Béarn and the Pyrenees : $b A legendary tour to the country of Henri QuatreCostello, Louisa Stuart
History
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
This Pont Long, which has so long been an apple of discord to Béarn, is
at the present hour likely to have settled bounds; for, in 1837, the
members of the Cour-Royal of Pau occupied themselves on the subject, and
a chance exists of something useful being done with the ground: there is
a project for encouraging mulberry-trees and silk-worms there, and of
making a canal to carry off its waters, and render it fit for
cultivation. This is the more necessary, as fever and ague are
sufficiently common in its neighbourhood. But, even within a very few
years, when an enlightened agriculturist, M. Laclède, endeavoured to
clear the ground, and plant and improve, the fury of opposition he
experienced was disgracefully extraordinary. Under the pretext that
their pastures were invaded, the people came with fire and hatchet, and
burnt his trees, and cut away his bridges and aqueducts.
A spot is shown in the Pont Long, called Henri Quatre's marsh; for it is
said that this prince being one day out shooting snipes, got so
entangled in the mud that it was with the greatest difficulty he was
rescued from his unpleasant predicament.
There is an oasis in this desert, the village of Uzein, which is a
standing proof of the possibility of effecting all that industry can
desire in this condemned place: the people of this flourishing village
owe their success to the determined perseverance of their curate, who
exhorted and persuaded his parishioners to bring manure for their fields
from Serres, and, at the end of a few years, all was brilliant and
smiling, and Uzein is considered to produce the best maize in Béarn.
There are a few towers still standing, where castles have been erected
on the Pont Long; an old grey tower of Navailles, and one of Montaner,
so strong as to have proved indestructible: it was built by Gaston
Phoebus, at the same time as that of Pau, and what remains of the walls
of its donjon are upwards of ten feet thick!
Lescar was once an important town of Béarn, and in its fine cathedral
princes were buried, whose ashes even rest there no longer, and whose
tombs have long since been destroyed. Most of its magnificence
disappeared at the period when Queen Jeanne declared her adherence to
the new doctrine, and gave her sanction to the enemies of Catholic
superstition to pull down the _Pagan images_. Angry and fierce was the
discussion which took place between the Queen and the Cardinal
d'Armagnac, her former friend, on the occasion of the attack on the
cathedral of Lescar: the following extracts from their letters, given
by Mr. Jameson in his work on "the Reformation in Navarre," are
characteristic on both sides.
The cardinal's courier, it seems, waited while Jeanne, without pause or
hesitation, wrote her reply to his representation. His letter ran thus:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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