Béarn and the Pyrenees : $b A legendary tour to the country of Henri QuatreCostello, Louisa Stuart
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Béarn and the Pyrenees : $b A legendary tour to the country of Henri Quatre
Costello, Louisa Stuart
Béarn (France) -- Description and travel; Pyrenees -- Description and travel
There is only one hotel at Luz; but it is the best in the Pyrenees,--not
only for the nature of the accommodation, but the civility and attention
of the host, the hostess, and their pretty _protegée_, Marie, who acts
as waiter, _femme-de-chambre_, and _factotum_ to the establishment. A
good dinner was promised, and the promise was faithfully kept,--bear
witness the delicate blue trout, which I have nowhere met with so good,
except, perhaps, at Berne. But as there yet remained an hour or two of
daylight, I employed the interval in visiting the ruins of the old
feudal castle of St. Marie, and in sketching the church built by the
Templars, which resembles a fortalice, rather than a place of worship. I
examined the building carefully, but could not satisfy myself that I had
really discovered the walled-up entrance, by which alone, _it is said_,
the wretched cagots were formerly permitted to enter the church. The
figures which flitted near, pausing, occasionally, to inspect my work,
habited, as they were, in the long cloak and _capuchon_ of the country,
might well have passed for contemporaries of the superstitious fear
which excluded the unfortunate victims of disease from an equality of
rights with their fellow-men; but the cagot himself is no longer
visible. Here I loitered, till it was too dark to draw another line;
and then wended back to the _Hôtel des Pyrénées_, to recruit myself
after the fatigues of the day, and prepare for those of the morrow.
Long before the day broke, we were again in the saddle, and, as we
passed St. Sauveur, its long range of white buildings could only be
faintly traced; but, as we advanced, the snowy peak of Bergons, glowing
in the rays of the rising sun, seemed to light us on our way, and coily
the charms of the valley revealed themselves to my eager gaze. I have
wandered in many lands, and seen much mountain-scenery; but I think I
never beheld any that approaches the beauty and sublimity of the road to
Gavarnie. There is everything here to delight the eye, and fill the mind
with wonder,--
"All that expands the spirit, yet appals."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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