The man who did this, the second founder, was Bertrand de l’Isle-Jourdain, and he has given his name to this new foundation, or, to be more correct, the people have called the new city on the old site after his name. Bertrand’s mother was daughter of William Taillefer, Count of Toulouse. He was trained in the abbey of Escaledieu, but quitted it for the profession of arms. However, before long he abandoned the life of a camp to accept a canonry at Toulouse. He was appointed Bishop of Cominges about 1073, and ruled the see for fifty years. According to popular legend, he killed a dragon that infested the neighbourhood; and the stuffed monster hangs in the church to this day. It is a crocodile from the Nile. He died in or about 1120, and his day of commemoration is on 17 October, when the decayed town is thronged with pilgrims to visit his shrine. At the time of the Papacy at Avignon Bishop Bertrand de Got was elected Pope, and took the title of Clement V. He retained a liking for the place, revisited it several times, and contributed sums towards its completion; and to raise money without having to dip into his own purse instituted a grand Pardon or Jubilee, charged with Indulgences, for the Feast of the Invention of the Cross (3 May). This is still celebrated, and attracts pilgrims to gain the Indulgences, during three days. The vaulting of the church was begun in 1304, and completed by Hugh de Châtillon in the middle of the fourteenth century. The apse is surrounded by five chapels. The windows of the choir, very tall and narrow, are partly walled up, and partly filled with fragments of Renaissance glass. The magnificent Renaissance woodwork choir-stalls, screen, organ-case, and altar-piece are due to Bishop Jean de Mauleon, and date from 1525. In a chapel is the stately tomb of Bishop Hugh de Châtillon, who died in 1352; it is of white marble, and was executed at least a century after his death, probably at the expense of the Cardinal de Foix, to whom also is due the mausoleum of S. Bertrand behind the high altar. But bishops cannot create a town, even though they enrich a site with a superb cathedral. S. Bertrand de Cominges never thrived, and little by little the bishops tired of it, and then abandoned it for their Château of Alan, near Aurignac; they were rich men, enjoying large revenues, for the diocese of Cominges, in addition to that part which is in France, comprised also the whole of the Val d’Aran--that is to say, thirty-three parishes under the Crown of Spain. Some of them rarely visited S. Bertrand, some not at all. One of them, Urban de S. Gelos, an ardent Leaguer, only went thither to dislodge the Huguenots, who thrice between 1569 and 1593 entered the town and committed great ravages.