and all from Louis XII to Louis XVI had to recognize and allow their very extended privileges. From the year 1300 no seigneur could withdraw an inhabitant of the Four Valleys from the jurisdiction of their own judges; every citizen could own land, marry, create an industry, or carry on any trade without authorization. The right to bear arms belonged to every one; and up to the eve of the Revolution the Four Valleys were exempt from all war-tax and from the obligation to have troops quartered on them. La Fayette had no occasion to have gone to America to have seen what republican self-government was. It existed at his doors. CHAPTER XV LUCHON Montréjeau--A bastide--Grotto de Gargas--A cannibal--Blaise Ferrage--Taken and escapes--Final capture--Execution--S. Bertrand de Cominges--Sertorius--Gundowald--His coronation-- Treachery of Boso--And of Mummolus--Murder of Gundowald-- Destruction of the city--Bishops at Valcabrères--Church of S. Juste--Bertrand de l’Isle-Jourdain rebuilds the town-- Bertrand de Got--Jubilee--The cathedral--Nonresident bishops-- Counts of Cominges--Murder of a boy husband--Imprisonment of the Countess Margaret--Bequeaths the county to the Crown of France--The Garonne-Bagnères de Luchon--Its visitors--Its antiquity--Lac de Seculéjo--Description by Inglis--Cures for all disorders--_Le Maudit_--S. Aventin and the bear--Val de Lys--Val d’Aran--S. Béat and its quarries--The valley should belong to France--Viella--The Maladetta--Trou de Toro--Port de Venasque. At Montréjeau the line branches off to Bagnères de Luchon from the trunk to Toulouse. Montréjeau was Montroyal, then Montreal, and then what it has now become through deformation by the Gascon tongue. It was a bastide, one of those artificial towns, created first by Edward I, and then copied by great nobles, and by the kings of France, in which every street was either parallel to another, or cut it at right angles; and the houses were built in blocks, the whole surrounded by walls, and the church usually serving as part of the fortification.