Few visitors to Biarritz fail to take a run over the frontier into Spain. The Bidassoa for about twelve miles forms the line of demarcation between France and Spain. Near the bridge of Behobia are the remains--they are nothing more--of the Ile des Faisans, on which conferences were held between Cardinal Mazarin, plenipotentiary for France, and Don Luis da Haro, acting for Spain, which led to the conclusion of the famous Treaty of the Pyrenees, in 1659, cemented by the marriage of Louis XIV with the daughter of Philip IV. At the meeting on the Ile des Faisans each party advanced from its own territory by a temporary bridge to this patch of neutral ground in mid-stream. The death of Velasquez, the painter, was due to exposure whilst superintending the decoration of the tent for the minister of Spain--a duty more befitting an upholsterer than a great artist. By the treaty France received la Cerdagne and Roussillon, but surrendered Lorraine to Duke Charles IV, on condition that he should dismantle all its fortresses. As he delayed doing this Louis retained his hold on the duchy. Fontarabie (Fuenterrabia) does not signify the Fountain of Arabia, and retains in its name no reminiscence of Moorish domination; the derivation is from the Latin _fons rapidus_. It is a picturesque, dirty town, malodorous; bearing as its arms in quarterings an angel holding a key, to signify that the town holds the key of Spain--a squalid beggar would be more appropriate than an angel; a whale and two syrens, the whale to indicate the fishing of the leviathan, now long departed; and lastly a castle between two stars. These arms were accorded to Fuenterrabia by Philip IV in 1638, when the admiral of Castile repulsed the Prince of Condé, who was besieging it. The church, Gothic in style, has been modernized externally; within it is overloaded with barbaric ornament. The castle, known as the palace of Charles V, dates originally from the tenth century, but has undergone much rebuilding and adaptation. The courtyard is picturesque, and the terrace commands a beautiful view. Fuenterrabia brings no pleasing remembrances to an Englishman. The citizens begrudged a lodging to our sick and wounded during the passage of the Pyrenees by the allied troops under Wellington when in pursuit of Soult in the depth of winter. The town authorities even wanted to take away the boards on which were stretched the disabled soldiers. “These,” wrote the Duke, “are the people to whom we have given medicines, etc., whose wounded and sick we have taken into our hospitals, and to whom we have rendered every service in our power, after having recovered their country from the enemy.”